Pages

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Ibanez/Maxon SD9 Sonic Distortion

Originally produced in the early 80s, the SD9 was the distortion brother of the classic TS9 Tube Screamer. It ranges from mild overdrive to fuzz territory without losing articulation. The easiest way to describe the SD9 circuit is to say it's half of a Tube Screamer, with a Big Muff tone stack. Original units only used half of the JRC4558 opamp (the other half was used to buffer the non-distorted stage to output). However, General Guitar Gadgets published a schematic with the 2nd half of the opamp used as a volume recovery stage right after the tone stack. (And the BMP tone stack is notorious for volume loss) Who doesn't want louder distortion, right? So instead of the stock circuit, the layout below reflects the mods from GGG. I've added polarity protection and power filtering. Pots can be board mounted from the solder-side using right angle PCB pots.



14 comments:

  1. Thanks for this. It's worth a try. :))

    ReplyDelete
  2. pcb pic`s
    https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=1A4BF0E6C3D4B186!129&authkey=!AJdX1vE2h0CwALA&ithint=folder%2c

    ReplyDelete

  3. help me friend.
    I am jaya from Indonesia.
    please if you wish, I need a maxon mb40 electronic distortion booster scheme.
    thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Where are your eyes, friend? what is that on top of? display? it has been verified

      greetings from pontianak kalbar

      Delete
  4. Hi! Thank you for this project. I think is awesome. I did all according to instructions. No cold connections, no shots and Drive Pot doesn't works. Have you this situation?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Its verified! 4558 chip is so far the best for this one.Jun fr Philippines.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete