The CJOD question...

[JofZ]

I have a question.
Why are you convinced that the CJOD is indeed based on a DOD pedal? It's my job to be sceptical about these things, so I wonder if that's just an opinion or you have secret infos to back it up. This is a long and convoluted story which has really turned alot of heads, so I'd really like to hear the straight dope from someone in the know who's not going to lie about it (like everyone else who's bullshitted about that stupid box).
And why the hell won't Clay just come clean about it? He's got absolutely nothing to lose.
The reason why I care about this personally is because at least one joker is already trying to profit from the mystery and I don't like seeing people get scammed in such an obvious way.


Soulsonic asked the above!

The Cjod as everyone knows is a mystical, secret pedal that was produced 3 years ago for Tomo Fujita. Clay is actually a nice guy and his internet posts are probably due to overwhelming demand for a product he never intended to make. So here is the story as I know it.

Clay was asked by Tomo to make a pedal for his rig that would allow him to drop several pedals off his board. He travels a ton and needed to ease his pain, literally in the load he carried. Tomo and Clay went to a Tonefest. Clay had some pedals, and Tomo really liked them. Tomo took a couple and suggested some tweaks. This is critical as this is the first change to the CJOD. Tomo has 2 and they sound different! His baby face CJOD and Doll face CJOD are indeed different in tone.
Lets talk about Tomo's tone for a second. Tomo is a fantastic blues, jazz player. He can do SRV like nobody else! His use of a TS is essential in his tone! (this is my opinion, Tomo might disagree). Tomo can play a a total piece of shit and make it sound amazing, so keep in mind the pedal is all mystic and fantastic, but all we heard in the beginning was TOMO!!!!!
Fast forward.....
People come back from tonefest and all they talk about was Tomo's tone and those Clay pedals. Clay gets talked into making them for those who were there. 50 people signed up and 50 people received them.
So what is the CJOD? I have had several go through my hands. I really don't want to name the person who disclosed what it was. It doesn't matter. All you need to know is he is highly respected, a pedal builder with a known company and a good friend of Clay's. He helped Clay tweak everything! This is a fact.
Fast forward another year.....
This same buddy starts getting calls, hey my CJOD is worth 1k. Blah, blah, blah..... So another customer calls him and asks him if he wants to buy one. He does for dirt cheap. He puts it on ebay and sure as shit he gets 1200 bucks for it. This pissed my buddy off, after all he knew the circuit and the paint job in our opinion was the reason it was selling for huge numbers. So we started talking.
I told him the pedal had a strange noise when you turned the vol knob, almost like an old treble boost. My buddy would just laugh... I told him there were preset clicks in the knobs at 12 o'clock and that with one type of amp it was fantastic, yet with another it was muddy and worthless. He said right then and there, look dude, this pedal is just a tweaked DOD pedal. Its not anything new, its not anything special. It was never intended to be, it was a happy accident and Clay isn't making them anymore because its not something he thinks he should do.

If you sit back and think about this entire story with common sense you would start to come to some conclusions.
1. Clay's pedal is highly profitable, why would he not continue to make it when he can get 1k each?
2. I know of several cases where he was sent huge checks to make them and he said yes, and then changed his mind.
3. there are only 50 and if you listen to real clips of it, is it anything special?
4. Could it be true its just a tweaked DOD pedal, and not anything special?
5. Marketing, marketing, marketing. My Landgraffs sound better because they look pretty.

Here is a bet I am willing to make!

Take any pedal, I do not care what it is. Put it in a pretty box and call it something new. Give 12 away to buddies and then 1 on ebay. Haver one buddy put a review on Gear Page.
With in weeks I am willing to wager your pedal will sell for big bucks from the pretty paint job, not because how it sounds. People want things that are collectable! Builders like Bjorn and Landgraff figured it out and demand more money for an equal product. Think about it, how many over drives does some one need? Ah but if you can get a green one, a yellow one, a blue one, you have to have them all!

