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Oh man, I was just about to grab a Weener Wah having gotten ahold of an old Crybaby finally! When do you anticipate those being back in the shop?

Here's a Ram's Head Muff I did on Stomptown's Notorious BIG board, which I got back before he closed up shop. Although the name "Sludgefeast" is a reference to a Dinosaur Jr. song, this is not based on the "J Mascis" Muff. It's the '73 #18 on Kit Rae's site, which he notes as sounding particularly good. And it does! I used BC547B per wintersoldier's suggestion. I now realize I was not fully representing when I chose to not use all purple wire. @bio77, I can't promise this won't make you want to build more fuzzes! (Teasing, I think you did something similar to this not too far back...)

Imagine an era where the big secret thing our governments were working on was the most intense fuzztone of its day! If only, right? I've had this board since 2014 and have finally gotten around to boxing it. My daughter got me this lovely aqua Rustoleum for my birthday and that was the impetus. This is an eight-transistor fuzz monster, based on the famous Project V of Brian Eno fame. I highly recommend this and know that deadendfx still have a board available. This one came from a group buy by twinspace, who I think doesn't frequent these parts anymore.

Anyway, it sounds like a Big Muff meets Fuzz Factory through a cocked wah. I noticed Ian Sherwen of Ghost Effects occasionally makes these with germanium for the PNP transistor (Q5), so I tried it with a 2n5087 and a high gain/low leakage OC47 black glass with 228 hfe. It sounds great either way, but the germanium was somehow smoother/less crackly on the note decay while also having crazier harmonics and overtones. Oh yeah, the NPN silicon are all BC549b at about 360 hfe (similar to the original BC108 in terms of gain). I love how it gushes with sustain and weird bloom as the notes decay! I can't claim to understand the schematic, but those drive and edge switches do make it go even crazier.

I'll switch those knobs for something that covers the labels less at some point, lol...the decal on this one was a struggle all around!

I'm curious if anyone here has tried the wah enclosures from Antique Electronic Supply. If so, were they easy to work with? Was there a spot to mount a Weener Wah or other PCB that makes sense? I see Small Bear had a hefty price increase on the Eleca enclosures they carry, so I'm just scoping out other options before hunting down a used Cry Baby to gut. 

So I'm super excited about this build as I've been after a CS-9 for a long time. It's the chorus that a number of my favorite guitarists have used over the years (mainly Bob Mould though). John (bio77) was cool enough to PIF me not only one of the boards he designed and had fabbed, but the delay and clock chips as well. He's also been helping me diagnose what has turned out to be a dodgy FET in the gate section that keeps wanting to randomly get stuck closed (thanks again, John!). Anyway, this sounds seriously good and while not so far off from a CE-2, it has its own thing going for sure. The setting in the picture below sounds kind of creepy, for lack of a better word. I also really like that you can dial in the clock frequency yourself.

This is another completed/tested board I've had around for a number of years. I got the board and the 2n404 from Jon (Stomptown) back in 2013 or so when I was unable to debug my second Pepper Spray build. Anyway, I built it to the "stock" specs. The asymmetrical 1n695 and the diode lift mode both sounded great right away. For the symmetrical position, I liked 1n914s in my Albini specs Pepper Spray, but did not care for them here at all. It was too bright and spitty for my ears. On a whim I tried out some 1n273 germaniums. They sounded awesome, but just too quiet (max volume just hit unity gain, so much be too leaky). So, I popped in some 1n6263 Schottky diodes that I got from Mouser. These are the same type used in Frantone's "The Sweet." They sound amazing in this circuit! A bit more bite and saturation than the asymmetrical side, and only a hair less volume. It works really well as a different flavor of drive or distortion. The vf on those diodes was .32 or so, and of course no leakage since they're silicon.

Also, the volume knob cleanup in the diode lift mode is great, and I love these new Gorva 3PDTs. The build went well overall despite some small drilling and clear coating issues.

So, I've never built a DIY delay project because I'm generally very satisfied with my EQD Disaster Transport. This pedal has an interesting issue of late though. I only get signal in effect mode, and my setup is dead silent in bypass. I probed the footswitch and have continuity in the right spots in bypass vs. effect. Any thoughts? I started a help ticket with EQD in the event I can't figure it out (they have an excellent warranty!); just curious to learn from this if possible.

Well, I managed to get something finished up while getting parts orders ready for an upcoming chorus build. I've had this Klone board from good ol' Grind Customs knocking around for ages. I do like it! First time I've heard this circuit in the flesh to be honest. I liked how Keefe (Haberdasher) did a zodiac symbol on his build, so I got my daughter to draw the sign for Cancer (my sign, of course) and send it to me as a PNG. Went all extra and did the font and graphic in oxblood to match the knobs! Anyway, the diodes are some unmarked ones I got from the 1n60 bin in the lab at the college where I work. Forward voltage is like .28 and .30 if I recall, so just a hair asymmetrical I guess.

Hi everyone--I'm putting the finishing touches on my first Klone using a Grind Customs Tusk board. I'm using the usual plastic pot covers from Small Bear to insulate the two 10kB pots. For the dual gang pot though, what have folks done to insulate that one (or does it need it)? I can already see there is a risk of having the board sit too close to the lid in the 1590b, what with all those 1uf electros in the right side of the PCB.

