
Dissecting a Chinese Knockoff Guitar Pedal - cushychicken
http://cushychicken.github.io/dissecting-ts-clone/
======
jacquesm
This is an ad in disguise. First up the pitch: it's the same but _much_
cheaper. Then the teardown and the continuous harping on how fantastic the
quality is. Finally, an affiliate link to get you to go and buy it.

~~~
cushychicken
Hey Jacques, author here. In a way, you're sort of right - I hacked the
affiliate program a little bit, mostly to be compensated for my work in
ripping apart the pedal and ohming out the PCB. But mostly, I wanted people to
know that there's a cheaper alternative to "boutique" electronics that are
sold at an outrageous markup. The fact that these are easy to modify is a
plus.

Also, I kind of liked the idea of showing off the workings of a Chinese
product that's so clearly a ripoff of an American product. (Boss BD-2 Blues
Driver, if you're curious.) Granted, that was also a ripoff of the TS808. And,
I'll admit that something is lost in the spirit of the effort, since no one in
China gets hung up when you take their design, improve it, and resell it.

I appreciate the critique; thanks for reading - I'm a fan of your blog!

~~~
jacquesm
Maybe you could include a bit on what it actually sounds like, that would make
it a lot more informative. It's not as if people buy these as sources for
parts, they buy them to give them a specific sound.

~~~
cushychicken
That's the plan, once my noise-sensitive neighbor is gone for the weekend. :)

Here's an example of what the stock one sounds like if you're curious.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqPaL0vfVwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqPaL0vfVwU)

~~~
jacquesm
The problem with promoting the product that you review is that your review
skews towards the superlative approval. If you reviewed it without the
affiliate link you might have added more balance to the article. That's a real
risk when you're trying to make money of the things that you review and I
don't know of a good way to both 'maximize your take' and 'be objective' at
the same time. If I ever reviewed a product I would definitely not try to make
money of that particular product.

~~~
cushychicken
That's fair. I have some experience in manufacturing engineering; in
retrospect, I got a little too excited about how it was designed to be put
together in mass quantities. After rolling it around in my hands for a few
weeks, I've noticed a few warts in the circuit board - extra flux around the
solder pads, a PCB throughhole that was a little too close to the board edge,
and got a little shorn when the PCB was milled out, other little things like
that. In all honesty, there's nothing really superlative about the electronics
themselves. The JRC4558 is a really, really old opamp. It was brand new around
the time The Who were getting airlifted to Woodstock.

I shot you an email about some of the other aspects of the article that I
didn't want to write about in open air. Check your inbox!

~~~
jacquesm
Hm, I did and there is nothing in it, let me dig into spamassassin and see if
it got dumped for some reason.

Ok, checked the spam. Nothing. Did you spell it right? jacques@mattheij.com

~~~
cushychicken
This apparently got stuck in my "Outbox" folder, so it never got sent. I'll
pass it along tonight - this is turning into one of those workdays that became
really busy all of a sudden.

------
exabrial
Haha... I have that _exact_ pedal on my board. Overall, not bad if you want
something cheap... Couple of complaints: Things get muddy fast, you really
have to pair it with a compressor to control your input volume for things to
be any good. Next, there's a massive volume difference between the hot and
warm modes. You can't flip between them without need to adjust the volume
knob. Finally, there's a distinct lack of bass in the "hot" mode. Other than
that, it's not terrible, just don't expect a ton and it's not too bad!

~~~
ricardobeat
Does the original have the same issues?

~~~
exabrial
Not exactly... It might be my hum buckers causing the muddy sounds well then
volume gets too hot. I don't have a TS808 I can compare apples to apples with.

The volume change problem and the lack of bass aren't problems for the TS808
because it was hardwired for the "warm" mode with no selector switch. Google
is telling me the Boss BD2 doesn't have the toggle switch either.

------
valdiorn
That actually looks really well made for a Chinese clone. I know the no-SMD
and no-switches-on-the-board zealots won't agree, but the design is clean and
solid. I was expecting a rats nest.

Also, I used these sources for my work on a digital emulation of the device:

[http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/tstech/tsxtech.htm](http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/tstech/tsxtech.htm)
[http://www.bteaudio.com/articles/TSS/TSS.html](http://www.bteaudio.com/articles/TSS/TSS.html)

~~~
cushychicken
Geofex was a huge inspiration for my first article on the TS808.

Have you seen Electrosmash's rundown? That's some next level guitar pedal
analysis. [http://www.electrosmash.com/tube-screamer-
analysis](http://www.electrosmash.com/tube-screamer-analysis)

------
userbinator
The biggest unanswered question is how does it sound?

You should resize the pictures before uploading - I was wondering why they
took so long to download, and realised each one was >4MB! The full-resolution
version is not that much clearer, they are 15MP but look as though there was a
watercolour-like effect applied to them.

~~~
Domenic_S
The telltale sign of a small sensor. A great example of how a larger file (in
MPs) can look worse - taken on even a 10mp DSLR the pic would look
substantially better.

EXIF says it was taken by a Galaxy S5.

~~~
StavrosK
A small sensor and not enough light hitting it.

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noonespecial
Should we even call these "knockoffs" anymore. By now, the tubescreamer
circuit is practically mythological in guitar hacker circles. There are
thousands of builds from one-off basement projects to commercial runs like
this. It's more like a retelling of a favorite story.

------
Domenic_S
My favorite part:

> _Just for completeness 's sake, I included a quick ohm out of the_ [EOL]

It's like an existential statement of some kind.

~~~
cushychicken
That's what I get for pushing these out at half past midnight. Even thought it
made for a really nice meta statement, I updated the post to finish my
thought.

Thanks for pointing it out. :)

------
dharma1
Nice, hadn't heard of Donner before.

I've got a bunch of chinese pedals (by Mooer, Joyo, Moen) based on Boss etc
classic pedals of yesteryear - they have been solid performers so far.

Wish the Chinese brands got into repro analog synths next :)

~~~
cushychicken
As it turns out, Joyo and Mooer are produced by the same company as Donner.

I think the Joyo Tremolo is going to be my next subject for experimental
surgery. [https://www.geartree.com/p/joyo-jf-09-tremolo-effect-
pedal-u...](https://www.geartree.com/p/joyo-jf-09-tremolo-effect-pedal-us-
dealer?gclid=Cj0KEQiA7rmzBRDezri2r6bz1qYBEiQAg-
YEtqcGxJKPWXR6tcOcGEO2nZDLJ59NPo4j0-s6Je8uS8caApCx8P8HAQ)

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johnatwork
Is this one sold by Monoprice similar/same as well?

[https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=115&cp_id=11501&cs_id...](https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=115&cp_id=11501&cs_id=1150108&p_id=611600&seq=1&format=2)

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creeble
>...just some simple emitter followers with half-rail bias to maximize dynamic
range of the buffer, and cap isolation to stop any nasty clicking or popping
from circuit switching.

Yeah, I don't think that's what the caps are for...

~~~
cushychicken
On the input side? Absolutely! That 2.2M/330nF combo is a really low value
highpass filter to keep any DC adjustment transients from a level mismatch out
of the audio chain, which would result in one of those nasty loud "pops" you
hear when you unplug a circuit. It's also serving to set the DC bias point of
the input transistor without loading it down from the 2.2M pulldown.

~~~
creeble
On the latter part we agree.

~~~
cushychicken
Well, what am I missing here? Don't leave me in suspense! :)

------
tomcam
Weirdly, he does not compare its sound to that of the cloned pedal her refers
to (Tube Screamer and its close relatives).

