# Pro-10 Blue + Green = Muscle Milk



## jeffwhitfield (Feb 14, 2022)

For a dual-drive pedal, this was one of the smoothest builds I've done in a while. Literally no problems with it. 

The Browne Protein pedal was definitely one that I was super curious about and wondered how it compared to the Analogman King of Tone. I kept hearing about it on various forums so, yeah, when I saw the two PCB's on the PedalPCB website, definitely added those to my queue and planned out a dual pedal layout.

The main thing I added with this one was a SPDT switch to change the order of the two drives. Definitely recommended for sure! The difference between the order of these does add quite a bit of flexibility. I almost like the Blue going into the Green better. 

Tone-wise, I was quite surprised by this one. I can certainly understand why so many like this one better than the KoT. I definitely still like my Paragon...but this one has certainly won me over. There's just a character about this that doesn't exist in the KoT. It just feels more refined and allows for a lot more variety in tone. Both pedals have their place...but this one will likely see more time on my pedal board I think.

Funny thing about the Green drive. Since it's based on the ODR-1, hearing it for the first time made me realize that my AionFX Andromeda Deluxe (ODR-C) wasn't working right. Way, way too dark with all settings at noon compared to the Green drive. So, yeah, that one is gonna get debugged. 

With the design, I wanted to build one that looked a lot like the original Protein pedal. I didn't like the name "Pro-10" so I thought of a different name. Given that I'm combining the two "Pro-10" boards, I figure a play on the various protein powders was in orders so...Muscle Milk it is!


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## fig (Feb 15, 2022)

Cool build Jeff! Is the serial number a true count?


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## szukalski (Feb 15, 2022)

Attention all planets of the solar federation! We have assumed control.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 15, 2022)

fig said:


> Cool build Jeff! Is the serial number a true count?


Nah, just me being silly. 🤪


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## chongmagic (Feb 15, 2022)

Is that a Rush reference by chance?


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 15, 2022)

chongmagic said:


> Is that a Rush reference by chance?


Yup, sure is! 😉


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## pcb rookie (Feb 15, 2022)

Asome build!


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## Bricksnbeatles (Feb 15, 2022)

We are the proteins of the temple of Browne amps


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## Mentaltossflycoon (Feb 15, 2022)




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## JBoss (Feb 16, 2022)

This looks great! Where did you get the placard from?


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## pi.cast (Feb 16, 2022)

Looks awesome! It's super nice and I wanted to build this already, but now I'll prioritize the build.
What size/type of enclosure did you use?

Thanks!


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 16, 2022)

JBoss said:


> This looks great! Where did you get the placard from?


It’s actually not a placard but rather part of the UV printing design. I set it with a bit of drop shadowing to give it s raised effect. 😁


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 16, 2022)

pi.cast said:


> Looks awesome! It's super nice and I wanted to build this already, but now I'll prioritize the build.
> What size/type of enclosure did you use?
> 
> Thanks!


1590XX. It has the same height as a 125B and just a bit wider than two 125B’s.


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## ADAOCE (Feb 16, 2022)

Hey man this looks excellent. The green side isn’t a straight up copy of the ODR 1 though just a FYI so don’t use it as a gospel for reference to your Aion build.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 16, 2022)

ADAOCE said:


> Hey man this looks excellent. The green side isn’t a straight up copy of the ODR 1 though just a FYI so don’t use it as a gospel for reference to your Aion build.


Indeed. I did fix my Andromeda Deluxe. Had the wrong pull down resistor value installed. Now I need to compare it with the Green channel.


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## ADAOCE (Feb 16, 2022)

jeffwhitfield said:


> Indeed. I did fix my Andromeda Deluxe. Had the wrong pull down resistor value installed. Now I need to compare it with the Green channel.


Oh interesting. Good find! I like the green channel once I realized I put a 2N5458 instead of a 2N5457 in there 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ definitely less gain than the ODR but that’s expected because of the pot value


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## cooder (Feb 16, 2022)

Excellent! Great looks to boot.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 16, 2022)

ADAOCE said:


> Oh interesting. Good find! I like the green channel once I realized I put a 2N5458 instead of a 2N5457 in there 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ definitely less gain than the ODR but that’s expected because of the pot value


I did a quick test between my Andromeda Deluxe at the stock ODR-1 settings (Low Cut and ODC all the way down, Mid at center). Sound virtually identical really. I think what would be interesting would be to add the Low Cut and Mid controls to the Green channel. Pretty sure it could be modded to do that. Would need the schematic though to verify.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 16, 2022)

So, looking at the schematic for the Nobleman and comparing it to the two Andromeda schematics, adding a Bass Cut control would be relatively simple. Adding a Mid control is a little more complicated. Might require a mini breadboard to do that since it requires an extra transistor for boosting mids.


