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I've been thinking for sometime about finishing a pedal with a matte finish, but a glossy design on it. Has anyone had any success doing something like this?

Particularly I'm looking to put a glossy black on top of a matte black, something where the graphic doesn't necessarily look too visible in certain lighting. The only thing I can think of right now is to hand paint with my glossy Testors model paint on a matte enclosure. Only issue there is the paint won't be clear coated for protection as any spray clear will turn everything matte or glossy depending on that clear coat.

Any tips, tricks, or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

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Hey folks!

Got a quick little fuzz here for ya. It's a KMA Fuzzly Bear on vero viz tagboard effects. Simple Volume and Gain controls plus a Bias control labelled Skin/Meat. Needless to say I definitely lean towards the meat side.

Graphically a very simple look, just black font & outline. The font is a Cyrillic styled font. The name comes from a brown bear that served in the Polish army in WW2 - look it up, the story is pretty unreal. Taking inspiration from the industrial fuzz tones and bear connection in the original name, I created this pedal to have a sort of Atompunk/Dieselpunk aesthetic from the Soviet side - very simply, to the point, and gnarly. My Green Russian Muff also sits in the Soviet side of the Atom/Dieselpunk series, while my Raygun Youth and U-235 both sit on the western/American Atompunk side. Hoping once I get a website up for all my projects (not limited to pedal building) I'll be able to give a clearer look at these little series I'm working on.

Apologies in advance for the rats nest that is my wiring. I'm still no good at making vero look anything remotely clean.

"... to keep my mind, you know, uh, limber."

Inspired by jimilee, I went back after my first attempt at a vero build - an Emanating Fist Black Acid. This guy was completed well before the the virus came through, but only boxed it up recently. Found out I didn't flip the cuts when I should have, but flipped the components. Attempt number two worked on the first try! Graphics were black with the hope they would be visible at only the right angle. Turns out that angle doesn't exist. But an all black pedal that's called Black Acid seems fitting. Knobs are incoming from LMS.

Sonically the Black Acid is different approach to the D*A*M Meathead, using drive, fuzz, and volume controls. Works fantastic with lower tunings, definitely right onto the board next to my Green Russian.

Front:




Inside:

Hey guys, just about finishing up my Grind Customs Fluff Girl, but I'm unsure on the switch. The build docs I have just list it as an SPDT, but no note about whether its an On-On or On-Off-On. Anyone know? Thanks in advance!

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Well, at least a surprise to me. I had originally built a Brian May Treble Boost on a Tonepad PCB, but for some reason was getting no output. Well, about a week ago while scouring various pedal related suppliers that I don't often check out, I found another BMTB pcb on FuzzDog's website. Since I was already planning on order a few parts from them, I figured I'd throw in the board as well. Coming from the UK to the American Midwest, shipping was shockingly fast. Arrived on Friday, and for the first time I populated, tested, and boxed up a board in a single day. (It does help that the enclosure was finished back in late 2017 so there was no time spent on that.) The board fired up great. Was also my first time going smaller than a 1590B, this being a 1590G. Definitely gave me the confidence to try some similar sized boards in a 1590A, so may see some of those coming in 2021. A treble boost it most certainly is, but really doesn't harm the lows either which is great. A touch brittle sounding, but I've only very briefly experimented with it. I think the graphics are pretty self explanatory, though the picture doesn't really do it much justice, particularly the dark bits. Basically, after I painted it, I took a lighter to it to give it a bit of a burnt out look. In person it looks much more worn and aged.

Alright, so my last offering a pedals from 2019. First up is a Spirit Box from PedalPCB. I needed some sort of reverb pedal since my Orange Micro Dark lacks built in reverb. Based on the EQD Ghost Echo, its fun, and creates some very spacey, drippy sounds. Sounds great for some Shine On You Crazy Diamond. For my purpose, goes 0-60 a bit too quickly, as I like to use just a touch of Reverb to add some depth to my sound, but it certainly does the trick until I get to try some other options. The enclosure is steampunk themed (which I know some won't be fans of as the gears and such are purely aesthetic, but whatever). Definitely was impatient in drilling the jack holes as you'll see by the crooked input/output jacks in the gut shot. But it kinda adds to the charm. And has not affected the sound one bit.







