# mhammer's Scrambler Plus



## Guest (Nov 9, 2009)

I've been meaning to post some clips of this very cool, very unique pedal for a while now. I did this for another board and thought I'd dupe the post here.

This is an mhammer designed and built pedal. I've been trying to talk him in to doing a run of them for general consumption. It like no other I've tried. :smile:

First up the pedal in question: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/870088/pictures/scramblerplus.jpg

Four knobs: mix controls the mix between the D+ and the Scrambler, you can pretty got 100% either way. The "txt" knob controls the "texture" of the Scrambler. I _think_ it changes the level where the cross-over distortion kicks in -- it certainly alters the "choke" on the Scrambler side of the pedal. All the way counterclockwise and the tiniest signal gets hacked and chopped, all the way clockwise and it doesn't clip the heck out of it some much. The "drv" knob is the drive for the D+ and the "vol" knobs is overall output volume.

Now I'll setup the clip:

Clean reference

100% Scrambler, texture all the way counterclockwise -- see how nasty it clips? Crazy. That's your traditional Scrambler -- total chaos. But check out the bloom as you hold stuff. As the signal falls below the clipping threshold it comes alive again.

100% Scrambler but with texture at noon. Now we're a little more sane.

100% D+, minimum drive. Nice overdrive.

50% D+/Scrambler -- see how you can hear the Scrambler underneath?

More Scrambler than D+ this time -- see how as I hold that last chord the D+ dies away, and the Scrambler signal takes over?

Now totally cranked D+ distortion -- THIS IS IT! Mayhem. Big attack, and the as the D+ decays it turns into the fuzzy bloom from the Scrambler. Perfect.

Check out the held chord at the end. I got tired of holding it and shut it all down. 

Damn, that felt good to play. My fuzzes have been collecting dust for a while now. Poor little fuzz boxes are all neglected and narly.


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## hewie (Jan 31, 2009)

The D+ at the end is fantastic. As much as I love my crazy Ampeg Scrambler clone, I wish I could pull that off with it. Is he sharing the schematic or no?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Well, first off, "designed" is too strong a word to use. "Packaged" is more appropriate.

It is important to recognize that all distortion-generating devices, whether they aim for an octave up or not, are level-dependent, and bandwidth-dependent, for the quality of their output. Feed them a hotter signal and they generate more harmoncs. Feed them a brighter signal and they generate harmonics of harmonics...bleccchh!! So, the "strategy" of the pedal in question was to be able to adjust the tonal quality of what was fed to the Scrambler section, as well as adjust the level.

The old Ampeg Scrambler is a pretty legendary pedal, and the word "mayhem" often gets used in the same sentence with it. It takes octave-generation over the top. But it is also capable of some other sounds. The limitation to those other potential sounds is that it has only two knobs - typical of its era - so that it cannot adjust the degree of drive at the input, and also relies on the user to shape the tone of the input signal first. The Scrambler+ package attends to those shortcomings.

Interesting and silly story behind its origins. I had etched a larger board that would provide 6 qualitatively different distortion circuits that I wanted to house in a larger chassis. Kind of my take on a Boss ROD-10, I guess. I grew impatient getting around to this larger project, and gradually cut out individual layouts from the larger board to house as individual pedals. When I was done, there was one piece left with a Distortion+ and Scrambler layout on it, but it was the dimensions to fit inside a stompbox chassis, so I started thinking about it. Initially, I thought, okay, here's a tamer classic sound, and a much wilder one, and I can treat the pedal like a two-fer. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the Dist+ could provide the perfect front end for a Scrambler, and make up for many of its shortcomings...without having to change anything about the Scrambler itself.

As mentioned at the start of my note, producing distortion is a question of being able to provide the right input signal level and tone. The D+ could be easily rejigged to provide a much hotter or softer signal than the Scrambler would normally see. It could also be modded to provide a "rounder" tone than the Scrambler normally sees.

