Germanium II Distortion

3 reviews for Germanium II Distortion

1. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Simon Henneman (verified owner) – October 11, 2021

   Really interesting and unique take on Big Muff circuit. Doesn’t sound anything like a BM though, more it’s own kind of smooth and compressed distortion pedal. A word of warning: it sounds terrible and overly squashed and bassy if you build it as is in the build docs, BUT if you use a 100R for R21 and 18k for R23( instead of 680R and 15k respectively) It works great and sounds very similar to videos of the G2( the changes are same values as the Kitrae schematic on bigmuffpage.com). I highly recommend using sockets for the diodes( 8 pin opamp socket worked great) and trying different ones as they really affect the overall character of the pedal. Right now I’m liking 1N270’s best, but have a few more on the way to try.

2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Simon Henneman (verified owner) – December 7, 2021

   OK! After waaaay too much time experimenting here’s my final take on this pedal. The closest I could get it tonally to various videos of G2 the mods I found to make it a usable and actually fantastic dirt pedal are: R23 – 18k, R21 – 100R, R 28 – 100R, and omit C12. I’m using NOS ITT 1N3470 diodes from Small Bear, but readily available 1N270’s sound almost as good. Without all the mods the pedal is too low output, too dark, and doesn’t have enough distortion IMO( unless you use Schottky, but germanium sure sounds and feels better to me), with them it sounds and feels really great, super smooth and wonderful to play. Mr. PC must have some magic diodes!

3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   synthesiserror (verified owner) – October 28, 2023

   It’s a very smooth, low-gain distortion. I built mine with the mods suggested by another poster and used 4 matched D9E diodes for the clipping stage. It’s fairly warm and dark by itself, but it really comes alive with a RM-style treble boost in front.