Next up we have a Brutalist Jr. from Kurt Ballou and God City Instruments. Pretty straightforward, though I wish this came with a Tone knob, as this is a bit bright for my tastes. Aesthetically, its... brutal. Heh. (Including Brutalist Knobs from Love My Switches. Gotta lean into it when you can.)







And finally we have the Cross Contaminator from PedalPCB as well. Based on the discontinued EQD Dirt Transmitter, this fuzz used a pair of 2N1711s that were pretty hard to come by. I think I went through some auto/audio website to find them. It's a pretty fun fuzz that requires you dial in the bias correctly. Tonally, I wish the tone knob didn't just seem to roll off the mids, but beef up the bass a bit more as well when turning CCW.  But it will stay on the board until another fuzz can knock it off. Graphically I had no idea what to do. So after seeing someone else use an ink drawing from and artist they enjoyed (can't remember if I saw that here or Reddit), I decided to do the same. This graphic was taken from Peter Draws, from his website I believe. The font is called Tomatoes. Turned into by far my favorite decal graphic I've done to date. More like this will definitely be coming.

So I know this is more than a bit late considering we're 17 days into the new decade, but after watching a few YouTube videos, I decided to put together my Top 10 Albums of the 2010s list. Thought it might be fun to see what others have in their own lists, be it Top 5, 10, 25, 42, what have you!

TheDude's Top 10 Albums of the 2010's (not to be confused with The Dude, though the Eagles still aren't present):

1) Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
2) Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones
3) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Fishing for Fishies
4) Atmosphere - Family Sign
5) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana
6) Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
7) Tool - Fear Inoculum
THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM - Handwritten
9) Muse - The 2nd Law
10a) Aesop Rock - The Impossible Kid
10b) THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM - American Slang

Honorable Mentions:
(in no particular order)

The Milk Carton Kids - Ash & Clay
Greta Van Fleet - From the Fires
Ecstatic Vision - Raw Rock Fury
Frank Turner - Positive Songs for Negative People
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats Nest

Got a pair of Big Muffs to share today, courtesy of Bean's Mudbunny and Pigbutt boards. First up we have the Mudbunny Mayo. Had to get some help on my Green Russian post to realize these BC550s need to be placed in reverse. The volume was almost non-existent until I flipped, and boy, this baby is beautiful. Hits those Siamese Dream tones wonderfully. Bit brighter and a touch clearer than the Green Russian. Excellent. Enclosure is a simple cream with brownish graphics and oxblood knobs, with the goal of hinting at that very Siamese Dream album. Clearly I wasn't prepared to put on knobs this big, but such is life.






Secondly comes the Pigbutt OpAmp Muff. Graphically just took a simplistic spin on EHX's reissued version, nothing to write home about. Once again, this puppy rocks. In my opinion by far the most versatile version of the Muff with Bean's boards thanks to that treble switch. Easy to dial in those Smashing Pumpkins tones, but you can also bring in some pretty dark and gritty tones that work magically for a lot of stoner rock. This is the Muff I'm currently rocking on my board, and will likely be the one to stay on.

With the first of 3 posts sharing a handful of builds I've completed over the last month, here are my builds of Parasit Studio's Raygun Youth and Arcadiator.

The Raygun Youth is a super fun pedal to mess around with. Had some troubles when I first boxed it up that I just couldn't figure out. Plug it in, and it would scream. Turns out I wired up the jocks backwards....derp. Fixed it and this guy runs like a champ. Built completely to stock specs. Definitely one of those pedals that I don't know how to put to good use, but will be kept around for a long time to mess around with. Aesthetically this build joins my U-235 Suboctave Generator and Green Russian Mudbunny in my Atompunk/Dieselpunk theme.








And second we have the Arcadiator. Also built to stock, this is another fun pedal that I'm not certain where I'll be using it, other than for messing around with video game theme songs, and maybe Popcorn as well. The enclosure design is pretty self explanatory in terms of font and color choices. Frankly, I rushed this one a bit graphically, as it could have been so much more, but it is what it is. The part I am happy with is that it came out looking worn like an old arcade game.