So at the end of the day, Clay Jones get the douche bag award not for being a dick on forums, but for not making a pedal that had a higher ROI then anything else in guitar history except for the real 59 LP. Clay is a moron! Plain and simple.

You can make them clones all you want, it will never be black, yellow and have his name on it

[soulsonic]

You're totally right-on about Tomo's great playing being the main selling point for those pedals. Alot of bedroom players maybe don't realize that a fantastic player can sound amazing through just about any gear.
What really burns me about this whole stupid CJOD drama is that Clay has never admitted officially what the circuit is. That keeps the mystery going, and leaves it open for shysters like BlackmarketFX to push supposed "clones" of the CJOD without having to substantiate any proof. I could seriously take any piece of shit overdrive circuit, put a bunch of goop on it, and claim it's a CJOD clone. No one could prove me wrong because no one knows absolutely for sure what the circuit is except for Clay. The only way you could do it honestly and keep the "secret" is to have Clay give you the secret schematic and give his official "seal of authenticity" to prove it really is a clone.

What a minute.... is THAT what he's holding out on? Is he waiting for Dunlop to hand him a pile of cash for the rights to the secret and his name? Silly, silly, silly!

[modman]

What is Doug Hammond's relation to Bob Burt - Clay Jones - Angelmusic - ...?
He's been feeding the CJOD = DOD compressor myth for years, it was a great joke as long as it lasted, because a compressor does exactly the opposite of a distortion box.

Doug knows this very well...

[Lrgrbt]

What is Doug Hammond's relation to Bob Burt - Clay Jones - Angelmusic - ...?
He's been feeding the CJOD = DOD compressor myth for years, it was a great joke as long as it lasted, because a compressor does exactly the opposite of a distortion box.

Doug knows this very well...


Clay is good friends with Doug. Clay and I went to a tonefest in Clearwater where he introduced me to Doug (who is a very nice & Smart man). That is it.. palin and simple. Doug probably knows the truth about the CJOD because Clay holds him in very high regard and I know they share knowledge all the time. As I stated before, back when Clay and I were on very good terms he told me, and showed me the DOD he developed the CJOD from. No one seems to want to believe me but that is fine. I was there nearly every weekend, hanging in his garage playing and listening to all the things he was cooking up.

In regards to the compressor - Distortion thing, Clay told me he was trying to separate the compressor circuit of the Attacker 54 because it sounded different and he wanted to map it out. When he bread boarded it (thinking the circuit was 100% compressor) he made a discovery. It had distortion characteristics which he then tweeked. I was the first person to play the creation and told him it sounded good. He worked on it more to clean it up and made a portable unit. Around that time is when he told me he wanted to build pedals and i suggested he send one to Tomo and introduced them. The rest is history as they say.

Clay has his reasons for not coming clean and just telling the truth and any thing less than his personal disclosure is pretty much speculation... Other than the fact I KNOW the pedal (one of the 50) has been de gooped and reversed. It proves the point that Jofz made in regards to it's origin. People can take it or leave it. Clay loves to laugh at all of us I can assure you of that. Like the cat playing with the injured mouse.

BB

[Greg_G]

...., because a compressor does exactly the opposite of a distortion box.


How so modman ?

A friend of mine recently explained to me how closely related to a compressor the Tubescreamer circuit is.
He then knocked up a working compressor from a slightly modified TS layout to prove the point.

[Skreddy]

I think the point was that the DOD Attacker is both a compressor and an overdrive. The compressor part of the circuit is more than likely not the part which became the CJOD. More than likely the CJOD would immediately be recognized as simply a variant of the tried and true TS type circuit, no doubt with some tweaks and/or mods. This being the case would be just too much of a let-down for most people; and so the pursuit must go on for something else, something magical. Now I've heard it said the DOD Attacker, some claim it's just a TS variant, and another has said Dano Black Coffee is the place to look. :confused: And yes, it is kinda funny that this "mystery" has gone for so long. Even the horse's mouth now seems an unreliable source. That's just good internet drama. :cool:

And, yes; any amplifier with diodes in the feedback loop is technically a compressor. Depending on how you set it up, it can be a distortion box or a limiter, too.

