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Topics - destro

#1
Saw the post the other day about the blazar build doc and panicked. I've got several others but can't find the build doc for the sch-1 PCB and of course have two half populated boards in the box. I've emailed Daz and hoping to hear back and if so will try and get all of them to upload somewhere. Thanks!
#2
Anyone have them? My buddy who is a beginner is building each up and it would be significantly easier for him to use the docs rather than plug in parts from a schematic (that would be a good learning exercise, though!)
#3
Build Reports / Wavelord
March 15, 2020, 08:58:04 AM
This pedal came together quite nicely without any issues except for a bad tl072. Which turned into a bad batch of 20. First time it has happened in 15 years so I will consider myself lucky. It was weird as I was getting hardly any signal on 2. Of course I went through every possible thing I could think of before replacing the tl072.  The person I was building it for didn't want a graphic so that made it even easier as I didn't have to be concerned with the wave select switch. I ended up using another knob for it with the indicator selecting the triangle shape at 12. He was most interested in the classic sounds, so pulse and sine were to the left and right. It was fun adding the larger LEDs as I don't often used them in builds. The enclosure looked like swiss cheese by the time I was done. My perception of the overall tone of the pedal was that it was pretty transparent and clean. Not noisy at all with humbuckers. The ability to boost a little bit is nice as well. Where I really enjoyed playing with it was with the other bank of weird shapes and being able to effect the shapes with the DIST knob. I've been getting more into experimental and ambient stuff and the wavelord presents the opportunity to do so. The soft touch switches from small bear are defintiely worth it for tap tempo applications and I won't go without them again. Thanks for your work on this Brian, it's a great sounding, versatile trem!
#4
Build Reports / Schu-tone builds
February 29, 2020, 05:35:12 PM
If you clicked here hoping to see some sweet 1590a craziness, you are going to be disappointed. Though I have done a few, notably a squeezer and ringer a la Jon Patton and am finishing up a MB flunkee, these are a few of Dan's normal sized projects for us mere mortals. I must also add that these were graciously PIF'd in last years and this years holiday extravaganza. Yeah, I'm running a bit behind. Without further delay....the Madness, Black Moon and Dragonclaw!

Madness - did a pif of my own and solicited graphic suggestions and this one came through courtest of EBK. Couldn't let any of it go to waste and used clear knobs. Dig it best in the crunch position (sounds more natural.) Went with the mc1458 that I read was used in originals somewhere or another. Overall, a nice OD. Need to spend more time with it to figure out how to best use it.

Black Moon - There was a local band that kind of did a similar thing that the band behind the marketing for this pedal did who used a lot of fog machines and tripped fire alarms at the venue I was at. It was comedy. The graphic is actually the negative image of the album cover and I attempted to pay some homage with a similar logo. Somehow I screwed up the switch positions (and the graphic is a bit skewed) but I don't get a lot of time to build stuff for myself so pressed on. Cut some tracks and whatnot....good to go. Never been a huge rat fan myself, but this is indeed pretty neat with the octave to mix in. Add some verb and delay and some cloaks and who knows what can happen. One weird thing was that at counterclockwise on the octave it wasn't fully at 0. It was like at 8 and then with a little turn went to 0 if that makes sense. Not sure if it was the potentiometer or what, might mess with it down the road, but is totally usable regardless. Fun!

Dragonclaw - This turned out to be my favorite of the three which I didn't expect would happen. From what I have read, both designs aren't too far off from tubescreamers. Regardless, I am able to find great tones with both and they can even stack if you wanted to do that. Dan warned me that the blue collar side might be too dark, but I run a bandmaster reverb in bright setting with a jazzmaster....no complaints here. I  ended up switching a coupe of pot legs around to reverse the controls. Pretty sure it was the blue collar presence control and the red snapper cut control. Anyway, I've had these taiwan jrc4558s forever and dropped them in there for kicks. It works great and sounds great with my setup! Love it!

All of these have cool relay bypass switches. Dan was super kind and linked me to some info on them. I've also messed with them in the VFE designs. Has made me contemplate learning how to program my own controllers, but alas, I'm just a hobbyist and can live with the 3dpdts. Maybe one day.

