Messages

Spa in a Juno has got to be a hoot.  Have you seen the Youtube footage from the last round there?  Very exciting.  Ewan remembered you straight away and spoke very highly of you, so he's definitely remembered a conversation somewhere along the line.

My first couple of Sunking builds have 3n3 in for a tone cap, as I was struggling to find any 3n9.  I quite like them like that - might even put a switch on my own one as the clarity is really useful.  The last couple of builds have been held up by the lack of a Cleggy, followed by quite a bit of rubbing down and starting again.  Bet I've spent more on Rover Cashmere Gold than I did on the boards, but I'm getting there.  Just finished assembling one with 6n8 in it, and I'll give it a blast in the morning.

Liam

I'll preface this with the friend in common being EB from Juno.  Diamond geezer of the first water, and he pieced it together straight away when I mentioned you.  The world is amazingly small.  Used to share an office with him at work, but he's in the next one along now (when he's not at Juno, which does tend to be the case).  I've got a few mates work there, and a few more that used to.

Next thing...  Got any 8n2 caps left?  It would save me a USA order.  I know that makes me a bit cheeky, but I'm quite intrigued to try a few more in a Sunking.  I thought I'd heard every sort of overdrive pedal there was, but at gig volume the Sunkings (and I'm guessing Centaurs) have got something really interesting going for them.  I've built 4 of them now, but I keep lending them out in a sort of "convert" sort of fashion.  Thought I'd heard it all...  Hadn't.

Liam

I socketed it so I went way bigger ;-)

8n2 nailed the gold horsey. But I think I prefer going even slightly further with a 10n. 15n was about as far as you could go and it still sound really good, beyond that it could get flubby.

Thanks for the advice Juansolo, will be trying a few caps on Thursday.  Were your ears burning this afternoon?  Turns out we've got a friend in common.  Where are you getting 8n2s from - I've struggled!

Liam

Thanks Brian, thought it must be that.

The new documentation looks great - looking forward to getting Mad Bean build number 11 (if I've not lost count!) up and going.

Liam

So I can stop looking out for 3n9 film caps?  Thanks for that - I'd been subbing 3n3s without thinking very much about going the other way.  Did you try going bigger?  How was it?

Liam

Hi,

I notice the project documents for the Karate Chop are still based on the Slap Chop.  On the bottom right of the circuit I've got a C14, which doesn't appear on the schematic or parts list for the project:

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/images/slideshow/karateshop.jpg

As far as I can trace it's just sitting there in parallel with C13, waiting for me to fill the gap if I need extra filtering on the 9V supply.  Please let me know if my assumption is reasonable or idiotic!

Liam

I'd stopped buying Alpha because most of my favourite places don't stock them anymore.  Any sensible UK stockists?  It might sound tight, but I hate paying over a quid for potentiometer!

Liam

I've never came across that. Where do you source parts from?

RS, Maplin, CPC, Farnell or Rapid Electronics.  Farnell/CPC are best for 24 mm pots at the moment (although 10K lin are really hard to get anywhere).  Maplin have lost their minds on pricing...  I think the A for Lin and B for log is a Citec/Tyco thing, but I'm pretty sure other UK companies had the same code.

Liam

And when you buy here in the UK, it's the other way around.  A is lin, B is log.

Lesson learnt the hard way several times - I guess I'll have to declare myself as having a learning difficulty!

Liam

You don't need a regulator for 18 volts from a Road Rage as far as I can work out.  The ~18V pad should give you a pretty well regulated and quiet 18 volt supply (or almost 18V anyway!) without actually putting a regulator on the board.  I've not quite finished my first Road Rage yet, but that's how I'm planning to try it.  I'll let you know.

Liam

I've built two of these, both now have audio taper on the volume pots.  Jacob, that's uncanny, unity gain is indeed between 12 and 1 O'Clock.  And yes, the pedal is far more usable like this.

Liam

Hi Daniel,

Just a thought.  Here in Europe "A" is usually linear, and "B" is log.  For USA and some other places this is reversed.  For the Sunking you need linear for the tone and drive controls, although log works really well for the volume.

Hope that helps if you'd not noticed.

Liam

I just don't, I leave the PCB floating on the leads, components towards the knob mounting face.  Then I use a couple of pieces of 1/4" foam on the back plate to stop the PCB shorting out and to secure the battery in place.  Not the perfect solution, but has worked great for the first 6 builds.

Liam

I just stuck a reply on the bottom of your thread in the build reports!  Yes, I think I've got all this the right way around.  What a fabulous sounding pedal it is too.  I've been messing about with an old Princeton Reverb at home, but for live use it will be through a 100 watt Matamp and a 4 x 12 or a 100 watt JMP Marshall.  It's a seriously good OD pedal, rivals the Sunking for just sounding like a quality piece of kit.  I get exactly what your saying about the sensitivity to the switches varying with amp and settings.  I also notice the boost has less and less extreme effect as the gain goes up.

I only ever play through a tube amp that's just getting crunchy, so this is my sort of pedal!

Liam

Yeah, I can tell you that you have to plan your layout very precisely.  I was going to try a 1590b and went for the BB to give me a little breathing room, but even with the larger enclosure, I had to work to get everything to fit like I wanted it.  Mad bean did a great job on this board.  Everything was laid out extremely well.  I even had room for a few silver micas and some rather fat greenies.  Bravo.  The only issue I had was with the wiring on the led for the boost section.  I read a post from another builder who had the same problem.  The led was on when the boost was disengaged and off when it was engaged. (wired backwards)  Either I fucked up the wiring for the switch (entirely possible even though i triple checked it.) or it was backwards on the diagram.  Just be sure to check that before you solder it down.  All I had to do is move it from the top center pole to the bottom center pole.  All good.

Thanks for your post in my thread.  I'll get some photos of my one up soon.  I'm pretty sure the wiring guide has just that small error in it, but that it can't be all of us.

I can't champion this pedal enough.  I love it.  Its chief attribute is it's transparency.  It's really great at bringing out what's great about your amplifier.  It won't color your tone to try and simulate some other amp.  The only down side to that is that it won't sound all that great through a shitty amp.  That may not always be true, but I can tell you that I tested the board through my vox ac15 and it sounded amazing.  I couldn't believe how great it was sounding.  Then once I got it finished, I went to test it, but it was very late, so I didn't want to fire up the tube amp and wake up the neighborhood.  So instead I tested it through a little p.o.s. practice amp.  I thought I had screwed up the wiring because this was not the pedal I heard before.  It sounded dull and lifeless and way more compressed.  180 degrees from what I heard before.  I managed to subdue the rage that was building inside of me and I resisted the urge to throw it against the wall.  Instead I went to sleep.

Just laughed quite a lot reading that.  Mine got tested with my phrase trainer at 1 in the morning.  I actually said to a mate at work next day that I was sure I had built it right, and that  it was rubbish.

And it's a good thing that I did.  The next morning, I went in and plugged it into the ac15 just to see what would happen and I got the awesome tone back that I heard the first time (but even better minus the noise of testing an open layout).  Great!!  So its not going to rescue you from a shitty sounding amp, but oh boy will it make a good amp sing.  

Yesterday evening I fired it up through my SF Princeton Reverb.  Jeez that's a good sounding pedal - I really like it.  I actually dug out the Egodriver I'd decided wasn't very good for the same reason.  Sure enough - it's a real winner too. 

Liam