So, I upped the .047uf cap connected to the Drive control, that one normally sees in a Distortion+ or DOD250, to .22uf to keep as much of the bass as possible. I added a feedback cap to the D+ to tame the fizzies and roll off upper treble. I changed the germanium clipping diodes to silicon to provide a higher clipping threshold and hotter output. I increased the .001uf cap to ground normally used to tame the fizzies with a larger value (I forget what, but assume it was probably .01uf or so), and changed the 10k output pot on the D+ to 100k to retain as much volume as possible. The Scrambler is absolutely stock.

The assorted changes I made to the D+ allow the Scrambler to be driven by signals that take a lot of the higher-order harmonics out, but are able to inject some lower-order harmonics, depending on drive settings. That alters the quality of the rectified/doubled sound from the Scrambler. Setting the drive near max also permits those lower-order harmonics to linger a while, and provides some natural compression (something ALL diode clippers do), such that the Scrambler responds to a more consistent input signal whose spectral content is more similar after the initial pick attack, instead of starting out bright and getting dull right away. The treble rolloff I added to the D+ is in effect regardless of where the drive is set such that one can get lighter flavours of octave-up from the Scrambler. You could do it by simply rolling back the tone on your guitar, but this makes it available at the stomp of a button, so you don't need to monkey with the guitar to get the ideal signal for the pedal itself.

I brought it in to let Darwin at the now-defunct Retrotown music try it out. I don't think it naturally aligned with his thinking or playing, but eventually it brought some big smiles to his face. Certainly one of the things it can do that the original couldn't was attaining sounds that were more similar to the original Tychobrahe Octavia. The ultra-sick "blooming" sounds are also quite interesting; the unit tends to implode in an über-Neil-Young fashion (think "Hey, hey, my, my") when you push it super-hard with the D+. And when all traces of the Scrambler are removed, the modded D+ on its own sounds pretty damn fine, if you ask me.

Whenever people post questions about wanting to get "insane" or "sick" sounds, and want recommendations for a single pedal that does it, my recommendation is almost always to consider use of a booster of some sort to provide the kind of input signal that will extract the desired tones from a pedal the person already owns. The Scrambler+ is simply a case of applying that very logic, but with the convenience of having the booster in the same box, such that the stompswitch acts like a loop selector, giving the action of two pedals at once. As always, you get better sounds, and more interesting ones, by thinking in terms of "systems" and the entire signal path, than by thinking in terms of pedals. I encourage one and all to do so.

I can't hear Ian's soundclips from work, but look forward to listening later this evening at home, and assume they are monsters and tasteful at the same time.


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

so is a limited run possible in the future? 'cause  That's a box -o- fun!


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2009)

Here's hoping. :smile: Even a run of just the D+ would be awesome -- because that D+ side is a superb overdrive on its own.

For the curious: that was run straight into the Axe-Fx. Cool, eh?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Unfortunately, no. I've pretty much got my hands full. If I had opne lying around, I'd sell it to you, but I think my only other one is sitting in my modular rack setup. My best advice would be to order yourself a PCB or kit for a Scrambler and Dist+/DOD250 from either JD Sleep at generalguitargadgets ( http://www.generalguitargadgets.com ) or Francisco Pena at Tonepad ( http://www.tonepad.com/ ), or get one from each because they're both really decent guys. Then build yourself one. I'd be happy to talk you through it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Unfortunately, no. I've pretty much got my hands full. If I had one lying around, I'd sell it to you, but I think my only other one is sitting in my modular rack setup. My best advice would be to order yourself a PCB or kit for a Scrambler and Dist+/DOD250 from either JD Sleep at generalguitargadgets ( http://www.generalguitargadgets.com ) or Francisco Pena at Tonepad ( http://www.tonepad.com/ ), or get one from each because they're both really decent guys. Then build yourself one. I'd be happy to talk you through it.

The D+ is dead easy to do, though. Score yourself a used reissue Distortion+, and then just swap a few parts. Or you can get a BYOC 250+. Same deal. I just dumped the aspects of the original that didn't work well.


