Saw this on the Aion FX tracing journal today – what a monster.  The original designer of the Nobels ODR released this through his own company, Nordland.  It’s an updated ODR with bells and whistles.

The ODR Special is one of my favourite overdrives; I’ve just never done a layout for it.  Check out the great story on the development of it on Nordland Electronics.  There’s also the story of the ODR as well – what helpful guy providing all of this information publicly.

The traced schematic is here.  The Aion version simplified the power supply and effect on LED, as it’s next level on the original – I’ve never seen so much detail for a LED indicator.

This is a pretty big board, so maybe buy one from Aion.   

NORDLAND ODR-C CUSTOM OVERDRIVE – VERO LAYOUT (AION FX VERSION)

I made a minor change, by adding a second bias voltage supply – a few more parts, but I thought it kept the board neater.

I’ve not built this just yet, I’ve checked it a couple of times, so hopefully, I have not missed anything.

It probably could have been a bit smaller, but the 1u film caps tend to take up a bit of space.  I also like some room to work with on a board – I hate crowded capacitors.  With six knobs, it will end up in a larger box anyway – Hammond 1590BB as a minimum, maybe even a 1590XX.