I've been in San Pellegrino Terme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Pellegrino_Terme) this winter.
San Pellegrino Terme is a thermal location, so I had a vacation there. I bought a tin of candies which I'm using as the case for this guitar/bass pedal.
This is why it's called the San Pellegrino Terme Distortion.
A few weeks later from this vacation I've found a 70's radio in the dumpster. That radio has a couple of germanium transistor on board.
I've desoldered them and I've decided to use as soon as possible, cause they are not branded and I do not want to keep htem in my germanium transistor drawer.
They are PNP germanium transistor measuring 180 hFE. Gain is a little low but that would not be a big issue. I take as reference a classic 2 transistor distortion configuration.
Indeed I've decoupled the output from the first transistor and input that output to the second transistor, forming a two stage gain.
I've try to push the gain to the limit.
No controls available, just the output volume.
True bypass, and a active led output.
This pedal is not going to start a revolution, it's just a simple distortion build from unknown components in a tin of candies, but I like it.
Notes
- read risk disclaimer
- excuse my bad english