does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

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dylan
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does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by dylan »

tried checking if my hotcake has the lm308 but its hidden by epoxy. its a recent one with the two dip switches.

do they all have the lm308 ?

thxinadv:)
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does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by TmcB »

I think most have the lm741 or tl071. Haven't heard of them using the lm308 although those are all single opamp chips

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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by dylan »

looks like interweb steered me wrong. hotcake is the most transparent of my dirt boxes but theres something really horrible going on in the top frequencies. the tonesuck from my power soak usually smooths the treble out

guess ill have to find a lm308 and put it in. hmmm, i just bought an eno rat...

thx for the info.


**edit** - $16 at jaycar. should i expect it to be a direct swapout?
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

Do you have it set to Bluesberry mode? That should smooth out the treble. HC's do have plenty of top end bite but it shouldn't be harsh. Try it with the presence all the way down . . . I think on the HC, presence down is the default setting.

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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by dylan »

yep, bluesberry and bass boost mode are on. turning the presence down makes it worse, because it reduces the good sounding treble without reducing the enharmonic crackling at the very top frequencies, making them more obvious.

ive got my amp severely bright capped so its probably more trebly than normal.

a mate who recently bought a very bright vox amp had the same problem with his hotcake, nasty high frequency scritch sounds, but once the amp started to break in the treble reduced enough that the hotcake sounded good. i recently put a celestion gold in that will probably never actually get broken in because i never play outside of the living room anymore. that wont be helping with harshness.

the interwebs tell me that the hotcake and the rat are the only two dirt boxes that get all their distortion by thrashing an opamp - no clipping diodes. since opamps are not intended to be pushed into distortion, only really crap ones with very low slew rates that are unable to pass a square wave are suitable for dirt.

but this is the same interweb that told me hotcakes have lm308's :wtf:

theres at least one person on tagboardeffects who built a hotcake with a lm308, so it will be an interesting project to put one in mine.
Last edited by dylan on Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by TmcB »

dylan wrote:looks like interweb steered me wrong. hotcake is the most transparent of my dirt boxes but theres something really horrible going on in the top frequencies. the tonesuck from my power soak usually smooths the treble out

guess ill have to find a lm308 and put it in. hmmm, i just bought an eno rat...

thx for the info.


**edit** - $16 at jaycar. should i expect it to be a direct swapout?
Sorta, it'll need a a compensation cap for an LM308.

I'm not convinced that the change will help...
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by dylan »

ahh - the cap between pin 1 and 8

thanks for the help.
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by TmcB »

That's the one. The other chips don't need it.

I'd have a look at some single opamp chips that aren't $16 - the jaycar ones are terrible. Expensive and one actually failed on me.
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by fuzziebro »

TmcB wrote:I think most have the lm741 or tl071. Haven't heard of them using the lm308 although those are all single opamp chips
Yep app the old 2 knob ones have the 741...

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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by fuzziebro »

TmcB wrote:That's the one. The other chips don't need it.

I'd have a look at some single opamp chips that aren't $16 - the jaycar ones are terrible. Expensive and one actually failed on me.
Jaycar pisses me off... you pay twice as much for sub standard products to support dim-witted salespeople who in the main couldnt care less about their jobs...

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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by jeremyb »

I've bought a fair few bits off here: http://nz.rs-online.com/web/ free next day shipping and massive selection == win!!
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by druz15 »

tl741 usually, I built a hotcake with one and it sounds great. tl742 in the prune n custard
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by dylan »

looks like i should just leave my hotcake alone. i would have no problems swapping the opamps, but would probably break it while removing the goop.

hotcake is my most transparent dirt box, but its by no means the smoothest. my sweet honey clone is the smoothest, thats red led clipping.

thanks once again for all the info.
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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by Jops »

I found the HC needs to be run loud. Real loud. It sounds like ass at anything less.

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Re: does every Hotcake have the lm308 chip?

Post by dylan »

the distortion i get from my amp is 10x better sounding than any stomp box ive tried, but since its a 5w with one pre and one power valve, it has a limit on how much gain i can get before it sounds terrible.

i spose the logical thing to do would be to buy an amp thats got say 3 stages of switchable preamp gain before the power amp. and is switchable to a few watts. and has a quality paralell effects loop for delay.

time stop spending on stomp boxes and start saving for a better amp.

or do the complete opposite and start buying dirt boxes that have valves in and run them at a good voltage.
:evil: Mids so haunting that demons took over my living room and now my guitar glows! :evil:

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