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## NB_Terry (Feb 2, 2006)

Awesome sounding pedal. 

Is it on loan to you, or do you own it?


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2009)

NB_Terry said:


> Awesome sounding pedal.
> 
> Is it on loan to you, or do you own it?


I own it. But Mark had lent it to me at one point -- he dropped a HUGE bag of pedals here one day and I worked my way through them. It was like being left in a guitar store for weeks on end and told to try out all the effects pedals. :smile:


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## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

What exactly makes the scrambler effect? It sounds like crossover distortion to me.


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

Sounds really cool. I'd love to try that out.

Mark was nice enough to sell me one of his Tone Machine octave fuzz pedals, and it is possibly the best sounding, most useful octave pedal I have ever used.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Andy said:


> What exactly makes the scrambler effect? It sounds like crossover distortion to me.


The Scrambler is essentially an octave-up fuzz, but is configured slightly differently from most others. So, the octave-doubling is much "ruder". One of the things it has/does is a blend control to mix the octave-doubled signal and the clean boosted input. That's part of what lets the Dist+ combine with the Scrambler so nicely. You can crank the D+, and set the blend for 100% "clean", which in this instance would be the overdrive tone. As Ian's clip demonstrates, you can set the drive and Scrambler parameters so that you have essentially two distorted tones to blend together. Between the tones attainable from the Scrambler, those attainable from the D+ alone, and those resulting from their interaction, the pedal offers a huge palette. Now, after listening to Ian's sample, I can tell you that it barely touches the surface of what is feasible. You know that Hendrix tune "One Rainy Wish"? It'll do that octave-up sound nicely.

Ian, set the Drive to about 1:00, the Volume to about 3:00, the Blend to maybe 9-10:00, and the texture to about 1-2:00. You should be able to get some nice octavey sounds, and some where if you hold the note with a little finger vibrato, the octave blossoms after a second or so.

Stock, the Scrambler can't do any of that. I just found that the added front end increased the utility of the pedal several orders of magnitude. Trust me, there are plenty of "classic" pedals like that, where it was kept simple enough that it juuuuuuuuust falls short of being what you know it can be and need it to be. IN this case, the extra front end just pushes it over the top. It made me happy, and it makes me happy that Ian owns it now.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

iaresee said:


> I own it. But Mark had lent it to me at one point -- he dropped a HUGE bag of pedals here one day and I worked my way through them. It was like being left in a guitar store for weeks on end and told to try out all the effects pedals. :smile:


I hope Santa Mark visits My house when I go home for Christmas, haha!

Cool clips!


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2009)

mhammer said:


> Ian, set the Drive to about 1:00, the Volume to about 3:00, the Blend to maybe 9-10:00, and the texture to about 1-2:00. You should be able to get some nice octavey sounds, and some where if you hold the note with a little finger vibrato, the octave blossoms after a second or so.


You bet. I'll churn out some more clips today hopefully.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Okay, did some digging around today, and I've likely got parts to make about 6 of these at least. I etched, tinned, and drilled 5 boards today. It looks like it can fit inside a 1590B (EHX Nano sized) box, but that remains to be confirmed. (It's one thing for the board to be the right size and quite another to find space for the jacks, stompswitch, and battery.) I can likely stick it in a 1590BB-sized box tested and shipped for somewhere in the $100-120 range. How quickly I can do that also remains to be seen, since I still have a lot on my plate and would have to order the boxes. In any event, if you are seriously interested, drop me a PM. I am NOT in the "business" of making pedals, but this is a really interesting one, completely unavailable anywhere else to the best of my knowledge, and I'd like to see more folks having as much fun with it as Ian and I are having. If it lets any of you record something that is utterly unique, I'd be honoured.