[ClinchFX]

The DOD FX54 schematic is available to view in various places on internet. On the version I have seen, you need no electronics expertise to see that it has a compressor section and a distortion section, because it is spelt out in words on the schematic. Looking at the distortion section, it doesn't take a lot of electronics expertise to recognise the same basic "diodes in the negative feedback path" circuit as in a TS.

Yes, there are a couple of minor differences. There is a fixed resistor in place of the drive or gain pot, and drive is controlled by a pot at the input. The diode string arrangement is a little unusual, but effectively performs the same function as in any other TS tweak.

So, if you were trying to remove the the compressor section from the distortion section, you would end up with a tweaked TS clone.

I don't see why it all has to become such a great mystery.

BTW, an Op-Amp configured for high gain and with diodes in the feedback loop is effectively a very fast and very savage peak limiter, which is a type of compressor.

Peter.

[ClinchFX]

Sorry Marc, the forum didn't warn me that you had posted while I was trying to figure out how to say the same thing.

We seem to agree anyway.

Peter.

[Skreddy]

:cool:

Ooh; I just looked that schematic up, and the distortion, level, and tone sections look like they could actually be pretty damn corksniffy. The only question that remains in my mind is exactly what parts were left out and how exactly the input buffering would be handled (a matter of personal taste and preference, not a technical issue, per se).

[ClinchFX]

I like the way the diode string is divided into 2 sections with a resistor (R41) across the first section. I wonder if it's an attempt to soften the onset of gain reduction. None of my pedals are based on the TS or any other pedal, but I'm tempted to have a play with this, just to see if it makes any difference, just for my own satisfaction.

[Greg_G]

Thanks for the technical explanation Marc and Peter.
It puts a whole new slant on the "is it a compressor or a TS derivative" question for the less technically minded here...

[Skreddy]

For sure. There are tons of things you can do with feedback/clipping sections that do in fact very powerful things or very subtle things. Think about how the voltage will drop across the resistor and how it will drop across the diodes. Now overlay those two angles/curves over each other. Now add in...--wait! WTF? No capacitor in this feedback loop? No wonder the CJOD has that harsh bit of fizziness I normally wouldn't associate with a corksniffer OD... :eek:

[ClinchFX]

Now add in...--wait! WTF? No capacitor in this feedback loop? No wonder the CJOD has that harsh bit of fizziness I normally wouldn't associate with a corksniffer OD... :eek:

We don't seem to have a smilie for ROFL. Thanks Marc.

It's Saturday here and, even though it's lunch time, I'm still waking up. I just noticed that it's configured as an inverting Op-Amp, so it would definitely need an input buffer. Also the distortion control works on both input level and negative feedback. Sometimes I'm wrong:o

None of this changes the fact that it's still an Op-Amp with diodes in the negative feedback network, as in a TS.

[Skreddy]

Yeah, but unlike a TS, notice there's no tone shaping whatsoever going on in the distortion section--no lowpass, no highpass, no nothing. Just a very wide range of distortion levels with what looks like it should be plenty subtle and probably touch-sensitive in most settings.

Then the level control comes next, followed by a very different tone section, which is nothing like the TS trebleboost/cut opamp tone control.

All in all, I'd say that the resemblance to a TS is pretty much gone.

[ClinchFX]

The tone control is a passive treble boost/cut, which will probably cause less phase shift than the active TS control, and may sound a little different.

In my mind the heart of the TS and its many clones is the "diodes in the negative feedback path" configuration. The type and number of diodes, along with tone shaping components are the things that people change to achieve their trademark tone. To me, in spite of the differences, this is still a TS relative, but I'm not about to throw a hissy fit if anyone disagrees.