I have 5 more completed pedals I'll be posting over the next few days on top of these. Beyond that my next probably two years are filled up in terms of pedal building. The next phase consists of populating 18 of the 23 boards I have right now, possibly all 23 over the course of next year before using the winter break again to box them all up. At that point my reserves of boards will be emptied, allowing me to focus exclusively on building my ideal pedalboard before returning to building whatever piques my interest. Gonna be a busy, exciting 2020 and beyond!

Hey guys, so it's been awhile since I've had a chance to take pictures of my pedals, but I've kept busy, with 6 completed builds, and another 7 or so that I'm in the process of slowly boxing up. Lot's of fuzz with a bit of octave as well. Apologies in advance for the messy wiring...

Grind Customs Temple of Giants -
Nice quick build, probably could have been built into a 1590 B, but I'm not at that confidence level quite yet. Still a fun build, though I don't think it will be cracking my pedalboard right now.








Whammoth -
I had already built a GuitarPCB Mastodon and just wasn't in love with it. I chalked this up to it being my only attempt at offboard mounted pots, so I order the new Mastodon v3, but also wanted to try out the Whammoth to see if there was a difference. And I definitely prefer the Whammoth. Tonally there isn't a ton of difference, but my usable range seems to be much more with the Whammoth. Still not pedalboard, but that might change with a new head (if you've seen my recent post about my new amp being bassier than I'd like).

As you'll see, the graphics here are very similar to the ToG. Part of my "Wall of Fuzz" series. You'll see a few more series in this post.








Mudbunny - Green Russian
Built my first Mudbunny in a Green Russian version, and this thing kicks ass. Easily on the pedalboard - wide usable range and wide tonal range allowing me to cover a lot songs while also finding new tones in between. This is my first of 3 Mudbunnies, with a Mayo and a Triangle to come yet. Also a new graphic series here, going with a Russian feel in the vein of Dieselpunk/Atom Punk.

Sidenote - any idea why my Mayo Mudbunny might be quiet with BC550's in them, but loud when I put in the 2N5088's?







U-235 Subocatve Generator
Keeping up the Atompunk theme here, this pedal is fun to fart around with a bit, but as I found out from mic and jimilee, is not very friendly to single coils, while my go-to is a strat. Looking to build another with sockets to try out the mod that mic suggested. Maybe call that one the U-236?







Pedal PCB Squidward
This pedal is fun, but a bit glitchy for me. Sounds better when you don't have a cranked fuzz slamming right into it. Very simple build, again could have gone into a 1590A, but just not quite there yet. Maybe in the future.

I had to go with the original name for this pedal though. I was 7 I think when SpongeBob came out - I'm the perfect age for it. And I can't stand it. I feel dumber for watching it. And I love stupid humor. Maybe it's just because people's obsession with it weird me out. I don't know. But I named mine the tentacle. Modeled after the original with a different tentacle graphic and a pirate-esque font, and bathed it in my clear coat to the point where it yellowed to look like it was raised from underwater. Part of an "Old Gods" series. Cthulhu cometh.







Mastodon v3
As I mentioned with the Whammoth, I wanted to try this out when Barry came out with a PCB mounted pot version. My v2 came out very glitchy, and was tough to find any usable range with it. When this one came out, I wanted to compare on- vs off-boarded pots. This one is much less noisey, but still too glitchy in my opinion. If you find the spot you like, set and forget it.

This one was handpainted to match the other one, this time vertical instead of horizontal.

Hey all

Long time since I've had anything to share, but there's a lot coming over the course of the next week. We'll kick things off with my new amp and cab.

This is my first head+cab rather than a combo amp. I started playing electric guitar with a Peavy Rage 265, and quickly grew out of that thin sounding thing within a year. From there moved on to a Crate Flexwave. It handled pedals well, but I could never get a tone a liked. After researching for years I decided to take a jump and go for a separate head and cab so I could experiment with heads. This combo creates one hell of a tone - for the first time I think I can actually develop 'my' sound.

