Folk Driver Tourbox

[soulsonic]

Cool! Thanks for the review. Feel free to build your own to play around with! I designed it so that it would be easy to swap out key components to get different tone out of it. Changing the caps that feed the Timbre control are definitely a good thing to tweak. Going slightly higher with the input cap can probably give that extra "oomph" for people who want more beef with single coils. The diodes are of course a great place to change how it reacts to dynamics.
With the transistors, you can substitute many different types, but the main thing is that they really need to be high gain to work right in the circuit. I'm thinking Hfe of around 500 should probably be the minimum. Having high gain transistors is what allowed me to tailor the overall gain of the circuit with feedback easily and achieve stable low-noise results that are easily repeated.
MPSA18 would probably be a great substitute!

[BJF]

I am back from Laos and ready to send the Folk Driver. Who's next on the Europe leg?

Cheers

Sean

Hi Sean,

I believe that's Teahead and I'll get hold of him.

Cheers and have fun
BJ

[Donner]

I can't help but notice that I am last on the list for the tour of this fine machine. I would like to keep it for a while and even make my own version based on Souls circuit and see what happens.

Things I would like to mess with.
1. Trannies - perhaps try with some 2n130x with higher Hfe than spec (125+) adjust R3, R4, R6, R7 to tune the circuit.
2. Mess with C2 and C3 - the 10:1 ratio could be messed with as could the bottom and top cap values. I would like to try .15 and .015
3. clipping diodes - lots of possibilitis here. cap in parallel with the dioeds - one par or two, GE, Si, etc.

This is a fun one....[/quote]



Yupper to both ...

You are last and it would be very cool if you would report on your experiments !!

If no one else wants to give it a ride then get with SS and send er home ....... thats a winner of a box there either way SS !

[seans]

Teahead. Cool. I'll fire him a pm.
Cheers
Sean

I am back from Laos and ready to send the Folk Driver. Who's next on the Europe leg?

Cheers

Sean

Hi Sean,

I believe that's Teahead and I'll get hold of him.

Cheers and have fun
BJ

[Teahead]

Folk Driver landed safely with me today, thanks to all involved getting it here!

Haven't yet had the pleasure of playing it, but I'll be as quick as I can and hope to record something with it if I get the chance.

[Teahead]

Ok then, first bash with the Folk Driver today and a very enjoyable time I had. Plenty has been said already, so best to skip that and let the clips do the talking.

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8350483

Starts out with the bypass, then comes the FD with tone control up full. After that it's all FD and picking dynamics with some adjustments of the tone/timbre control too. I used my US Std Tele into the Folk Driver and Cornell Romany Plus 10w amp on a 1/4w setting with a lil' 'verb. Recorded with the Zoom H4's built in mics and normalised in wavpad.

As for what I make of it, I am very impressed. It's naturally suited to a Tele for me, match made in heaven. Hope to test it with my 325 tomorrow and maybe bust out the Strat on Monday.

Thanks again to all!

[Teahead]

Played more of the Folk Driver today, between my 325 and Romany Plus. Also tried it beside my Honey Tea, which is a standard HBOD with custom title. First off, the FD loves mini-hums! It can add clarity and bite to the neck or balls and girth to the bridge equally well with a twist of the T control. I can hear a common ground when played beside the HB, I wouldn't immediately relate the two pedals in something like a blind test. Kinda like when two guys you know independently of one another suddenly tell you they're related, you suddenly see the resemblance.

If I may be so bold as to hold onto the FD for a few more days then I can give it the final test with the band come Wednesday. If you know where it has to go next then let me know and I'll get everything in order for a swift departure after that.

Tea.

[soulsonic]

Awesome! Thanks much for your feedback!
Soundclip sounds very good. I think you will be very happy with how it sounds onstage.

[melodichaotic]

Hi,
Just wanted to chime in my long overdue feedback here for the FD. I was mainly running it through a '94 Matchless DC-30 Head and 2x12 cab(both channels which are very different), no master volume, so lots of clean headroom.
Was also mainly playing a Les Paul R58 w/ stock pu's. I also had the HBOD and SHOD to compare.

What I found immediately with the FD was the voicing was very reminiscent of a couple of Supro combos I used to own. That hollow, stinging, honk that would sound great for tracking to give layered guitars more dimension. Kind of in the vein of the opening riff and ending solo of, "Houses of the Holy" from Physical Graffiti.

The more I listened, I heard a resonant peak that's present throughout the tone sweep that's responsible for this sound.

Overall I found through my set-up, that the FD has a lot more bottom end than either the HB or SHOD, yet less overall mid-range emphasis(except for the resonant peak). It also sounds more linear to my ears(in a good way) and, closer to the SHOD as far as feel--more immediate and reactive, unlike the HB's signature sag.

My take on it through a clean set-up(I had been sick for a while and wanted to use it with my smaller combos, and Orange OD 120, for different applications, but didn't want to hold up the Tour-box), was that I was missing a third knob for control over the gain.
I do love the simplicity, but I found it had the least gain of all three, but still enough grit to not be considered a straight-up booster.
To this end, I was fond of the unique voicing enough to want to use as more of a tone shifter/shaper, like adding another channel on an amp without adding any grit, AND be able to have it grind quite a bit more(still in overdrive territory), to be used outright as a different flavor of dirt.

[Bobby D]

i liked the folk driver a LOT. and it made me money, and got me compliments from the bandleader. WIN!

i'd like to have a custom soulsonic creation one of these days