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After being frustrated with my scratchy volume pedal, I decided to build Craig Anderton's "Volume Pedal De-Scratcher". I
tried to avoid building this circuit by taking apart my sealed pot (which showed no real signs of wear) and spraying contact
cleaner inside and cleaning it up very well. I also lubricated all of the moving parts, too. (except the pot) Believe it or not,
just lubricating all of the moving parts does wonders. This stuff all worked, for a while. To my dismay, it started being
scratchy again within a couple of months. I like to use volume swells a lot, so this is a problem. So I figured that if a
replacement pot is around $25 + shipping, it would be advantageous to build this circuit for around the same amount of
money, and permanently get rid of the problem. It's really not that much more of an effort to build this circuit than it is to
take your volume pedal apart and clean or replace the pot.
The impetus for this project came about because I recently bought Craig Anderton's book, "DIY Projects For Guitarists",
and saw this schematic , which is exactly the same one published in the original Guitar Player article years ago. So I
decided to "just do it".
The circuit is pretty simple, just using a single opamp and a CA3080 OTA (Operational Transconductance Amplifier)
opamp. I designed a PCB layout because I hate using perfboard. It's just too messy and tedious for me, just as making a
PCB can be tedious. But, I like the finished product a lot better with a PCB. And I find the assembly of a PCB is just a lot
easier, as I don't have to worry about getting all the connections right. It's already done on my PCB layout, worked out
beforehand. But you can do the same thing with perfboard, too. There is also a PCB layout which uses a TL072 at
www.tonepad.com which has been verified as functional.
Here is the basic assembly. I used a 1/4" piece of plywood to
mount everything on, cut and shaped to fit snugly inside the
volume pedal body using no screws or adhesive. Height is a
limitation, so I kept the PCB as small as possible, 1.9"x1.6". I
painted the wood flat black.
Here's a closer view. I drilled three holes on the left side for wires
to pass through to the jacks, pot and battery clip/switch. I elected
to use a SPST switch to turn off the power. I just don't like
unplugging and plugging in cords all the time... I had to create a
rectangular opening for the switch body, not as hard as it sounds -
this is wood! Easy to work with. A piece of plexiglass would look
cool, too.
So, how about the performance? Well... now the scratchiness is gone! Noise level of circuit is pretty low, mostly
dependent on what opamps are used. Even with a standard 741 opamp, it's a fairly quiet circuit, although there is a fair
amount of white noise with a 741. A TL071 would be better. And better still is the TL051, which is twice as quiet as a
TL071, but has higher THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) than the TL071. An OPA134 will work in this circuit with no
tweaking required, but it does use a little more current than the aforementioned ICs. The NE5534 has virtually no THD,
and is a pretty good all-around performer. I used the NE5534 in my circuit. If you find that your volume pedal has too
much gain and is overdriving your amp, then try decreasing the value of R4 until the distortion is not present any more. As
Anderton suggests, the easiest method is to install a 100K trimpot to dial it in exactly where you want it. This also gives
you more flexibility to use the circuit with instruments of varying output levels.
To My Home Page
http://www.diyguitarist.com/