Overdrive circuit clips too much

[obogz]

Hello!
I bult this overdrive recently
DRAGONFLY VALENTINE OVERDRIVE
and connected it on-board my guitar. I placed it between the pick up selector and the volume pot. The wiring and everything is good the only problem I have is that the dam thing clips too much (something goes in saturation) when I'm playing power chords or hitting the low(thick) strings, its sounds horrible. I'm kind of a noob on modifying effects and I am not shure what to do... So please help me.
Should I put before the circuit a simple RC bass cut filter that will reduce some of the bass or should I replace the 180K resistor whit a lower value? Or should I star looking for a better small overdrive like this one, and if so please give me some suggestions.
Thank you very much! Good day!
PS I forgot to mention that I replaced NTE458 whit a 2N5457 because I couldn't find it on the market were I live. And that I use humucker pickups

[Robert M. Martinelli]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

Maybe I'm wrong, and, if so bear with me, you stated you used a 2N5457 as a sub of a NTE458. Have you checked their pinout? the NTE 458 pinout is D-G-S from left to right ( with the flat side up and the pins towards you ) while the 2N5457 pinout is D-S-G from left to right ( with the flat side up and the pins towards you ). Also, be aware that the 5457 is a general purpose N-FET and it's not suitable for low noise applications ( e.g. the second stage of a preamp ).

An ( European ) BC264L might fit the bill.

Be also aware that your humbuckers could throw out several hundred millivolts PP, so they're likely to saturate the input stage of your circuit. The first transistor is biased very low, so it has a very low headroom IMHO ( the input signal level before it starts to clip/distort ). I think this is done by purpose to work in the least linear portion of the transfer curves and achieve an "early" distortion.

As to your advice request about other overdrives, it depends on what you're after, if you dig a clean boost or an "overdriven" sound or a distorted ( clipped ) one... FWIW I think that "clean" boosters are the best preamps to conceal inside a guitar. Time ago I have built a very clean and linear booster using metal film resistors and an op-amp ( NE5534 ). The gain was adjustable from 0 to +20 Db ( ten times ), and the thing also had a very low noise.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Bob

[Mark Hammer]

It's the wrong position for the circuit. You need some means of attenuating the input signal to control the clipping, and sticking it between the pickups and volume negates that.