# Is it just me or are the Cornish designs all a bit crap?



## HamishR (Nov 13, 2021)

I like Dave Gilmour sounds as much as the next guy so I've always been interested in how a thousand dollar overdrive or fuzz might help me get closer to that. So I've tried a few Cornish designs from here and elsewhere and every time beed very disappointed. I'm realistic enough to know that I won't become Dave Gilmour by using a Cornish pedal but man, I can get so much closer by using pretty much anything else!

I just built a Germanium II Distortion. I had a strange problem with it which is very unusual with a PedalPCB pcb. I got no voltage on the board anywhere. There was no continuity between the 9V in and the 1N5817 diode. So I had to bridge that with a wire. So now the pedal works but it's dark and I need to run tone on full to get a usable sound. If gain is anywhere below nearly full it sounds muddy and crap. With gain pretty much maxed and tone on full it sounds ok but nothing spectacular.

Things most of my other pedals sound spectacular. I've built a lot of pedals, whether from here or Aion or on vero. I know how to use PCB and didn't overwork the 9V connection or anything. But every Cornish pedal I've built has been extremely ho-hum.

Has anyone else experienced this?


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## andare (Nov 13, 2021)

IMO unless you have someone else's entire rig, chasing tones is useless. Not to mention recorded and live tones go through studio equipment/PA and sound technicians. One pedal is only one piece of the puzzle.


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## jjjimi84 (Nov 13, 2021)

That is why i dont go to thegearpage, playing and sounding like gilmour is an art form. You can get tonal there with a few run of the mill boxes but it will take a helluva a long time to get close to his vibrato and bending technique. 

The few cornish pedals I have built were alright but nothing to light my hair on fire over.


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## Big Monk (Nov 13, 2021)

I’ve learned recently that no matter the pedigree or tradition associated with a circuit, if it doesn’t make you want to play it, you should move on. 

My resolution for the new year is to massively shrink my pedalboard and to concentrate on the devices that inspire me to play. I’ve got some builds I’m really looking forward to and a number of them will replace existing units in my Arsenal right now. 

Those replaced devices will get sold.


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## HamishR (Nov 14, 2021)

You fellas are all right of course. Thing is I wasn't really chasing a particular tone - just a decent one. I am usually unimpressed with pedals but like to build and find the ones that really work. I guess the "problem" is that recently I have been having a good run. I've found a few pedals which have been fantastic - the Pro-10 Blue for example. GREAT overdrive.  Dark Esbat boost? Incredible. So to build something which sounds quite so bad is quite a come down. I mean the Cornish pedals I have built are not simply uninspiring, they're awful! Every one of them has sounded clogged up, congested, dark, overly compressed and plain unusable.

But I have decided to see this as a good thing. Cornish pedals are ridiculously expensive, and if I really liked them I might be tempted to buy one. Now I know that I would be crazy to buy one and have saved myself a potential fortune. So I'm chalking this up as a win!


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## benny_profane (Nov 14, 2021)

An important thing to note with the G2 or N2 is that the Ge diodes need to be very low leakage or you'll drastically reduce the gain (discussion here). I found the stock tone shaping to be pretty awful with the G2 and ended up doing some of the mods floating around to brighten things up. I actually like the SS-3 quite a lot. It's basically a modified 250, but the mods are nice additions.

Always be a bit skeptical of hyperbolic praise for high-dollar gear. People often hype stuff up to justify purchases or get positive reinforcement.


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## Big Monk (Nov 14, 2021)

benny_profane said:


> Always be a bit skeptical of hyperbolic praise for high-dollar gear. People often hype stuff up to justify purchases or get positive reinforcement.



Also, always remember that much of that high dollar, high profile stuff is designed specifically for certain high level players and their rig. That does not always translate to us Joe Schmoes cleanly.


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## HamishR (Nov 15, 2021)

So why do they sell them to us?  That had occurred to me too. If it's unlikely to work in an ordinary rig they should say so.  From now on if I want a fuzz I'll stick with Skeddy designs.