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## Guest (Nov 12, 2009)

mhammer said:


> Okay, did some digging around today, and I've likely got parts to make about 6 of these at least. I etched, tinned, and drilled 5 boards today. It looks like it can fit inside a 1590B (EHX Nano sized) box, but that remains to be confirmed. (It's one thing for the board to be the right size and quite another to find space for the jacks, stompswitch, and battery.) I can likely stick it in a 1590BB-sized box tested and shipped for somewhere in the $100-120 range. How quickly I can do that also remains to be seen, since I still have a lot on my plate and would have to order the boxes. In any event, if you are seriously interested, drop me a PM. I am NOT in the "business" of making pedals, but this is a really interesting one, completely unavailable anywhere else to the best of my knowledge, and I'd like to see more folks having as much fun with it as Ian and I are having. If it lets any of you record something that is utterly unique, I'd be honoured.


Mark, I'll let some people on GuitarGeek.com know -- I get inquiries about it there all the time.


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## Powdered Toast Man (Apr 6, 2006)

Interesting. I've actually got an Ampeg Scrambler reissue. The major limitation of it is that you simply cannot run the balance anywhere near 100% because the output volume becomes unmanageable. 

Best guitar use is stacked with another OD or distortion in behind it. 

I used mine mainly as a bass fuzz/distortion/OD. Sounds amazing on bass.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Just out of curiosity, does yours have 2 of those little teeny back diodes, or five? The posted schematics indicate that only two of the five are really necessary, but I've never done the experiment to see if the full five nets any audible improvement over the 2.

The volume issue with the Scrambler was one of its major stumbling blocks, methinks. Keep in mind it was from an era when a great many effects were "two-knobbers", and manufacturers included whatever they thought would yield the most marketabilty within a two-knob space; two knobs and a switch if they wanted to go absolutely crazy.

The D+ front end addresses that to a limited extent (OMG, it has four knobs! Run for your lives!! ). Given that the Scrambler needs a minimum input level to do what it does, and that it adds a fair amount of boost, a level control in front of the Scrambler can only provide so much adjustment of level. Having said that, however, it is possible to set the input level (i.e., the D+ _output_ level) such that the overall pedal output volume can be set to essentially unity (i.e., FX = bypass).

One of the reasons why I suspect the (unaltered) Scrambler sounds much better on bass than it might with guitar is that, like many octave-up units it tends to need some tone-shaping to deliver audible octaves. The inherent sound of the bass already provides that tone-shaping, whereas the guitar player needs to futz around with the guitar's tone controls. The filtering I put in with the D+ front-end rolls off a lot of that pesky treble to make the signal more "ready" for the Scrambler's rectification, even after clipping. That's why Ian describes the overdrive as "warm".

Cheers,
Mark H.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

I probably just don't get it but that sounded awful to me.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Actually, that clip doesn't entirely do it justice. The warm overdrive is actually quite nice, and is not really demonstrated in the clip. There are some nice octave-up sounds attainable which are in the same league as the Tychobrahe Octavia, and a host of other tones not amply demonstrated in Ian's clip, some more severe and the sort of thing you'd expect from Metasonix ( http://www.metasonix.com/ ), and others you'd likely expect from Alfonso Hermida. Not that his clip sounds bad at all, but I know *I* wouldn't be interested in the pedal based on the small range of sounds demonstrated. Fortunately I know it does a whole helluva lot more...and generally more than I remember it doing, each outing. I suppose I need to make my own clip, don't I? :smile:

Having said all of that, distortion is an *immensely* subjective category of "effect", and no single pedal can be expected to deliver the goods for everyone. I can't begin to count the number of pedals that left me similarly scratching my head while everyone was jumping up and down and treating it like the second coming. So, your head-scratching is no comment on either _your_ taste, Ian's taste/playing, or the pleasant surprises in this circuit.


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2009)

I will get the new clip done. Tonight. I'm on vacation now. I have free time! Wheeeee!


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## Guest (Dec 21, 2009)

guitarman2 said:


> I probably just don't get it but that sounded awful to me.


