Overdrive Archives - Jacques Stompboxes

Electric Lamb

Jacques Charbit — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 14:27:37 +0000

1-Edge overdrive

The new Electric Lamb pedal is a spin-off the award-winning Electric Sheep overdrive. It can be qualified as an ‘edge overdrive’ which means that the pedal can be set on an ‘edge’ position where dynamics of your guitar playing will determine the amount of overdrive.

On this setting, playing lightly will keep a chosen clean tone and hitting the strings with more force will allow the natural tube-like overdrive to be expressed.

On stage, this setting is really useful as, once the pedal is set on your required ‘edge’ position, you do not need to come back on the controls, letting you select the type of tone you need only with your fingers and playing dynamics.

2-Full adaptivity

Thanks to its complete controls, the Electric Lamb will suit any guitar, amp or guitar-amp combo or pick-up combination. Its FAT control is particulary useful to beef-up a trebly pick-up or at the opposite, thin a low-end humbucker. Therefore, the ‘edge’ function will always be available for any kind of electric guitar.

3-Going farther

At both side of the gain spectrum, the Electric Lamb can be used as a fully effective clean boost, still with fatness at hand, or as a high-gain overdrive thanks to its PRE control which add more gain just as a preamp control on a tube amp.

All these settings can be achieved with natural premium tonal qualities that can compete with any high-end boost or overdrive pedal thanks to the original circuit derived from the Electric Sheep.

4-Not a clone

Unlike most of today pedals on the market, the Electric Lamb circuit is not a clone of ANY existing pedal and as been developed after years of listening and experimenting on overdrive pedal circuitry.

Even our Silent true-bypass switching is a proprietary design of Jacques pedals.

The post Electric Lamb appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Electricsheep

Jacques Charbit — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 16:46:31 +0000

The Electric Sheep is a completely new pedal featuring a 100% original all-discrete circuit for a natural high-end overdrive suitable for all kind of guitars. The Electric Sheep won Guitar Player Editors PIck Award.

1 – 100% discrete circuitry : No op-amps !
2 – Handmade using large circuit board avoiding parasite capacitor effects
3 – High-end transistors with carefully controlled data from Philips and Fairchild
4 – Selected and hand-measured passive components.
5 – NOT-A-CLONE : Completely new circuit architecture created from scratch

1- Transistor v/s op amps

Often considered a simple component today, the transistor is a very complicated and mysterious device. Its invention took a lot of time and efforts and nothing is simple when it comes to explain how it works. Most overdrive pedals use op amps (Operational amplifiers) which are a very small ensemble of transistors, resistors and caps, all printed on a wee silicium plate. Here is the schematic of one op amp :

Although very handy, I have always thought that op amps tend to muddy tone, because of wee small passive and too much unnecessary active components inside. This is why , for this exceptional pedal, I wanted to use discrete components only in order to keep the guitar sound as pure as possible in the boost/overdrive era. That meant inventing from scratch a completely new boost/overdrive circuit.

2- The 70/80 control

As part of this new circuit, this control morphs the overdrive tone from natural tube amp ( called here ’70s sound ) to classic overdrive pedal tone ( ’80s ) . It is not a gain control, but a real shaper of the boost/overdrive tone based on the way the discrete transistors work in my circuit. All the electronics will react differently depending on the setting of this knob.

low GAIN – high 70/80 = Classic creamy overdrive

high GAIN – low 70/80 = Hendrian low fuzzface overdrive tone

3- The HB/SC control

If you are here, interested in a high-end overdrive pedal, it is highly probable you may possess several guitars. And anyway, we do not have all the same tastes guitar wise. This is why I came to think you would need to adjust the pedal to your guitar, and not the opposite. With this control , you can control the input impedance from hi-gain humbuckers equipped guitar ( HB ) to classic single coils ( SC ) and everything that comes in between. I have always dreamed of this, and this is why I had to create this function while working on my ultimate overdrive pedal.

Of course, this very useful control can also be used to give the desired body a trebly pick-up . Don’t miss the special treat of a bass-beefed-up telecaster treble pick-up this function can achieve, even in low gain / clean boost settings.

4- From clean boost to raging overdrive

A good overdrive pedal must cover all the range from clean boost to high overdrive. Maybe a lot of pedals can do this. But my point , with this new circuitry, was to bring a new purity to this vast array of sounds, which implied working on the-less-components-the-better. This philosophy is widely admitted on hifi, and has been proven right, but I am sure that preserving the guitar and amp tones while using a pedal, benefits greatly from this solution. Try an electric sheep with your best guitar/amp couple and be convinced.

5- Paraphernalia

The Electric Sheep comes with a special extra-strong card box , optional quality non slip rubber feet and a sheep necklace. It will not include the Philip K.Dick book ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep’ but it is strongly recommande to read it.

6 – Video Demos

First Electric Sheep endorser : Joe Bonamassa !

7 – Suggested Settings

The post Electricsheep appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Overtube

Jacques Charbit — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 16:31:37 +0000

NEW 2025 Edition : COMING 05/2025 PRE-ORDER OPENING SOON

INTRODUCTION
You have been looking for that famous vintage overdrive for years, and when you find it, its price is out of this world. So you go for the reissue just to find, well, it sounds like a reissue.
So what’s the solution, while you know most pro guitarists will only rely on its flattering tone to enhance their guitar riffs ?
Here is the OVERTUBE, a perfect recreation of this overdrive, with, of course a JACQUES bonus : the cascade.

1 – The world most famous overdrive
There will always be a wish to obtain the original specs, in order to recreate the exact tone of our fave records and riffs.
I can understand this because I often feel this way (don’t forget I own 4 originals !).
So, like a sci-fi movie, I have been working on a clone for more than a year now and there it is : the SAME tone with exactly the same controls and control action than on a original vintage TS !!!

2 – Cascade !
Let’s face it : Like SRV himself, you need TWO !!!
But no sweat : you will not have to buy 2 OVERTUBE. I have included a cliver circuitry that is completely equivalent to two OVERTUBE linked in serial, exactly as on the SRV set up.
Just turn the CASC. switch on and get that compressed high-gain overdrive that will transform you solo in melting iron magic.

3 – Video demos

The post Overtube appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.