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I've had the strangest phenomenon lately...

Builds pedal for self: works great
Builds pedal as gift for friend: works great
Builds pedal for someone paying money for it: something breaks/malfunctions within a month

SERIOUSLY. And I put considerably more care into ones that I know are being sold instead of kept or given away.

Got me all like 

Ya'll seen these yet?

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2015/01/29/korg-noritake-introduce-futuristic-nutube-vacuum-tubes

Can't exactly ascertain the size of the thing, but the bit about power consumption suggests that these could be pretty pedal-friendly.

Something epic happened yesterday.



Had the pleasure of meeting this fine fellow, our beloved midwayfair, and enjoying some tasty libations with him prior to a show in Baltimore last night. I am pleased to report that he is as kind and endearingly snarky in person as he is on the forum and was a very gracious host while I was in town. We discussed life, music, pedals, beer, badly behaving band members, and all sorts of other nonsense.

It was a lovely reminder of how much I appreciate this fine forum and the people in it.

This one's been sitting on the bench quite a while, and I finally got around to boxing it up a couple months ago. Just now getting around to photographing it and writing a report. This was built on one of the 1.4 Low Profile Doppelganger boards from alanp.

I boxed it into a 1590BB Tall so that I could use top mounted jacks, and used shielded wiring throughout after reading about ticking problems with others. Despite my best efforts, I ended up with ticking in this build. I tried swapping opamps, messing with lead dress, etc. and it was persistent on all but the highest speed settings while in Dual LFO mode. Single LFO mode is fine and actually sounds fantastic. Despite the ticking issue, this thing has kicked my Stage Fright off the board for the time being. It's such a great sound - deep, wobbly, vibey... so good. I did use a 2kb pot on one of the Span controls - the low, I think - for deeper response.

TL;DR version: If you're a fan of phasers, you need a Doppelganger in your arsenal. This thing is a blast.

Ok... FINALLY got around to populating this board. I know that the rest of you guys are on version 2.8 or something like that now.... but I just couldn't let this thing sit around unbuilt.

As I feared, I'm getting the dreaded ticking problem. Just curious if anyone out there figured out a workaround for it. Some pertinent information:

- Used shielded wiring on ins/outs and to/from board.
- No part subs to begin with.
- I swapped IC3 from a TL074 to an LM324 and this actually decreased the volume of the ticking slightly.
- The ticking seems directly linked to the "Rate" control on the HF band. When the rate is set to max, there is no tick... only from 0-99%.
- I used waterclear LEDs for the rate indicators, not diffused, if this matters at all.
- I used green diffused LEDs and the SmallBear LDR's (same as alanp used) for the LED/LDR combos.
- My board is purple, which leads me to believe it was an early run. Not sure if this matters.
- Running after a buffered pedal made no difference.

Thoughts from the guys who've built this thing?

Can't Get Enough of That Wonderful Duff!™

The Duff Drive is a Cornish SS-2 overdrive built on the Black Horse Effects "English Sustain" pcb that I picked up a while ago and never got around to building. With my Matchless in particular, I tend to gravitate towards ODs and fuzzes with a good amount of bass response; lately, I've been using my JMK Moon Lander build as an always-on pedal with playing my Tele through that amp, as it fills out the lows absolutely beautifully. Thus, when I read that some people found the SS-2 to be a bit bassy, I had a feeling that I would probably like it a lot. 

I built the project with no part substitutions and kept the buffered bypass for the sake of accuracy. The one part I did experiment with was the diodes; to my ears, they have a pretty drastic effect on the character of the breakup and the overall EQ of the pedal itself. I tried the following pairs:

D9K - A little brighter than I liked, but a strong choice overall. Bass response sat quite nicely.

OA126 - I really expected to like these the best, as they're my diode of choice in Klone builds. Nevertheless, they made the pedal waaaaaay too bassy. They actually seemed to attenuate the high end a bit as well, which I didn't particularly like.

AN307 - These were just right. Had roughly the same amount of bass as the D9Ks, but sweeter highs overall. Small Bear currently has quite a few of these, and I think they sound quite nice.

I swapped between the D9Ks and the AN307s three or four times before committing - it was that close. Ear fatigue may have played a role after a while, but I really was happy with the tones I was getting. That being said - if you find this circuit too bassy, a diode swap may make just enough difference to make it play well with your amp.