Thanks for your insight!

So...here is the MkII that I have been either planning or working on for quite some time now. I populated a board for one of these years ago, but didn't love the layout and also did not quite have a transistor stash robust enough to pull it off. I suppose I could have used a fabbed board with trimmers, but I wanted this to be a fully realized project in the sense that I cut and traced the vero, tested the transistors, painted the box, etc.

Anyway, this is the early Sola Sound MkII/Marshall Supa Fuzz. I pretty much just took the historical MkII layout and redid it to work better with the smaller-pitch vero we use these days (see attachment if interested). Also, I wanted it to fit in something no bigger than a 125b. The paint is good old Rustoleum gray hammered. For transistors, I did a lot of digging on other forums to see what transistor voltages were actually like on vintage units, rather than using the hfe as the main starting point. Using a mix of pretty leaky germaniums, I was able to nail the voltages that Electric Warrior reported on his vintage Supa Fuzz (most importantly, around 0.17v on Q2's collector and 8.5v or so on Q3). It does sound really cool! However, that was just bit too gated with my guitar and amp when turning down the guitar's volume knob, and I suspect those voltages may favor humbuckers (since the higher output could overcome the gating somewhat). So I went with a slightly lower-gain (but similar leakage) Q2 and that got me about 0.25-0.30v on Q2C, and 7.5-8v on Q3C (depending on room temperature). The end result is that it has some useful cleanup at lower gain settings, but still has that classic MkII gating. When you go even lower leakage on Q2, the cleanup is fantastic, but it ends up sounding more like a smooth, higher-gain Fuzz Face. By the way, I held Q3 constant with a very leaky AC125 (about 0.440mA of collector leakage). Anyway, this thing completely rips! I was also surprised at how much the noise and oscillation quieted down once I got the pedal boxed. I'll stop now because I could talk about these things all day...

Well, Brian was not kidding, this is a fun circuit and I pretty much love it too! It's a lot of fun to mix and match the soft and hard clipping sounds. I've had the D+ and 250 on the brain for the last few months due to Rowland S. Howard and Mudhoney, but this works much better with my setup than other ones from this family that I've either owned or built. For the Ge diodes, I used some nice old mil-spec 1n270s I got at work. I'm feeling lucky I was able to solder them in with no damage or change in Vf...the VFE boards have really small solder pads! Also, it was a trickier build than I anticipated...I initially wired it wrong, with the two wires on the right of the switching board going to the wrong holes on the main PCB. You'll see which ones I mean. Luckily, the drilling went well. I got some help from the Metal Fabrication lab coordinator where I work (a 2-year college). We drilled it on a super-accurate industrial mill. 

I am in the process of building a Distortion 3, and this is the first time I have used the Neutrik enclosed board-mounted jacks. I see they come with 3 black plastic washers under the metal nut. Do all those go on the inside of the enclosure, with just the metal one on the outside? That seems to be the only way to get the jacks to line up with the solder pads on the switching board. I may have gotten myself confused since one of those black plastic washers is sort of beveled, which made me think it should go on the outside under the metal nut.

Thanks! Hopefully this is not a lame question...

Can anyone remember on which episode of Star Trek TNG the word "hypotenuse" was uttered, and who uttered it? Even though this was hilarious to me when I watched as a teenager back in the late '80s, I cannot remember it was Data or Worf said this, so I'm presenting this build as a bit of an inside joke with myself, complete with LC Data in full-on sleuth mode. I was going for a bad meme, first-time-Photoshop-user-gone-mad kind of look, and I think it just about works.

Anyway, this is a Sharkfin that our own jubal81 kindly PIF'd to me, and I think it was originally PID'd to him from the Bean, judging from the fact that it looks like a proto layout that a few other folks built post-PIF season back in 2015-ish. I have never really used an envelope filter, and certainly not a sample & hold circuit, but I really liked Jon Patton's demo of his build so thought I'd have a go at it. It sounds awesome and is a lot of fun! It can do the funky stuff for sure, but can also get quite menacing depending on what/how you're playing. I put it in front of my Buzzaround and it was just nuts with harmonic sweeps...one of my kids came running into the room to see what was going on!

I had a few challenges with the build, mainly just related to drilling this rather thick 125bb. Don't look under those pot washers!    Also, I thought I would push it and use a 3mm bezel for the S/H rate indicator, but that was not a fantastic idea. Lug 3 of the decay pot was just shorting out on the bezel, even though I had tried to insulate it with electrical tape. Basically, if I turned decay all the way CCW, the entire signal was getting dumped to ground. I ended up pulling that tape out and just slipping a small chunk of a glossy business card in between the pot leg and bezel. Simple DIY hack for the win! Thanks to Brian for pointing me in the right direction on that debug.

I'm hoping someone who has also built a Sharkfin can help me confirm how the decay control on my build should behave. I just boxed the 2015 version and it sounds really cool. However, is it normal for the decay pot to shut off all sound if it's fully counter-clockwise, and to make a small, ground-y crackle just before it gets there?

