Shaka, When The Walls Fell! Madbean Edgelord Build

[peccary]

I have been piecing this pedal together for a few months now. Not because there are a bunch of hard to find parts, but because I *continually* missed ordering the parts for it. It probably took me three or four Tayda orders before I remembered everything, finally.

I was working on the artwork for a different pedal and had the idea to do something Star Trek related since I'm a big fan, but none of my ideas were coming out. I then remembered one of my favorite episodes of TNG where the Enterprise meets a lifeform their universal translator doesn't work for because they speak in metaphors from their culture and history. Picard gives the example of "Juliette on the balcony" to mean love, that kind of thing.

"Shaka, when the walls fell," was their term for failure, and I thought it was a pretty good description for what was going on for me.

Add to that the issue I had troubleshooting this pedal because I made a simple, dumb mistake, and it just comes full circle - like it was meant to be!

This was a fun build, and one of the more challenging ones with the number of components and breakout board. I feel really good about completing this one. Had I paid a little better attention when making resistors it would have come off without a hitch, but I'm glad I made a mistake as it help to improve my troubleshooting skills. Many thanks to Madbean for his help.

This pedal sounds great on bass, by the way. I really love Synth 1 with the long decay and how it gets a bit distorted at some settings. The auto Wah also sounds great as well and I didn't think I'd like it much. Synth 2 is a bit thin and probably won't be used much, but I'm glad it works.

Here's a couple photos:

[jessenator]

SOKATH, HIS EYES UNCOVERED!

Nice build nice and tidy inside as well.

[Thewintersoldier]

That turned out great Joe, the graphic is awesome. your build uality inside is the best it's been yet. really strong work.

[peccary]

That turned out great Joe, the graphic is awesome. your build uality inside is the best it's been yet. really strong work.

Thanks, Chris. Means a lot coming from you. I did try to take my time and finesse this one. I've got a lot to learn still but I'm glad that it shows.

SOKATH, HIS EYES UNCOVERED!

Nice build nice and tidy inside as well.

Thanks! And I am very glad to have gained some understanding after getting this together!

[harryklippton]

Nice one Joe. Great work. Any chance of us getting a clip?

[peccary]

Nice one Joe. Great work. Any chance of us getting a clip?

I was planning on making a clip for the build report initially, but after confirming that it worked I was so eager to make the report considering all of the false starts I had building this thing 😂

I'll make a clip soon - if not tonight then in a day or two.

[jimilee]

Wow, that looks fantastic!


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[Leevibe]

That came out super nice! I really like the way the graphic came out.

[Bio77]

That looks awesome, congrats!  The ones that make it through a debug always have a special place in my collection. 

[Bret608]

I love that you referenced that particular TNG episode! That's one the two or three that stick out in my mind the most. I did something similar for my Flintlock flanger build. Looks great and congrats on the debug.

[peccary]

Nice one Joe. Great work. Any chance of us getting a clip?

Quick edit: I don't know WTF is going on with Soundcloud/Reaper/whatever the hell, but it does not want to give me any audio on any tracks other than the wah. I'm trying to figure it out and when I do I'll fix it. I fixed it - Apparently muted tracks render as.... muted lol 

I made a few sound clips with this pedal tonight. This pedal really deserves a knob twisting demo with a loop, but I don't have the ability to synch video and audio. Instead I just picked some settings I liked and played a little bit (here's where I should apologize for my terrible playing!). All of these were also recorded with long decat, because when you flip this thing to short decay it becomes one of the most obnoxious pedals on the planet. Very honky and unpredictable. You can get good sounds out of it, especially in the wah mode, but I much prefer the long decay in almost all situations.

All demos were recorded with my 2003 American P bass with a Fralin pickup using TI flats.

Wah - I really like the sound of the auto wah on this pedal, but I have no idea how to use one effectively so I just played a quick riff from CAKE. The rez, syns, and greq controls are very interactive on all modes on this pedal, and the wah goes from fat and blooming "BBLLLLOOOOOOWWWWWWAAAAAHHHHHHOOOO" to harsh and tinny.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/joe-b-575234186/edgelord-wah-demo?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing[/soundcloud]

Synth 1 - this is my favorite as it has aspects of the wah within it, it seems, but it can get pretty wild. Honestly my favorite part of it is the distortion which to my ears sounds pretty warm and soft and never washes out the bass which is pretty rare. I took two takes with this one - one with just the Edgelord and the other with the same exact settings only with a little bit of delay afterwards, which I think really sounds great.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/joe-b-575234186/edgelord-synth-1?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
[/soundcloud]

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/joe-b-575234186/edgelord-synth-1-demo-with-delay-1?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
[/soundcloud]
Synth 2 - I left the settings the same as I had on Synth 2 just to give a somewhat even comparison. There are much better sounds to be had in Synth 2, but none that rival Synth 1, at least to my ears.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/joe-b-575234186/edgelord-synth-2?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
[/soundcloud]
I know these aren't great, but I feel like sound clips are hard to come by for a lot of DIY pedals, in particular bass ones, so I will try to put up even terrible sound samples from now on, just for anyone looking for a point of reference.

[harryklippton]

Sounds awesome, Joe!

[culturejam]

Awesome! Now do a pedal in an "Inner Light" theme. 

[peccary]

Awesome! Now do a pedal in an "Inner Light" theme. 

That'd be a good one, maybe Picard playing the flute? What a great episode.

I was thinking that "Chain of Command" could be a good theme and have been thinking about that one a bit.

[jessenator]

I'm not ashamed in that the ending of that episode makes me feel many things. On the flipside, I laugh quite a lot at this:

There's an non-PC pedal name "B*tch Toot" "...Flute"; although that might be a better Admiral B*tchayev / Nachayev themed pedal

I was thinking that "Chain of Command" could be a good theme and have been thinking about that one a bit.

"Four Lights"  ?
"Spoon Head"
"TactiPicard" [because TACTILNECK, Lana]
"Captain Robocop" [because Ronny Cox]

anyway, that's enough unsolicited names...