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## Big Monk (Nov 15, 2021)

HamishR said:


> So why do they sell them to us?  That had occurred to me too. If it's unlikely to work in an ordinary rig they should say so.  From now on if I want a fuzz I'll stick with Skeddy designs.



I’m very excited about the modified Lunar Module circuit I’m working on.


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## music6000 (Nov 15, 2021)

HamishR said:


> I like Dave Gilmour sounds as much as the next guy so I've always been interested in how a thousand dollar overdrive or fuzz might help me get closer to that. So I've tried a few Cornish designs from here and elsewhere and every time beed very disappointed. I'm realistic enough to know that I won't become Dave Gilmour by using a Cornish pedal but man, I can get so much closer by using pretty much anything else!
> 
> I just built a Germanium II Distortion. I had a strange problem with it which is very unusual with a PedalPCB pcb. I got no voltage on the board anywhere. There was no continuity between the 9V in and the 1N5817 diode. So I had to bridge that with a wire. So now the pedal works but it's dark and I need to run tone on full to get a usable sound. If gain is anywhere below nearly full it sounds muddy and crap. With gain pretty much maxed and tone on full it sounds ok but nothing spectacular.
> 
> ...


Here is another Members report
*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.*


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## finebyfine (Nov 15, 2021)

music6000 said:


> Here is another Members report
> *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.*



Might try this. Read the title and immediately thought of the G2. Whatever praise I might have sang in my build report months ago has faded as I’ve built more pedals and more Cornish stuff. SS2 was forgettable, which I think is even worse than being bad.


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## tcpoint (Nov 15, 2021)

Exactly.  Cornish is overrated.  I like the SS3 and the OC-1.  But, I've found lots of compressors and distortion boxes that I like more.  Gilmour has used the HM-2 and still gets his signature sound.  That tells me that he doesn't need Cornish for his sound.  Actually, I really like the ST-2 but there's other pedals I have that can get the same tones from.


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## finebyfine (Nov 15, 2021)

tcpoint said:


> Exactly.  Cornish is overrated.  I like the SS3 and the OC-1.  But, I've found lots of compressors and distortion boxes that I like more.  Gilmour has used the HM-2 and still gets his signature sound.  That tells me that he doesn't need Cornish for his sound.  Actually, I really like the ST-2 but there's other pedals I have that can get the same tones from.



For the money as a bedroom player, a strat on the neck pup with a ram's head muff through a warm clean channel with reverb and delay got me "holy shit!" close to gilmour tone. 30 seconds later I remembered I could practice hours a day for the rest of my life and not be anywhere near as good as him. There are so many times where I think "it's in the fingers" is a cruel over simplification for a pro's tone, but hard to argue with it for DG.


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## ntuncer (Nov 15, 2021)

Hello, I have just finished my Cornish G-2 Aion build (same schematic as Germanium II) today. After 3 hours trouble shooting to find the gain and volume problem finally I achieved to have a decent sound but still couldn't figure out  if it is normal to have around 3'oclock both for volume and sustain to have enough gain and volume.

- First iteration with selected OA1182s (4 of them around vf around 0.34v ) 680R for R21 and 15k for R23 -> *Both volume and sustain are dimed, less than unity gain volume barely distortion
- *Second iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with OA1182s -> Same results *less than unity gain volume barely distortion*
- Final iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with Russian D9K diodes (vfs around  0.44-0.48v) -> *Finally a decent sound but I need to use volume and gain around 3 o'clock with strat low output pickups. I cannot say it has a high gain sound.*

As @benny_profane said I think my problem is leakage issue on Ge diodes. Could someone tell me if it is normal or not use volume and sustain knobs like this? Am I doing something wrong?

Cheers!


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## benny_profane (Nov 15, 2021)

ntuncer said:


> As @benny_profane said I think my problem is leakage issue on Ge diodes. Could someone tell me if it is normal or not use volume and sustain knobs like this? Am I doing something wrong?


