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It does look excellent in a best grungy way, fits perfectly for the circuit! Well done!
The footswitch lights make it look kinda hypnotoad like...

all... hail... hypnotoad...

and thanks! Could be pretty sweet to use the ring as a rate LED for a modulation effect (especially in the dark) - this is probably what i'll use the other two i have left for

That's does look fantastic.


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Thanks! gf knocked it out of the park on the design, translated really well to the etch. She made the background pattern with Illustrator, and did the typography with Indesign (i think). its definitely been my favorite enclosure finishing method so far, and can have a lot of character. ferric chloride is pretty nasty stuff though

Hi everyone. I made this harmonic percolator clone as a surprise for my girlfriend's little brother. He's a gigantic Steve Albini fan.




This is the second pedal I've made for someone other than myself (started back in august) and I wanted to take the chance to work on some of my finishing skills. The first boxes I made were all in enclosures that were powder coated black when I got them, and I drew on them with paint pens. My handwriting isn't great and I'm not much for drawing, so the results looked pretty bad, not helped by the fact that I didn't plan enclosure layout ahead much so it was always a struggle to get everything to fit. I don't have a problem with this stuff if its just for me, but if I'm making something for someone else I'd rather it look cool.

It's been bad weather for spray painting around me, so I etched the enclosure using the toner transfer + ferric chloride method - the art was made by my girlfriend. This was my second attempt (first was a process test) and I'm really digging the rough look. I know using the name of a pedal you're cloning is usually bad, but seeing as how this is a one-off that I'm giving as a gift to someone, I didn't see much problem it.

As far as the circuit goes, it's just the Albini component values with a 2n3904 in place of the NPN transistor. Really easy and quick build. If I had more time I would've taken a stab at adding in some of the mods I've seen around the web, but the stock version still holds up.

This is the first time I've used an LED ring in a build, and though it looks slightly better in person than in pictures, I can't say I'm the biggest fan. I've heard they sell ones that are more diffuse which would help a lot, but given the cost they seem to add to the build (relative to a normal LED) I don't think the look is quite worth it. Still interested in exploring other lighting options, though.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it came out. The offboard layout was a little tight due to the placement of the footswitch hole and the pot labels. Not the end of the world, and a snug fit is satisfying, but next time I'm definitely going to plan that out a little better, as it would've been easier to get away with way shorter lengths of wire if there had been room for the board to sit perpendicular to how it does now.

I would say it this way: if opamps in audiosignal have 9V power, then it is better, when driving values, that makes some modulation signals, are little lower, for example cca 8V. So, top of this driving curves has some "reserve" not to clip and so distort process of modulation.
Transistor gives here stronger current to power rail, than divider from resistors. This is the simplest way how to get little lower voltage output without using opamp source with some divider at input.

I see, thanks for the explanation!

Yes it goes from that emitter of Q in left corner. It gives slightly lower value, but stabilized. So, modulator has little lower values going to driving process, not overhelming values at opamps in signal track. It is very frequently used hack - modulation circuit has lower top values not to overfuell modulation pins in opamps.

Thanks for the response! So why is a transistor used rather than a voltage divider here? Is that where stabilization comes into the picture/is this a way to isolate the slightly lower +Va bus from the rest of the power?

Also, when you say overwhelming the values at opamps in signal track, do you mean overwhelming the values coming out of the output pins? I guess I'm a bit confused as to how the power input for the modulator/clock driver section effects the signal coming from the output pins of the op amps in the signal path. Thanks again, for the guidance here

Hi all,
I'm reading through the schematic of the BYOC analog vibrato, and I'm having a little trouble determining where +Va is coming from. Is this the bias voltage set by the 25k trimpot? or should all +Va points tie into the emitter of the NPN transistor near the bottom left of the schematic? It seems like the former is unlikely, as the BBD/clock driver use +Va as their supply voltage while adjacent op-amps pull directly from the wiper pin of the trimpot.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated, I'm prototyping some mods on breadboard and just don't want to potentially damage the BBD.

Hi James, welcome to our little corner on teh interwebz. My name is jimilee and I'm a pedalholic. I've been building for 10 years and I can stop any time I want.....

Thanks! 10 years, sounds like a lot of pedals... can you pick a favorite?

Hi everyone,
I'm James - new to the forum. I started making pedals a few months ago after having slowly built up a small home lab over two years of tinkering with microcontrollers and some other small projects. Initially started as a gift idea for a couple guitarists i know in my life, but got bit by the pedal bug pretty fast, and it motivated me to start learning guitar again after a 10 year break lol. excited to get to know/learn from others

Also - anyone else on here in the ulster county/hudson valley NY area? would be stoked to find someone local into this stuff