Mr Smooth

Mr Smooth is a clean boost to mild overdrive effect. It was designed to work with bass and guitar.

The first stage is Tim Escobedo's Utility Boost. The last stage is Jack Orman's Minibooster.

The section in the box is a high cut (low pass) filter that gives Mr Smooth its smooth. SW1 is an SPDT which should be on/off/on. You want to select only one cap at a time, or none for a clean sound. The 4.7n cap cuts at roughly 15kHz, the 47n cuts at roughly 1.5kHz. This smooths out the overdrive.

You could leave the high cut filter out, but then my feelings would be hurt.

Notes

• Q1 must be a J201 unless you want a clean boost only. The 2N5458s I tried did not have enought gain to drive the last stage into distortion.
• Q2, Q3 should be 2N5458. When I tried J201s I was not able to get a good clean sound with the bass.
• The 1u NP cap can modded. See Jack Orman's Minibooster article.

Credits

• Tim Escobedo for the Utility Boost.
• Jack Orman for his Minibooster.

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Last modified: Thu May 26 00:03:45 EDT 2005