That doesn't seem right. Have you reviewed the thread I linked above? That will help you determine the leakages of the Ge diodes. Unfortunately, the Vf figure for the diodes won't tell you anything about the leakage, so you'll have to do a bit more measuring to sort out what's going on there.


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## jubal81 (Nov 15, 2021)

1182s I got were all very leaky.
At this point, finding enough non-leaky Ge diodes will take a lot of time and money, ordering tons of different diodes and testing them all. The solution is a BAT54s diode with a series 68R resistor. I've A/B tested this and it works and sounds identical to low-leakage Ge in this circuit. Here's a little adapter PCB I shared you can order from OSH. Each one of these replaces a pair of Ge diodes.

As for Cornish designs in general, I've done the G2 and SS2. G2 (when done right) is quite good and SS2 holds its own against other ODs. The thing is, they're not worth 4X what you'd pay for other effects of the same performance level. Cool thing is we have the luxury of access to TONS of excellent designs on PedalPCB.


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## music6000 (Nov 15, 2021)

ntuncer said:


> Hello, I have just finished my Cornish G-2 (Germanium II) today. After 3 hours trouble shooting to find the gain and volume problem finally I achieved to have a decent sound but still couldn't figure out  if it is normal to have around 3'oclock both for volume and sustain to have enough gain and volume.
> 
> - First iteration with selected OA1182s (4 of them around vf around 0.34v ) 680R for R21 and 15k for R23 -> *Both volume and sustain are dimed, less than unity gain volume barely distortion
> - *Second iteration 100R for R21 and 18k3 for R23 (15k+3k3 cause don't have 18k) with OA1182s -> Same results *less than unity gain volume barely distortion*
> ...


Use the Resistor Calculator & see if you you have a wrong value???
Click on *Bands* for 5 colours:








						Resistor Calculator
					

Resistor Calculator is an App developed by CherryJourney to help the user find the value of a resistor.




					resistor.cherryjourney.pt


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## ntuncer (Nov 16, 2021)

@music6000 I think all the resistors ok.


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## ntuncer (Nov 16, 2021)

benny_profane said:


> That doesn't seem right. Have you reviewed the thread I linked above? That will help you determine the leakages of the Ge diodes. Unfortunately, the Vf figure for the diodes won't tell you anything about the leakage, so you'll have to do a bit more measuring to sort out what's going on there.


I just recognized the thread after doing all the work I did. So couldn't check the leakages. But in any case I don't have big quantity of those diodes to test.

@jubal81 it would be a nice solution but for me it could be in a long term to deal with. I am a bit scared to solder SMD parts which I have never done before.

As I have already BAT41 diodes (Unfortunately I don't have any BAT46), I will try to replaced the first stage with them to see how it goes today. I hope it works fine as a GE-SI mixed combination solution.


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## ntuncer (Nov 16, 2021)

Finally replaced the first stage diodes with BAT41. Now I have enough output, darker sound with fuzz like distortion. I just socket the first stage diodes to try different ones. Between BAT41 and BAT46 what could be the differences? Will sound be improved with BAT46s? Any ideas?

Cheers!


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## music6000 (Nov 16, 2021)

ntuncer said:


> @music6000 I think all the resistors ok.


Show a good picture & I will let you know if they are right.


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## music6000 (Nov 16, 2021)

ntuncer said:


> Finally replaced the first stage diodes with BAT41. Now I have enough output, darker sound with fuzz like distortion. I just socket the first stage diodes to try different ones. Between BAT41 and BAT46 what could be the differences? Will sound be improved with BAT46s? Any ideas?
> 
> Cheers!


Bat46 will have less volume & distort more than Bat41.


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## music6000 (Nov 16, 2021)

music6000 said:


> Show a good picture & I will let you know if they are right.


Would like to see a picture of the PCB & resistors!


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## ntuncer (Nov 17, 2021)

music6000 said:


> Would like to see a picture of the PCB & resistors!