The Micro Dark head is awesome for a small practice amp. Living in a small apartment, the head phone jack is a savior. Having an effects loop is great with my new Pedal PCB Spirit Box reverb (to be posted soon). Anytime I want to dial in a stoner rock sound, this thing isn't just great, it's perfect. The cab is a 1x12 Mojotone Lite cab, with custom cosmetics - green tolex, retro tweed grill cloth, brown faux leather handle, the works. It's loaded with a Celestion G 12 H 15 ohm 55 c/s speaker, and it ROCKS. However, this combo is incredibly bassy. I'm in the process of building a Britannia that I'm hoping will allow me to dial in some more treble and dial back the bass just a touch. The plan is to build a Fender Princeton Reverb head with a mojotone kit in the semi-near future. From there I'll be able to determine if I want to replace the speaker with a 75 c/s, or if its just specifically the Micro Dark > 55 c/s that needs and EQ before it.

Anyway, amp porn can be seen below:
Head + Cab



Micro Dark Front



Micro Dark Back



Cab Front



Cab Back



Speaker

Knobs arrived today, allowing me to finally complete my last build of 2017! (Board was done, tested, and boxed before the new year so I'm counting it 

Anyway, finished up the season with a JMK Classic Tremolo in a 1590BB, hand painted by a family member. Had some struggles with this circuit at first, but flipping around the LED seemed to work, only after I did it the second time though, so I'm guessing maybe it was in the re-flow of the LED or maybe other components. Either way, it's working now and it sounds awesome. Great way to finish out the year before next fall.

Top Shot:


...aaand gut shot:

Hey guys

Recently completed my first three builds just in time for my "building season" to wind down. I'm a coach so my year is pretty well scheduled out ahead of time - bonus to anyone who can guess what sport. Anyway, after struggling with a Fretwire.com build last fall it was a huge relief to have these work out. I've populated and tested 5 in total, just waiting to get my enclosure back from my friend who painted one, and my Classic Trem isn't tremming, so I'm guessing my last week will be spent troubleshooting that guy.

First in is a GPCB Mastodon. I had this guy assembled and rockin, but figured I'd try to clean up the wiring... BAD idea as I think I fried a few of the eyelets a bit as the pedal only works well at certain levels of each pot. Still an awesome tone, particularly for a desert/stoner rock sound. Good news is I have another PCB on hand so I'll have another shot at it next year.

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Hand painted this, as are all in my 2017 series. Was looking to go for a small-run boutique look this year.

And gut shot:



Next up was a JMK 5-Knob Fuzz. I started off with a pair of 2N3906s In Q1 & Q3 based on someone else's post here, and boy I was not ready for that level of oscillation. Tested out a few different transistors in Q3 and settled on a 2N4403, getting me a great vintage fuzz sound along the lines of Inna-Gada-Da-Vida or Godzilla. Again hand painted.

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Gut Shot:



And lastly, a JMK Engineer's Thumb. I love how seamlessly this seemed to enter my signal chain. Will be close to an always on pedal for me I'm feeling.

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Gut Shot:



Hoping to have my Little Angel chorus boxed up in a day or two, and get the Classic Trem going. Thanks for looking guys!

Hey guys, been lurking on the boards for nearly a year now, figure now's a good time to step into the light.

I'm fairly new to the DIY guitar and pedal world, but have been doing woodworking for a few years now. First got into the pedal game with a tremolo kit from TheFretwire.com (which I found 3 months before MadBean), which I was never able to get working (hooray for cheap Chinese parts and awful instructions...). A bit discouraged and with available time winding down I decided research was my best path for the time being. I'm still at a loss when trying to understand most of this electronic stuff, so please bare with me as I drop plenty of questions in the coming months.

With my career I really only have about a 4 month span that I can work on projects like these, and that time is once again approaching. I'm in the process of building a guitar with a kit from the same site as my first pedal (much easier to understand), and plan to attempt 3 pedals before my time this year runs out. Looking forward to get to know everyone and continuing the constant chase for that perfect tone!