Durham Electronics - Sex Drive [traced]

[polarbearfx]

i just got this one its pretty gooped up, any ideas on what it is?

[markm]

i just got this one its pretty gooped up, any ideas on what it is?

TubeScreamer I think?

[JHS]

The name is Sex-Drive is irritating, it's a booster with a tone control not a classical drive alá TS.

Maybe comp switch in some kind of diode clipper or generates a voltage drop, yielding in a more compressed tone.

JHS

[markm]

From their website;


• Totally hand built/wired
• Teflon wire throughout

• NOT TRUE BYPASS - We tried true bypass, and we didn't like it. *

• Does the SEX DRIVE color your sound while by-passed? "Very transparent, hi-fi sounding, didn't color my sound at all" -Eric Johnson

• Switch Craft jacks

• Alpha full size potentiometers

• Brightest Blue LED in the business.

• Uses standard negative tip 9V DC supply (not included)

• One year warranty

* If you would like true bypass, then ask for it. It will POP, and you will not hear any sonic difference between the two. Everyone on our client list is using non true bypass models. Non true bypass is our preference.

[sergedeep]

Brightest Blue LED in the business.

I wasn't interested at first, but now I NEED to have this pedal

[markm]

Brightest Blue LED in the business.

I wasn't interested at first, but now I NEED to have this pedal

I'd like to see the innards.
MosFET maybe?

[snail]

very bright leds are a pain in my opinion, they kinda hurt my eyes when I look at them, specially the very bright blue ones.

now how about full size pots?
does anyone knows why full sized pots are better then the small ones, or there is no difference in functionality and durability at all??

thanks

snail

[The Rotagilla]

I'd like to see the innards. MosFET maybe?

The PCB sits under about 1/2 inch epoxy. No joke. I have a friend who has one of the true bypass ones and he wanted changed because the switch pop was so incredibly loud the pedal was unusable. Unfortunately the switch was epoxy to the enclosure. It looks like they place a form around the PCB and pour the epoxy in. It must have not been completely set when they removed the form as it run on to the 3PDT.

[R.G.]

very bright leds are a pain in my opinion, they kinda hurt my eyes when I look at them, specially the very bright blue ones.

It's easy to get too much with those superbright blues. When I did the first Visual Volume proto, I got the current setting too high. There are eight of those things on the VV, and in normal daylight it would hurt your eyes to look at it and you'd see a bright blue place on the ceiling. On a stage in a dark, smoky bar, they would have been practically pyrotechnics - and may have been dangerous to dark-adapted eyes. I had to cut them way back.

now how about full size pots?
does anyone knows why full sized pots are better then the small ones, or there is no difference in functionality and durability at all??

The devil is always in the details. Anything bigger has the *chance* to be more durable to fumble-fingered humans if it's executed properly. Making things smaller without rethinking them for being smaller has the *chance* of being more poorly done.

As long as there is no mechanical abuse (i.e. big, heavy boots, etc.) small pots *can* be as good as big ones. They can certainly be as good as big ones made cheaply because they compete with small cheap ones.

Bottom line - there is no generalization you can make about big pots or small pots without more information like what company made them, how are they used, are they water tight (lots of little ones are, lots of big ones are not), are they used within their power ratings (little ones have lower power ratings), what materials make up the wafers and sliders, and all the rest of that stuff that goes into what makes something good versus junk.

Big vs small is not equal to good vs bad.

[snail]

very insightfull!
Thanks RG!

[foo zen trader]

First of all:

Hi! I'm new in this Forum, my "home" is DIY-Musikding, a german page some of you might know.
I wish I could post something you guys don't have/know/whatever, but after surfing through this awesome site i figured out that I have nothing new to write right now, hehe

So here is my question:

Does anybody have a layout/schem of the "Durham Sex Drive"?

Greets from cold, cold southwest germany,

Foo

[analogguru]

Na so kalt isses nun auch wieder nicht.....

Da soll sehr viel goop drinnen sein in dem Teil.... Und deshalb haben wir hier weder einen Schaltplan, geschweige denn ein layout. Hast du ein paar Innenaufnahmen ?

Gruß aus Wien,
analogguru

[seniorLoco]

"Well so coldly isses now also again not..... There very much is to be goop inside in the part.... And therefore we have here neither a connection diagram, let alone a layout. Do you have a few interior photographs? Greeting from Vienna,"


translation by babel fish

[aloupos]

I've got on, want some gut shots? Pretty good boost with compression, I use it all the time.

Anthony

[fuzzca]

I've got on, want some gut shots? Pretty good boost with compression, I use it all the time.

Anthony

Hey Anthony, you never even have to ask that question around here! Post away. Everyone loves nice clear pics of the board and component values.

I've heard positive things about the "Sex Drive".
Cheers

[foo zen trader]

Yes, post it please!!!

[aloupos]

I'll grab it from the studio sometime this week and snap some photos... I
ll give the high-quality party a shot as well

[foo zen trader]

Cool!! Thank you very much...

[erikm5150]

Looking forward to those gut shots.. Thanks.

The sex drive seems like a very cool booster, especially with that "sag" switch.

[aloupos]

Hmm... Just opened this up ... The board is gooped .. the whole thing -- and it is glued in place in the enclosure, so I can't photo the bottom side of it. I'll see what I can do about removing the goup -- safely, hopefully, and post again then.