This thing really does a fine job fattening up single coils. For lack of a better term, the breakup is pretty amp-like... I'm surprised more guys don't go nuts over these. I have a feeling this will spend some time on my gigging board. Looking forward to seeing how well it performs as a solo boost.

Been on the road a good bit this month, so haven't been building much... I've missed you guys.

I've had this one on my shelf since before I moved to Nashville almost year ago. I remember ordering it the day it came out, but never got around to building it up. When I finally did, I had everything except for the 2MB pot. I found some cheap on eBay... and they were delivered to my old address back in East TN a week later and never forwarded to me.

So... I finally picked up one of those pots in my last SmallBear order and finished the thing.

I love it.

I think I love it enough to sell my MIDI MuRF, as I basically use it for the same purpose. I haven't built an effect in a long time that just felt VINTAGE to me like this thing does. It ticks... it's a little noisy... but it's a charming sort of noise. Almost musical. Funky. Can't explain it, but it's stupidly cool.

No part subs, no issues either... except for me trying to fire it up 3 different times without all of the transistors in place (I was excited).

LEDs are, of course, a nice shimmery meth-y blue.

[Dory Delay 2014 Edition + Squishy Tap]

So it's been FOREVER since I posted something. Finally off the road for a couple of weeks. I've had this one sitting on my desk for a while, and finally found time to finish it. I give you...

Dory Delay 2014 Edition + Squishy Tap



I've used the Dory artwork for past delays, and my friends always seem to want them, so I was left Dory-less again after I sold my last one (a Neptune build). This one is a Hamlet build with an additional Taptation daughter board hidden underneath. I decided to make the tap external so that I wouldn't accidentally hit one switch when going for the other.



Hats off to Jon for another fantastic circuit. The voicing is great and I really love how tweakable the repeats are via the tone trimpot. The added buffer/boost circuit is really nice as well - it's likely going to live in the fx loop of my Naylor, so I'll try to report back with how it works there. I did some A/B'ing with the pedal in and out of the chain going into the amp, and found the onboard preamp to be extremely transparent and generally preferable to the dry signal due to the added buffering. I have mine set for the slightest boost over unity.

The only problem I ran into was some ticking that leaked into the signal path, probably due to me having to do longer wire runs to accommodate the top mounted jacks. I replaced the original in/out wires with shielded ones and it cleaned right up.

This one has earned a spot on my main gigging board, pictured below. Thanks again for the great project, guys!

I had to do a super-quick load out after a particular show a few weeks ago and realized it would be pretty convenient to have all my pedalboard connections in one place. Guts-wise, an incredibly boring build... but I am proud of the artwork concept. 

Yeah, I know that using shielded wiring in this was generally unnecessary. It just felt like the right thing to do.

I wrote a blog post today about how to shop for pedals from independent builders. Hoping I didn't ruffle any feathers by doing so, but I do feel like most of the ideas lean towards a "substance over hype" mentality.

Here's a link: http://www.danekinser.com/?p=629

Would love to hear if there are things that you guys think should be added/subtracted.

Edit: Looks like our own Cortexurizer has already seen my post on Facebook and befriended me. I love this community. 

[Supply:]

Howdy friends -

Very excited to finally have my Cardinal put together. However... having trouble getting much depth out of the effect. With the switch up, I can barely get some effect with the depth maxed and the vol/gain fairly high. In the other two modes (center and down) I get little to no effect at all. In those two modes, the pedal squeals like a banshee with the gain much higher than 50%.

The LFO appears to be functioning properly, although the LED never turns fully off, even at max depth.

Here's some voltages taken with switch up and all controls at roughly 50%.

Supply: 8.8V

IC1
1- 2.5V-6V
2- 3.5V-4.5V
3- 3.5V-4.5V
4- 0
5- 3.5V-4.5V
6- 3.5V-4.5V
7- 3.5V-4.5V
8- 8.0V

Q1
D- 7.9V
S- 0.3V
G- 0

Q2
D- 7.2V
S- 0.3V
G- 0

Q3
D- 5.5V
S- 0
G- 0

[The weird part:]

I have a Hughes and Kettner Rotosphere that I love, and I recently put together a remote footswitch so I could leave it back at the amp and run it in the fx loop. The instructions for wiring the footswitch (as found in the manual) are as follows:

"Stereo jack for external Bypass and Slow-Fast switch. (tip = Bypass; ring = Slow-Fast switching)"

So I wired up a box containing two DPDT switches - one that would connect the tip to ground/sleeve, and another that would connect the ring to ground/sleeve.