Peter.

[soulsonic]

Like Marc was suggesting, I don't think the overdrive section of the Attacker compares in any way to that of a Tubescreamer. The only thing those two circuits have in common that they use an opamp and diodes. By that logic, we could say that a Tubescreamer and a Boss HM-2 are related.
People seem to be overlooking that fact that the Attacker's overdrive circuit is intended to be driven by the compressor.
The gutshot we have of a CJOD doesn't bear even a passing resemblance to anything in an Attacker, but it matches almost perfectly with what you'd expect to see in a Tubescreamer. And it also matches almost exactly with an ungooped gutshot of an overdrive Clay built for Bob Burt which is also clearly a Tubescreamer.
So - if he did use an Attacker derivate, it must have only been for that one different one he made for Tomo and that was it - the rest are all TS clones.

[Skreddy]

I've got a Dano Black Coffee on its way from MF. It may contain some clues as to how that TS circuit can be made to get that liquid feedback quality. ??? More news as it develops.

[JofZ]

My source, Skreddy and Bob are all saying the same thing so there has to be something to it. Sometimes the simple answers are the ones that become the hardest to accept, especially as time goes by.
Hopefully my source pops on here and states what he knows, Bob knows him well :D He did repeat the circuit is the DOD which is a comp and overdrive pedal. It is the reason why we hear so much noise in the circuit as Skreddy pointed out.
To end this once and for all we should buy the next one on Ebay and reverse engineer it.
From my clips on Youtube, you can clearly hear its not a TS.

[Skreddy]

My source, Skreddy and Bob are all saying the same thing so there has to be something to it. Sometimes the simple answers are the ones that become the hardest to accept, especially as time goes by.
Hopefully my source pops on here and states what he knows, Bob knows him well :D He did repeat the circuit is the DOD which is a comp and overdrive pedal. It is the reason why we hear so much noise in the circuit as Skreddy pointed out.
To end this once and for all we should buy the next one on Ebay and reverse engineer it.
From my clips on Youtube, you can clearly hear its not a TS.

Hard to say for sure if they were all the same thing. The one that A.G. at FSB.o has pictured, he claims it can only be something that uses the same layout as the TS. I don't honestly care enough about it to have bothered tracing it out and putting it into a CAD system to double check his conclusion. But for the sake of the mystery, I may just go ahead and see what's going on and more importantly, if I can replicate the coolness of the CJOD's behavior while avoiding its downfalls. ???

[analogpoopoo]

That keeps the mystery going, and leaves it open for shysters like BlackmarketFX to push supposed "clones" of the CJOD without having to substantiate any proof.

Building some random overdrive and selling it as a CJOD clone would be unethical. I understand that for people who do not consider ethical behavior to be a part of their personality, they would have a hard time trusting that anyone else would conduct themselves this way. I however would not feel comfortable building and accepting money for something which claims to be something it is not. At this point attempting to substantiate my claims would be both futile and counterproductive to my goals as you should know.

I could seriously take any piece of shit overdrive circuit, put a bunch of goop on it, and claim it's a CJOD clone. No one could prove me wrong because no one knows absolutely for sure what the circuit is except for Clay.

I would suggest you try it. You may find it is not so easy as it is in your head. Good luck.

[Greg_G]

Building some random overdrive and selling it as a CJOD clone would be unethical. I understand that for people who do not consider ethical behavior to be a part of their personality, they would have a hard time trusting that anyone else would conduct themselves this way. I however would not feel comfortable building and accepting money for something which claims to be something it is not. At this point attempting to substantiate my claims would be both futile and counterproductive to my goals as you should know.



I would suggest you try it. You may find it is not so easy as it is in your head. Good luck.

analogpoopoo... I assume from your post that you are building the CJOD clones ?

All you have to do to prove to everyone that your clone is really based on a CJOD, is to show some evidence that you actually de-gooped and traced a CJOD.
That's not too hard is it ?

