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The best solution I have found for phantom switch pop issues is the TH Customs (no affiliation) Uber Switch which mutes the signal while bypassing.  I've had situations where nothing else worked, including optical bypass systems, and the Uber did the trick.

I tried that one once (in a Britannia) ... and it popped ... very sharp edge-of-pop, just after the mute. Seems the mute was just a little too short. Or it could be that I messed something up  . (Nobody else seems to have encountered this issue, so that is a viable possibility). In the end, I bent out the pin on the chip that triggers the mute. Now there's just a tiny bit of pop, but no longer the sharp noise. Seems there was a relation between the mute and the pop ... Also used the Molten Voltage one, which has a somewhat longer mute. Doesn't pop, but the mute is annoying when switching while playing.

In the end, I personally don't like relatively complex, current-slurping switching solutions, and I hardly have pops with the traditional 3pdts. I like the switching with optocouplers though. Your mileage WILL vary  .

Also if the reverb pot is set the max reverb? The reverb sound cannot just disappear ... if there is clean sound at at the reverb pot, that does indicate to me that the tranny has failed. However, that does not sound like a very common scenario to me (note: I am a hobbyist and not and electronics engineer). If you socketed it, it would be easy to try a new one, though.

Wow, these look truly spectacular! Love the way the eyes light up without over-obvious led-i-ness.

I would say that the base of the transistor cannot have clean sound, as it is only attached to the output of the brick. The emitter will have clean sound (mixed with reverb, if the transistor is working properly). Are you sure the transistor is oriented properly?

Oh, and if you have reverb at the arrow, you should also have it at R19, R20 and C14 ... at least with the reverb pot not completely to ground.

You could just have three buffered inputs mixed to a single output - no switch required.

Ah ... that's by far easiest: simply turn down the volume control on the guitars that you don't use. Plus, you could have volume pots on the 'mixer' to adjust for volume difference between the guitars (or tone controls) ...

Thanks guys!

After playing with this one a bit. I must agree with you that this sounds much better after a fuzz.

Also all the nasty distortion I had was better when playing with single coils

Yeah, it distorts in a rather nasty way, but it's not so nasty when it's blended in with some distortion in the input signal. My guess it that the circuit can be improved to use the chip in the most optimal way (and perhaps also getting rid of the isolated power supply requirement). However, the chip itself is pretty lo-fi, so maybe it wouldn't be worth the trouble. If you treat it like a noisemaker, this is a fun little project though, with some sounds you won't hear anywhere else.

The 'hard' section is always symmetrical. In the middle of the pot rotation, there will be basically no hard clipping at all. To one side, you blend in standard RAT clipping (two silicons). To the other side, you blend in four silicons plus a cap (which will roll off some highs). The configuration of the four silicons is non-standard as they are connected in the middle (like the Timmy does, but it has it as soft clipping). Rather clever tricks that VFE used to get many clipping options with a single pot.

You would have to find out what kind of voltage the Pitchfork expects at the CV input, and what the Digdug is putting out. If they match closely enough, it is worth a shot (if you carefully mind polarity and the max allowable voltage for the Pitchfork on the CV input).

So, you want to change the pitch of the guitar, in a musical way ... a vibrato changes pitch, but generally not in a very large range (or it would sound bad as a vibrato). The Mandroid would not work as it only has fixed detuning steps that have to be selected with switches (and it is definitely not in tune across the fretboard). Something digital is probably your best bet here ... but that would likely not be straightforward.

The digdug has a sort of CV output already. It is meant to drive an LED, but it could also drive something else, I guess. You would only have to check how much voltage swing it puts out, and what the receiving end needs (so it might need some amplification and offset correction).

As @kgull said: with a footswitch you can only switch between two options, unless you want to get fancy. You can probably mod something like this to suit your purpose: http://diy.thcustom.com/shop/effect-control-v1-0-kit/ (it can be set up to cycle through the loops with one button, and the loops can be made to be multiple inputs, I guess).

Other option is to use an on-on-on toggle switch, but that would off course need to be operated with your fingers and not yer foot  .

Mine is distorted at zero. Anything more is like a broken speaker that pierces the ears. Tried it first with the neck pickup and sent my girlfriend running out of the room.

Sounds like it's working as it should  . Your dry signal should be clean with gain trimmer at zero, but the wet signal will be particularly nasty (the chip does not handle audio nicely, and cannot deal with dynamics). To my ears, it gets a lot 'better' with the gain trimmer maxed. It is a noisemaker, and it does make noise. However, with some careful tweaking and blending, you can get some more 'musical' sounds out of it.

I think it's supposed to distort in a nasty way  . There is no way to get a clean pitch shift out of it. That said, I had my build distort in a nasty way, as in sputtering, also on the dry signal. Turned out I had a bad opamp. After changing it I only had the expected nastiness.

What exactly is the microphone trick?

Ah, the chip was originally meant for voice mangling. The pitch shifting can make you sound like a child or like a monster, or like a stuttering robot. So if you plug in a mic instead of your guitar it gets quite interesting.

A thing of beauty, both outside and inside.

One question--how did you get those sockets in that four-pin configuration for your MN3008? Did you cut down a bigger one somehow? I had a similar thought, hence my asking.

Looks like four pieces of 1x2 in-line socket ... smart ...

Great builds, and huge knobs  . The VFE builds look pretty intimidating in terms of component number and tightness of fit ... Been hesitating to try those (plus the hassle of getting all the components here in Europe). Shoe-horning a BBD chorus into a 1590A is total madness ... hats off!