Super awesome fun times building the three of these. Thanks, Dan!!!
#5
VFE Projects / Pale Horse Jfet question
June 10, 2019, 01:22:00 PM
So I decided to use a socket due to all the comments about jfet causing issues. I tried a j113 which was terrible (could be counterfit, ordered from mouser to do a comparison in a few days.) I also tried j201 which worked a lot better but still is a bit fizzy compared to not having one in there at all. Is that the sound (what it sounds like without one in there) that I should be shooting for in the first place?
#6
So I have built two of these suckers (I like building doubles to compare and troubleshoot) and one sounds deeper than the other. I think the one that sounds deeper, could be a smidge louder which might enhance that effect. Lacesensor pointed out r9 being a resistor that can be adjusted for volume, but I was wondering what may effect the overall depth. The one I like sounds dimensional, the other one chorusy and could use a bit more warble. I've attached link for build doc.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dl/51akvy8n0qy07g8/aion-blueshift-dimension-c-chorus-documentation.pdf

#7
Open Discussion / Thanks Madbean
May 19, 2018, 07:19:32 PM
Sitting here playing my total recall in my lap, no back cover on, wires all over the place....and loving it. Been buidling for over a decade an the Dlx Mem Man has always been one of my favorite delays. I've owned a few over the years always selling them when I needed the extra money. Finally have my own clone that sounds phenomenal. Anyway, been a long road from seeing your layouts oringinally pop up over at FSB. Thanks for this, Brian.

#8
General Questions / looking for shielded wiring
May 13, 2018, 05:18:08 PM
Being a bit lazy here and just asking instead of searching. Looking for shielded wiring for lfo/high gain issues. Prefer it to be thin instead of the thick old rca wiring I have laying around. If anyone knows a source and cares to share, I'd be grateful. Alternatively, if you have extra laying around you want to get rid of, happy to buy it off ya or trade. Thanks!
#9
Open Discussion / the sound of leakage
January 29, 2018, 11:35:51 AM
just wanted to toss an inquiry out there regarding the sound of germanium leakage. I have never been fortunate enough to hear a "proper" vintage circuit with leaky transistors so am unsure as to what audio characteristic the leakage contributes to. I remember having read an article about using resistor to simulate leakage and saw it recently in an AION project but have lost the article link to reference back to. Loving these reliable Russian germaniums, but wondering out if I am missing on an essential fuzz characteristic as the leakage on most varieties I have messed with are under 100. Thanks for any input!
#10
General Questions / Rat clean boost mod
May 19, 2017, 04:31:24 PM
Anyone know how the clean boost is implemented a la the deucetone rat? I am assuming that it is no clipping diodes....
#11
I've got a Total Recall I ordered in Dec 9I think) and the board is labeled differently than the layout in the build document. I didn't notice until getting to the later capacitors and am hoping this might just be an issue with the later # caps...anyway, did I miss a revised build doc or have an old board or something?
#12
I know this is an amp and not a pedal, but debugging principles apply.

Well, I really did something stupid. Swapped out all my tubes but installed them backwards s in tubes 1-7 were put in 7-1. I know, I know.... Turned on saw a bright flash. Immediately turned it off. Realized what a dummy I was. Replaced the blown 1a fuse. Other checked out fine. Powered it back up and still no luck. Power amp tubes are glowing. Pres are out. Checked voltages and I am getting 130 volts at the fuse and around 370v for b+ and b++. Should be notably lower at these spots. Wondering if a diode or cap has gone out, but dont want to blindly start replacing stuff. Nothing looks screwed visually of course.

Any advice on what to check or swap out would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

http://www.bustedgear.com/images/sch...classic-30.pdf
#13
Tech Help - Projects Page / Pork Barrel Power
April 30, 2016, 07:29:14 PM
In the build doc the hyperlink doesn't work and says it can work up to 12v but I thought the mn3007 can run at 15v and know I have read about the ce2  being powered at 15. Am I missing something here?
#14
Build Reports / Naughty Fish - Mutron III
April 20, 2016, 07:08:10 PM
Had a little trouble with this one, but nothing that I couldn't get past. I  thought that I had done the graphic labels wrong and then realized that the names for the controls can be rather tricky and all was well. I installed the tayda on/on/on switch that I thought was going to work. I should have thouroughly tested it as the middle position is mirrored compared to the smallbear one. Minor meltdown over my lack of taking 30 seconds extra with the meter. I ordered a couple of them. So desoldered and removed it. Made a couple of cuts and connections and put the other one in and bingo! I socketed the optos and had vactrols on hand. Compared them to diy optos with yellow diffused 5mm leds and gl5549 ldrs. With the trim I was able to dial it in just fine. I compared the sweep the best I could to audio sample on youtube and learned some funk chords while I was at it. Good times. While building realized that the optional volume pot is not board mounted and would have left it out had I noticed earlier, but the graphic was made at that point and didn't want to go back. Glad I didn't. Optional or not, it is definitely useful.