What would be futile or counterproductive about providing some proof ?...

[soulsonic]

We know for sure now; it's a Landgraff-style Tube Screamer with a Burr Brown opamp and LED clippers.
Degooped, photographed, and proven.
Full schematic to be posted on my site within the next few hours.

[analogpoopoo]

We know for sure now; it's a Landgraff-style Tube Screamer with a Burr Brown opamp and LED clippers.
Degooped, photographed, and proven.
Full schematic to be posted on my site within the next few hours.

Though you seem to think highly of yourself and your level of knowledge there is more to the BMOD than meets the eye. BTW, thanks for publicly admitting you are a hacker and posting my personal photography. I have copies of your sites source files, screen grabs and eye witnesses. I have a meeting with my lawyer next week and will add this to the agenda. Sounds like criminally punishable behavior to me.

[soulsonic]

I saw no copyright notice on your photos - if they even ARE your photos, "analogpoopoo". Maybe you should read the Photobucket terms of service sometime - if you were in any way concerned about the copyright of those photos, you wouldn't have posted them up in a PUBLIC folder for all to see (and download!). You know damn well, my use of the term "hack" is clearly a joke, no one needs to hack anything to see the contents of a public Photobucket folder.
I also very clearly wrote at the end of the article that several images are used without permission and that if any copyright holder wishes me to remove them, then I shall with no protest. I have already edited content of the article to comply with the wishes of one party involved.

But hey, an anonymous threat post on a forum does absolutely nothing to prove your ownership of those photos, so until your lawyer sends me a letter saying, "Please remove my client's copyrighted material from your site", I'm not doing anything. If you actually want to try and prosecute me for "stealing" your photos, the burden of proof is upon YOU to prove you even own them.

Oh, and be sure and sue Fred Briggs too, since he's also clearly using at least one of your photos here: http://revolutiondeux.blogspot.com/
Of course, we know he's not the only one to have posted the photos around... your lawyer is going to be busy. I guess that's what you meant by "add to the agenda".

Lawyers are expensive. How about you just write me a nice email saying, "Hello, my name is xxxxxx xxxxxxx. I am the owner of the photos of the Clay Jones Overdrive you have posted up on your weblog. I hereby refuse permission for you to publish them. Please remove them from your site."
That would be all it would take to have me remove them from the page, and it wouldn't cost you a dime.

[analogpoopoo]

I saw no copyright notice on your photos - if they even ARE your photos, "analogpoopoo". Maybe you should read the Photobucket terms of service sometime - if you were in any way concerned about the copyright of those photos, you wouldn't have posted them up in a PUBLIC folder for all to see (and download!). You know damn well, my use of the term "hack" is clearly a joke, no one needs to hack anything to see the contents of a public Photobucket folder.
I also very clearly wrote at the end of the article that several images are used without permission and that if any copyright holder wishes me to remove them, then I shall with no protest. I have already edited content of the article to comply with the wishes of one party involved.

But hey, an anonymous threat post on a forum does absolutely nothing to prove your ownership of those photos, so until your lawyer sends me a letter saying, "Please remove my client's copyrighted material from your site", I'm not doing anything. If you actually want to try and prosecute me for "stealing" your photos, the burden of proof is upon YOU to prove you even own them.

Oh, and be sure and sue Fred Briggs too, since he's also clearly using at least one of your photos here: http://revolutiondeux.blogspot.com/
Of course, we know he's not the only one to have posted the photos around... your lawyer is going to be busy. I guess that's what you meant by "add to the agenda".

Lawyers are expensive. How about you just write me a nice email saying, "Hello, my name is xxxxxx xxxxxxx. I am the owner of the photos of the Clay Jones Overdrive you have posted up on your weblog. I hereby refuse permission for you to publish them. Please remove them from your site."
That would be all it would take to have me remove them from the page, and it wouldn't cost you a dime.