When boxing this, I attempted to use a small bezel for the 3mm LED for the S/H indication. It looked like it was just about in a position to short out against lug 3 of the decay pot, so I insulated it with electrical tape just in case. All tested fine outside the box, but I can't remember if I tested the full range of that pot or not. Looking at the schem, the CCW sweep for the pot would be at lug 1. Comparing the 2013 and 2015 schems, the former has decay lug 1 tied to ground, and the latter has it tied to -9v. So not sure the best way to test it out...

Anyway, if someone confirms I have a problem here, I will give this the full tech help treatment if needed (pics, voltages, etc.)

This build report is for the Bad Medicine fuzz, jubal81's excellent take on the modded silicon Tonebenders we all know and love. It sounds great! Quite easy to get MkI and MkII-type sounds, and I've built Ge versions of both of those, so trust me on this one...thanks again for PIF'ing the PCB, m' dude! By the way, I went with the transistor selection that juansolo and Cleggy suggested for Hot Chilicon builds (Q1 & 2-2n3904; Q3-2n2222a; Q4-2n5088).

Anyway, I collaborated with both of my two daughters on this build. My older one did the graphics for me, inspired by the Tokyo Ghoul manga series. She uses a program called Clip Studio that is more or less specific to Manga and Anime genres. All I had to do was walk it over to Illustrator and lay out the labels. My younger daughter made me a really cool storage bag for it in her Maker Space club at school. It is cute! You'll see it in the picture with the pedal interior. This was my first time using a bare metal look and I like it a lot--I just lightly sanded it to get that slightly industrial look.

Hi everyone--so, I have a Sharkfin board that someone kindly PIF'ed me a while back that I am finally getting around to planning to build. I notice there are a few parts on the board silkscreen that are not on the build doc, either the board image or the B.O.M. They are Q1, C17, R35, and R36 along with an LED 2. I feel like I remember that all being for a rate indicator on the filter side that Brian ended up removing later because it didn't work as expected. Is that the case, and am I safe just leaving those off?

Thanks!

So, I was lucky enough to have this stunner show up at my house last week. Thanks again to Jason for letting me lend my ears to the development (even if it was in the really early stage when the circuit was still more a G2-type)! Anyway, I feel the need to spread the enthusiasm as this is hands-down the best low- to mid-gain drive I have ever heard. Besides the uber-powerful EQ, what really makes this circuit special is the harmonics. In my experience, you just can't get this kind of rich, interesting harmonic content from a lower-gain drive such as a TS-type. You might be able to get that from a higher-gain drive or distortion like an OCD, but then you're not going to be in the same realm in terms of character. It's really fun to play and encourages you to rock out on chords for extended periods. At higher-than-bedroom volumes, it blooms into natural feedback in the best possible way. Anyway, we are lucky to have this exist just in DIY-land for the moment, so I hope everyone who is able will build one!

Hi everyone! Couldn't help sharing this. My 13-year-old daughter is a big fan of Anime/Manga, and she has been teaching herself to use a graphic design program called Clip Studio that is more or less specific to those genres. She's already an amazing traditional illustrator, but as I've watched her skills progress, I wondered if this program could interface with, well, Illustrator, which I use for my pedal labeling. Although not vector-based, turns out it works pretty well. She did this image based on the show Tokyo Ghoul for me and saved it as a .png file. I've been trying it out with various projects I'm working on to see which pedal the theme seems to work with. Still not totally sure, but this is one we tried out for the V-Fuzz board I've had populated for ages. Never mind the odd placement on the page...just maximizing waterslide decal real estate! Anyway, enjoy...

Hi everyone,

I was unhappy with the boxing I originally did on my build of Brejna's Pangea vibe, and had also been getting some radio noise (what I believe is an FM station, 102.5--I live near a huge radio tower!). So I re-boxed it in a roomier enclosure and used enclosed jacks and shielded wire. I've confirmed with my DMM that the jack shields have continuity to the enclosure. Could someone take a look at this gut shot and let me know if there is anything about my wiring that could turn this thing into an antenna? The wiring scheme I used here was essentially the same minus the shielded wire, i.e. one ground point from the circuit board going to the dc jack, and one going to one of the jack shields, that is then connected to the other jack shield with a wire. Ground loop? And if so, can those pick up the radio given the right conditions?

Hi all! The Pangea was my biggest project last year, but I realized not long after building it that the 1790NS I used was just not quite deep enough to accomodate the in/out jacks above the board, even though they were the Lumberg mini-type. The jacks were basically sitting on top of the board, and since I had had to elongate those holes with a file to get them even to that point (since the drill template I sent to PPP was off a bit), I was worried about long-term reliability or damage to the board. So, I stared off this year by finally learning to drill boxes on my own. Strangely enough, it went even better than my second attempt, my recent OD-855 clone. This time I used a Hammond 1590X, which PPP kindly special ordered for me. This box is deep enough to accommodate enclosed Switchcraft jacks, so it's a highly recommended alternative for anyone building this. I also went with shielded wire this time since I've been getting some RF interference through the pedal. Turns out it's not really the pedals fault, so that problem is not entirely cured. See my thread under Amp Building!