#16
Finally, they are done. Been sitting on the boards since the first round a year and a half ago.

The Twin Peaks is absolutely killer. It takes the functionality of the musdicpcb tap trem and combines it with the perks of the cardinal trem and then some. Black you can get stutter chop standard volume trem sounds. The brown gives a more "warbly" vibrato/phase modulation kind of sounds in certain settings and the bass and treble settings are fun for "out of the box" trem sounds as well. I had some issues with ticking and ended up using a 100pf across the volume pot and it fixed it at least at "jam in the basement" volumes in the squarest choppiest black mode I could put it in.

The Liquid Mercury is  phenomenal as well. I lowered r7 for more feedback, I think I went with 4.7k which put it into oscillation mode. The tone control is a great touch and the choice waveforms are picked out for ya. Again, all types of phaser/vibe sounds readily available. If I had to do it all over again I would 1790ns it, add the stage select switch as well as a 4p3t rotary for cap select for stock, univibe and something else mode. At one point Drolo posted some values that he preferred and I know I commented on it but I think the forum crash ate it.


Hogweed is neato. I was looking for something to cop a fuzzed out pog octave type deal and this definitely does it. And yet again, LOTS of fun, cool sounds to be had. I believe I was the first to notice the transistor t7 discrepancy so make sure you check out your pinout.

If you record music all of these boxes are wonderful studio tools! So many sounds to be had. The dual board construction was a nice break from the norm as well.

Finally, I had a situation where I ordered four taplfo chips on a previous group buy and they were defective. Tap mode was jacked as well as random mode on all four chips. It was over a year ago and the original seller did not offer to help when I contacted him. I shot Selfdestroyer a pm and a couple weeks later I had the four back reprogrammed "unicorn dna" style and they worked like a charm. After feeling totally ripped, the kindness of this dude made things right again.

In conclusion, these projects are super rad, and Drolo and Selfdestroyer are super good dudes.









#17
General Questions / slow loris 2013 layout
March 28, 2016, 01:51:02 PM
All I can find is back to 2014 so I am assuming the one I have is a 2013 and I need the drill template. It has the clipper switch in the middle of the pots. Can anyone send me the link? Thanks!
#18
I've rehoused a dd5 and am not sure if this was an issue before the rehouse or not. When in tap mode, every setting is halved. Quarter tap does eighths, etc...

The DD5 has a pan out and when engaged the manual says it halves the time. I've got both outputs (7 and 5 on the schem) and they both do have the same sound at output. I am wondering if one should be grounded or something. I am kind of baffled. Any help appreciated!

Here is the schem:
http://www.cruachan-audio.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/schems/dd5.jpg

#19
Tech Help - Projects Page / Current Lover Pop
February 03, 2014, 01:39:13 PM
I have built a current lover with mn3007 on 9v. I am getting a loud pop at the top of the sweep. I've tried a few different mn3007 chips all have same issue. All chips work fine in pork barrel. Bias is only effective all the last tenth or so all the way clockwise. Clock only makes pop longer all the counter and shorter all the way counter, otherwise no real notice in noise.

Any help or guesses would be appreciated!! Can get voltages later...
#20
Open Discussion / 2014 Monthly Build Contest
January 07, 2014, 07:06:37 PM
One of my  New Year's Resolutions was to have fun building one pedal a month for the contests.  I've historically only built pedals that I really wanted or custom builds for others. When the pressure isn't on to build something that isn't going directly to the pedal board, one can be so much more creative and really enjoy the hobby!

Can't wait to see what January's guidelines are going to be!