You have no idea how often I hear that after shows. :smile:

Seriously though, I love this pedal for everything it does that probably isn't found in popular music. It's extremities are not for everyone, and that's cool.


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## Powdered Toast Man (Apr 6, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Just out of curiosity, does yours have 2 of those little teeny back diodes, or five? The posted schematics indicate that only two of the five are really necessary, but I've never done the experiment to see if the full five nets any audible improvement over the 2.
> 
> The volume issue with the Scrambler was one of its major stumbling blocks, methinks. Keep in mind it was from an era when a great many effects were "two-knobbers", and manufacturers included whatever they thought would yield the most marketabilty within a two-knob space; two knobs and a switch if they wanted to go absolutely crazy.
> 
> ...


Honestly, I haven't rooted around inside of it much. The PCB is flipped upside down to keep all the components hidden so I'd have to actually remove the pcb from the chassis to have a look at the guts. I've read that they went with full vintage specs with the reissue - right down to the cast metal casing that weighs about a kilogram.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Just as an aside, I brought a Tychobrahe Octavia clone over to a buddy's place the other night, along with some other pedals for him to try. He's a bass player. Oddly enough, even though it didn't produce an octave in as discernible a fashion as it does with a guitar, he loved it on bass and wants one. Go figure.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2009)

mhammer said:


> Ian, set the Drive to about 1:00, the Volume to about 3:00, the Blend to maybe 9-10:00, and the texture to about 1-2:00. You should be able to get some nice octavey sounds, and some where if you hold the note with a little finger vibrato, the octave blossoms after a second or so.


Right, so here's the breakdown:

Clean reference, neck pu on my Strat
S+, neck pu on my Strat, single notes x 2 repeats
S+, bridge pu on my Strat, single notes x 2 repeats
S+, bridge pu on my Strat, 1sts and 5ths type thing x 2 repeats
End on the E held until it's natural conclusion and a little string scrape at the end

Clip: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/870088/sounds/mhammer/scramblerplus2.mp3

(Terry, don't even bother listening. It'll be all sorts of offensive to you. :smile: )


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2009)

Just a quick bit of noodling around. This time I didn't hold anything back in the way of additional effects. The S+ is driving a Blues Jr. sim with some sloppy wet vintage stereo delay happening at the end of the chain. Pure trippy indulgence. Used Mark's asked-for settings above that generate the nice octave bloom when you hold the notes. Watch your speakers, but do enjoy the trip.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/870088/sounds/mhammer/scramblerplus3.mp3

(Terry, that one might be safe for you man)


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## LowWatt (Jun 27, 2007)

iaresee said:


> Just a quick bit of noodling around. This time I didn't hold anything back in the way of additional effects. The S+ is driving a Blues Jr. sim with some sloppy wet vintage stereo delay happening at the end of the chain. Pure trippy indulgence. Used Mark's asked-for settings above that generate the nice octave bloom when you hold the notes. Watch your speakers, but do enjoy the trip.
> 
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/870088/sounds/mhammer/scramblerplus3.mp3
> 
> (Terry, that one might be safe for you man)


Great clip!


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

Sounds awesome Ian - trippy stuff - very Daniel Lanois. Is that just one guitar in realtime with effects, or multiple guitars/effects?


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## Guest (Dec 29, 2009)

LowWatt said:


> Great clip!


Thanks!



bagpipe said:


> Sounds awesome Ian - trippy stuff - very Daniel Lanois. Is that just one guitar in realtime with effects, or multiple guitars/effects?


Thanks! One guitar with realtime effects from the Axe-Fx. No post processing on that one, even the intro and exit were just me rolling the guitar volume up and then back down. All done on the neck PU of my Strat. It's the Blues Jr. amp sim into a 4x10 Fender cab IR into a mono delay (I said stereo before, my bad...mono, though it does have modulation on it) mixed pretty wet. It's a dark patch, but really works well with that pedal. I'm determined to write something to that sound sound now I like playing it so much!


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