This worked fine. When I hit the switches, the corresponding LEDs on the unit would activate and the unit responded accordingly. I wondered if I might be able to add indicator LEDs to the box, so I measured the plug coming from the unit and sure enough found some voltage on it. So... I added LEDs like this:



Both LEDs work. When actuated, the LEDs on the unit respond as well.

The weird part: The left switch (which turns the unit on/off) functions properly. The right switch (which toggles between slow and fast speeds) does not. The LED on the unit changes state, but the speed doesn't actually change like it did before I added the LED.

Any clue why one side would work and the other wouldn't? They're wired identically.

Just posted this in this month's contest... thought I'd drop it here too for discussion's sake! I'm really trying to get better at doing video demos, so I'd particularly love to hear what you guys think of this one. Instead of just doing camera audio as I've done in the past, I actually stereo mic'd the cab and ran into an MBox 2 so you could get a better idea of the sound of the box. I'm pretty happy with the way it came out - it sounds very much like what I'm hearing in the room. I didn't do any EQ in post or anything... just added a negligible amount of reverb to give it an "in the room" feel.

I've had this Meat Sphere board built up on my shelf for well over a year now... maybe two. After falling in love with my Nautilus build, I resolved to finally wire and box it up so I could compare the two. Geez... now I see why LaceSensor is such a huge Lovetone fan. This thing is well worth building and is just a great layout. For my full thoughts, check out the video demo below.

This was built with no modifications to the circuit. I like it the way it is 

If you want to skip me blabbing about it, the sound clips occur at 1:09, 2:37, 3:30, 5:40, and 7:05.

So I haven't posted in a while... or built anything in a while... despite a drawer full of unbuilt pcbs and a shelf of shiny boxes sitting next to my desk. As strange as it is to say...

...it's because I've actually been using the darned things.

A little over a month ago I moved to Nashville to see if there was any possibility of me playing guitar for a living. My wife and I both left good jobs where we were previously and felt that the time was right to take a leap of faith and see where we landed. It was scary. And exciting. And nerve wracking.

A week and a half ago, I landed a tryout to play with an up and coming country artist. I got the job. I learned 46 songs in one day, rehearsed with the band a couple of days later, and went on the road for our first run of gigs in Louisiana. They went great, and I'm having a blast.

I'm posting this for 3 reasons:
1) Several folks on here wrote words of encouragement to me when I mentioned that I'd be taking this step. Thank you all for doing so... they were/are more appreciated than you know!
2) To encourage anyone who might be in the process of making a similar decision in their life. Go for it. My primary motivation in doing this was the fact that I never wanted to look back at life and think "What if...?"
3) To thank all of the folks who have guided me on this board with my builds, as I'm actually using quite a few of them in my live rig and get lots of compliments on my tone and the builds themselves. I have no doubt that the tech skills I've learned and honed as a result of this forum will serve me well as I continue to pursue this.

Here's a quick shot of the board I'm using on the road this month:


As you can see, it's almost entirely homebuilt stuff. The Looker Tremolo (which is excellent in its own right) will be replaced with a Cardinal Trem as soon as I can get it boxed up. Look for a demo.

If you want to hear them, here's some clips of them in action: http://www.danekinser.com/?portfolio_183=justine-blazer-band. My lead tone is typically Afterlife -> FatPants -> Aristocrat -> Grapevine -> Aquaboy.

Thanks again for all of the encouragement guys. I've got gigs coming up in Detroit, Denver, Cincinnati, Chicago, etc. If any of those are near you guys, would love to meet up face to face!

Swooshy fun!

I'M BACK.

Actually, *most* of my pedal building stuff is still sort of scattered from my recent move, but I did manage to dig out enough to finish this thing up.