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## Feral Feline (Feb 17, 2022)

jeffwhitfield said:


> Indeed. I did fix my Andromeda Deluxe. Had the wrong pull down resistor value installed. Now I need to compare it with the Green channel.


What value was the PDR before and after? How critical is the PDR value?

I’ve been shoving anything from 1M, to 2M2, to 6M3…🙀

The latter value I got a deal on a pack of 100 resisters.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 17, 2022)

I think it’s the PDR. It was the last resistor off the output which I believe is the PDR. In this case, a 470R was called for. I had a 570K in there instead. Big difference and caused higher frequencies to get carved off. Now I’m left wondering how it happened. Was I drunk? 🤪


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## Feral Feline (Feb 17, 2022)

Ahh okay, R41 is the culprit.

My limited understanding of a PDR, in the usual context of stompbox effects, is it provides a path to ground for capacitors’ stored energies, the PDR usually at the front end of a circuit, though sometimes at the end — it reduces the popping when engaging or bypassing the pedal.

A large value keeps it from influencing the tone while still providing an escape route for the stored energy differential that would otherwise cause a pop.

The PDR in the Andromeda DLX is R2 (1M), there is no PDR on the output.

There are other uses for pull-down and pull-up resisters in other general circuits of which I have no ken, but you can search online if it interests you. I’m mainly interested in pedals, and other more knowledgable people can explain it so much better than I… for example:





						Pedal pops even with a pulldown resistor
					

Pedal pops even with a pulldown resistor



					www.diystompboxes.com


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 17, 2022)

Feral Feline said:


> Ahh okay, R41 is the culprit.
> 
> My limited understanding of a PDR, in the usual context of stompbox effects, is it provides a path to ground for capacitors’ stored energies, the PDR usually at the front end of a circuit, though sometimes at the end — it reduces the popping when engaging or bypassing the pedal.
> 
> ...


Ah, good info! Thx for sharing!


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## HamishR (Feb 20, 2022)

If it was a 470R it wasn't a pull-down resistor! They're usually 1meg or more.

I really like the Protein Blue - the Green doesn't really excite me so much. But the Blue is one of the few 3-knob ODs where I could almost use it without adding a bass control. Almost...      🤪


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 20, 2022)

HamishR said:


> If it was a 470R it wasn't a pull-down resistor! They're usually 1meg or more.
> 
> I really like the Protein Blue - the Green doesn't really excite me so much. But the Blue is one of the few 3-knob ODs where I could almost use it without adding a bass control. Almost...      🤪


The Green is more or less a standard ODR-1. It could use a Bass Cut control for sure.

The Blue doesn’t really need much but a Presence control could add some extra flexibility. Might even consider adding an extra clip option. 

The magic happens when you stack them. The whole Blue/Green stack is quite different than a KoT, which is just two Blues really. I added an order switch and that really changed things. The stacking is just incredible.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 28, 2022)

Ok, so I have a few mods I’m doing…

First one is a simple one: a Presence pot for the Blue channel. Basically, just do the following:

Remove the 10n capacitor on C7
Using a B25K pot, add one leg of the 10n cap to leg 1 of the pot, 
Jumper legs 2 and 3 on the pot
Jumper the other end of the cap to the outside hole of C7.
Jumper leg 3 of the pot to the inside hole of C7
Mount your pot to your enclosure however you wish
The Presence pot is nice cause it gives you some extra tone shaping with the higher frequencies. What's nice is that you can turn Tone pretty much all the way off and then add back in some higher frequencies with Presence. It also allows for adding a bit more sparkle when Tone is set higher. Basically gives you more range with various amps, especially those that tend to be more mellow.


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## jeffwhitfield (Feb 28, 2022)

Next one I tried was a Bass Cut pot on the Green channel. I added it to C5 by removing the positive leg and jumping a C50K pot to it. It worked...sort of. Just way too subtle to make much difference. I might have done it to the wrong cap. Could be that it needs to be done to C6. Will have to trace it a bit more to figure out the best spot. 

In fact, I might be able to borrow off the Andromeda Deluxe and do it in a way that can be jumpered in without any component removals. All it's really doing there is adding a couple of 220n caps off the clipping stage with a 25kB in-between to control how much bass is being cut. 

Last one will be a Mids pot. That one is a bit more involved. Requires a small circuit be injected between where the circuit breaks off into the Spectrum stage and the second op-amp stage. Fortunately, none of the components have to be removed. Just straight jumpers from a small PCB...which will require some sort of mounting into the enclosure. Could combine this and the Mids mod into one little PCB.

Without the schematic, I'm finding it a bit hard to figure this out. Kinda making my way around the circuit...but still would be easier with a schematic in hand (cough! hint! hint!)


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