I don't think you get it. I can prove the photos are mine and for each person who publishes them without my permission I can make money from them. That money will pay for my lawyers filing fees, not to mention the fact that he is now on retainer since he negotiated my new position. It doesn't absolve you of infringement to take them down, the fact that you went into my personal account and posted them is infringement and I have proof of that. Since you are the one who admittedly took them and distributed them you are more liable and likely the only one I will pursue even if I loose money, I've got plenty of it from the BMOD sales and my plan was just to give it to charity anyway.

As for writing you a nice little email, I don't generally ask thieves to please give me back my things. You are making choices which are clearly unethical, and you will pay for that one way or another.

[analogpoopoo]

Is DaimlerChrysler a German company?

[noelgrassy]

Darn right, and non Germans cannot, by law, own a controlling share in a German held corporation. On the surface though, Chryslers have never looked better than most of their current crop. Strike that. IMOThe sleds of the 1940's and late 1930's will never be touched. This is a forum for discussing FX is it not? One party here seems to be doing everything, but.:rolleyes:





http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r222/noelgrassy/ChimpvonSimian_8eyes100X100ZanteMis.jpg

[soulsonic]

FYI guys, Daimler no longer owns Chrysler. They sold it off nearly a year ago.

[admin]

Analogpoopoo please do not make threats to members! The Guitar Hub believes in FREEDOM of Speech, but not abuse!

I want to point out that we are witnessing an argument over photographs here. Lets all calm down a bit and think about the bigger picture!

There will be no lawsuit over photos, there will be no more arguing over the posting of said photos! There will be no more insulting of members-Period! Next one to do it gets an infraction!

Please continue on like the gentlemen you can be!

Thank you,
The Guitar Hub

[Jazzandmetal?]

I got BMOD #10 in the mail today. Took 3 weeks. The build quality of the pedal is top notch. Great paint job and looks great on the inside. Mine is gooped, but not really worried about that. It sounds pretty damn good. Has a very smooth and clear sound. Not noisy at all. I can see how it sounds tube screamerish. Going on SOUND and not schematics. But it has a lot more than you basic TS. More gain. Just from listening to it and what my ears here, I would say that you could get close to the sound of this pedal with a LDO. I know that some have posted that it IS an LDO, but the sound is a little smoother without the Hi Fi mids that the LDO has to my ears. Anyways, it is a great sounding pedal. I am going to try it through some more amps at work tomorrow.

I know some people are put off by the price and the marketing tactic of the builder and I was skeptical to send him money as well. Especially due to the $150.00 non-refundable clause. But all in all, it is a good pedal. To my ears much better than some other $300 pedals out there. If you are going to buy a pedal in this range that is based on a TS, you really should think about this one. Unless you can a real CJOD for $300. OR of course you can build your own based on all the info at FSB.ORG if you are able to for cheaper. But the workmanship in this pedal is up there with the best I have seen in the pedals I have owned.

I copied the above from my post on TGP so I didn't have to re-type. It is only my second post here so I hope it is in the right place. I hope nobody views this as spam as it is not. Just trying to give my opinion on this pedal. I know that the "circuit" guys think it sucks and whatever, but I am just going off of my ears.:cool:

And as far as what it is based off of, to my ears. I vote TS.

[analogpoopoo]

Analogpoopoo please do not make threats to members! The Guitar Hub believes in FREEDOM of Speech, but not abuse!

I want to point out that we are witnessing an argument over photographs here. Lets all calm down a bit and think about the bigger picture!

There will be no lawsuit over photos, there will be no more arguing over the posting of said photos! There will be no more insulting of members-Period! Next one to do it gets an infraction!

Please continue on like the gentlemen you can be!

Thank you,
The Guitar Hub

It seems VERY strange to me that I deleted my threatening post directly after posting it, then find out you have reposted it and wrote that it is not acceptable? Care to explain that?

BTW if you want to terminate my membership that is quite fine with me.