It's a Stage Fright built to stock specs (no UniVibe mod). The enclosure is "Black Chrome Cherry" from PPP and looks nothing like the photo on their site, to be honest. Nevertheless, it looks pretty cool with the clear decal on it. This particular enclosure ended up with some imperfections during the move, so the aesthetics aren't perfect. Can anyone name the video game the graphic comes from? (calling all fellow nerds...)

Sound-wise, I'm not entirely sure if it's working properly. On the 5 stage setting, I get a good deal of added bass with the mids sucked out a bit. On the 6 stage setting, I get a good deal of mids and highs but almost no bass frequencies. I initially ordered 2 LM13700s instead of 3 and ended up getting my 3rd one from a different source later (see pics)... could that be the culprit? I've already double checked my cap values...





NOW WITH MOVING PICTURES!

[Reaganator]

I was reeeeeally hoping to have this done by the 4th of July. Just because.

Nevertheless, meet the Reaganator. Far from my best work, as I've had 2 (count em, two) printers die on me in the last few weeks, plus I'm currently in the process of moving (took the 20 ft U-Haul down on Monday... almost done). So it's sort of a miracle that I've gotten any builds at all done this month.

I've had this Boneyard prototype PCB sitting on my desk for almost 2 years now. I've also had this glorious picture of President Reagan riding a velociraptor with a bazooka strapped to his back sitting in my graphics folder for about that time. Thus, this abomination beautiful creation was born.

The Boneyard is an absolutely killer circuit. It honestly will turn my clean Fender Super Reverb into a JCM800 sonically. Blew me away. I was worried that the single tone control wouldn't be enough to harness that amount of gain, but it actually works really well as a nice filter for the highs as the gain is increased.

I had the squealing problem that several others have mentioned. Shielding all of the input/output wiring helped a bit, but moving the wires connected to the high gain switch had the most pronounced effect (hence the rather strange placement of those red wires). It's very quiet now, which is saying something given the amount of gain it produces.

I went ahead and entered this in the contest this month, since it's likely the only pedal that I'll be able to produce for the next few weeks. Perhaps I'll get some bonus points for using red white and blue wiring. 







All of my amps have already been sent to Nashville, so this is the first demo that I've recorded using my digital setup. The signal chain is as follows:

'72 Telecaster / Reaganator / Axe FX II (Super Verb model) / Matrix GT800FX / Morgan 1x12 w/ASW Elegante / crappy camera mic / your speakers

Sorry for the shaky, out of focus camera and lack of production on the video. All of my usual equipment is packed away...

I have several unboxed projects that I'd like to tackle over the next few weeks. I also have some spare 1590BB enclosures that I'd like to use in the process, preferably made into 2in1 drive boxes and stuff like that. I like 2in1s, as they take up less pedalboard space and only use one line of power. So... of these circuits, which do you guys think would make the best combinations?

Flapjack (hotcake)
Retrograde (octavia)
Pepper Spray (harmonic percolator)
Egghead (clark gainster)
Neutrino (eternity to black specs)
Rangemaster
ToneBender mkII
ToneBender mkI
Pastyface (other bender)

Hmm, just looking at it, a mkI/mkII "Box o' Benders" could be a pretty fun challenge. Nice for variety, probably not for stacking... hmm...

...you really want to post a new build report but can't bring yourself to do it because the knobs you ordered for it haven't arrived and it just wouldn't look right with something else on there.

Please tell me I'm not the only idiot who does this.

Back in college I had a Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 speaker system that was, on all accounts, the best sounding computer speaker system I've ever heard. After a few years of use, it eventually wouldn't power up correctly or wouldn't remain on long enough to be useful, so I put the sub in storage and used the satellite speakers elsewhere.

Having successfully repaired one of our TVs last month with some of the knowledge I've gained from the pedal game, I decided to pull the sub out and try to fix it. After surveying the inside, I found two power supply caps that were bulging and ordered replacements from Mouser. I soldered them in yesterday and - what do you know - good as new. Never sounded better.

...until tonight. I had just started to play some music on them (probably only the third time I've turned them on since the repair) when they powered themselves down abruptly. I opened the sub up and a generous amount of smoke poured out. It would seem I overlooked a third problematic capacitor, a smaller 63V 470uF, that decided it was through with life and that it would take most of the circuit board down with it. At least, that particular part appeared to be ground zero for the small explosion inside the amp.