Sorry for the late response. I just find time adjust the pictures as I cannot upload large files here. I used Aion pcb which has the same schematic.  Here is the doc link:



			https://aionfx.com/app/files/docs/cygnus_documentation.pdf
		


Cheers!


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## music6000 (Nov 17, 2021)

ntuncer said:


> Sorry for the late response. I just find time adjust the pictures as I cannot upload large files here. I used Aion pcb which has the same schematic.  Here is the doc link:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'M not going to be checking as the forum was related to the PedalPCB Ge Distortion II.
You failed to mention it was an Aion Build & the wiring is confusing enough to cause an issue!!!


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## ntuncer (Nov 17, 2021)

music6000 said:


> I'M not going to be checking as the forum was related to the PedalPCB Ge Distortion II.
> You failed to mention it was an Aion Build & the wiring is confusing enough to cause an issue!!!


Sorry to not mentioned, I didn't think that it was important to discuss Ge diode issue as it is generic topic. I will be more careful next time...


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## vigilante398 (Nov 17, 2021)

HamishR said:


> So why do they sell them to us?  That had occurred to me too. If it's unlikely to work in an ordinary rig they should say so.  From now on if I want a fuzz I'll stick with Skeddy designs.


There are a lot of pedals designed to make a great rig sound amazing, not make an average rig sound great. When I first started building pedals I built a Klon to try to impress a talented guitarist I knew. He plugged it into a digital modeling amp and informed me "this pedal sounds like $hit".


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## Chuck D. Bones (Aug 27, 2022)

ntuncer said:


> Finally replaced the first stage diodes with BAT41. Now I have enough output, darker sound with fuzz like distortion. I just socket the first stage diodes to try different ones. Between BAT41 and BAT46 what could be the differences? Will sound be improved with BAT46s? Any ideas?
> 
> Cheers!


The 2nd clipping stage influences the tone and volume more than the 1st stage.  



music6000 said:


> Bat46 will have less volume & distort more than Bat41.


True, but won't be a huge difference at the low diode currents in the G-2.


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## HamishR (Aug 28, 2022)

vigilante398 said:


> There are a lot of pedals designed to make a great rig sound amazing, not make an average rig sound great. When I first started building pedals I built a Klon to try to impress a talented guitarist I knew. He plugged it into a digital modeling amp and informed me "this pedal sounds like $hit".


I take your point! Still, my little, almost ludicrously simply rig sounds great to me. When I play my (slightly modded) Duo Jet through my three-pedal board and self-built amps I can't really imagine getting a better sound. I've spent years learning how to build amps and pedals to the level I want, and I get what is to me a sound as good as it gets. Sure, it's not the Edge's rig but it sure works for me and any gigs I want to play. I don't have much there but there is sounds great for what I need.  And in my rig Cornish pedals sound a bit crap!

I probably just like a different flavour of crap from the rock stars.


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## Robert (Aug 28, 2022)

I'm going to go a step further... I'm not the least bit impressed with the _construction_ of Cornish pedals. Yeah I said it.

The big pro pedalboards look nicely built, but the pedals just aren't in the same league in my opinion.

Zip ties, spray painted PCB, etched boards, paper labels?   ...   😩

They _better _be durable because no one wants to dig around in that mess for repairs.


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## music6000 (Aug 28, 2022)

Robert said:


> I'm going to go a step further... I'm not the least bit impressed with the _construction_ of Cornish pedals. Yeah I said it.
> 
> The big pro pedalboards look nicely built, but the pedals just aren't in the same league in my opinion.
> 
> ...


So the Seals not there or void the warranty after all!!! Ha Ha!


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## Robert (Aug 28, 2022)

The warranty is good for one year...  beyond that what do the seals even mean?

Would my two year old broken pedal be returned unrepaired if the warranty seal was gone?


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## music6000 (Aug 28, 2022)

Just for your eyes Mr PedalPCB!:





Sorry, But my internals are Private Domain!


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