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Thanks guys. These are all good places to start. And yeah, I know it mostly comes with experience, but it's still overwhemling simetimes just knowing where to start looking. Having some kind of checklist to go through helps. And in the end, it really comes down to re-checking everything, I guess.

I've got a small pile of builds that I need to debug, but I'll give you a basic example:
The pedal passes sound in bypass, standard 3PDT bypass switch. When engaging the effect, no sound, no LED.
Double checked my power connections, power is getting to the board, not reversed, etc. Check the voltage at the (board mounted) LED, I'm reading millivolts.
Using my test probe, I get a signal at the input jack in bypass. Engage the effect, I lose the signal at the input jack - what does that mean?? Do I have a short to ground somewhere, or?? This is where I get stuck. Again, I'll just have to dig in and start double checking all my wiring, solder joints, etc. I'm just hoping to at least rule some things out?

Can anyone point me to some learning material or tutorials on how to troubleshoot? I've got multimeters, and a test probe, but I'm no good at interpreting what I find. Thanks!

Double post, please delete thx

Congrats on the new pup! If I had to guess from the photos, there may be a little American Saffy, and those ears and her colors make me want to say some kind of sheep dog. I've got two rescue mutts at home, and it was really fun finding out their DNA results!

I'm facebook feiends with Rej, looks like he's just been busy with other projects. I know he was into modding Jeeps for a while, and I think he's been working on hot rodding a Nissan or Infinity more recently.

So should I just forget about ever building my own Ultrastoner, or is there a vero or perf layout out there somewhere?

Thanks!

Juansolo posted a link to the Ultrastoner doc above, check it out. It's just a Big Muff Pi with different values, so you could probably use any old layout and make it work. That's what I plan to do eventually, some day, lol.

Great thread. A lot of your posts hit home for me. I dread the holidays, can't stand the pointless consumerism, and I REALLY can't stand spending time with my family, mainly my mother and my sister. I've stopped getting together with them. At this point, you could say we're estranged, although I do try to let them know I "care" by liking their facebook posts once in a while or texting them on their birthdays. They've done my wife and her kids wrong too many times, and can no longer pretend that everyrhing is fine. I've been in and out of therapy for years, so I think I know myself pretty well now. My mother has no self awareness, and my sister takes right after her. So when I've tried to bring things up with them in the past, I'm met with "oh no, you misunderstood" or "no, we absolutely adore your stepkids"  - like hell. Sorry, I know your supposed to just smile and put up with family at the holidays, but I say fuck that. We do what we want now. We don't run around to visit a million people any more. We're going to the movies xmas eve, then ordering chinese take out. Then we're going to my wife's parents on xmas day, and that's it. No pressure, no stress, maybe some guilt, but not much because whatever.
Merry Christmas & happy holidays e everyone!

["I don't think violence will necessarily solve any problems but I also cannot blame a race of people who are being systematically oppressed and murdered for being angry enough to throw bricks at their killers."]

Thanks for talking about this, Jon. I generally come here to talk about pedals and not politics, but I think this is important.

For everyone who dismisses rioters as a knee-jerk reaction, I'd like to politely ask that you read this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/

In case you who don't have the time, here's the main takeaway:

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

Riots like this are not the result of one isolated incident. They're the result of systematic racism and oppression by an overwhelming force that refuses to change. Here's what Martin Luther King, Jr. had to say about riots:

It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.

Consider what that means, "a riot is the language of the unheard." There were massive, peaceful protests for about a week after Freddie Gray died. You didn't hear about those and they're still not really being talked about. (Here's an NY Times article from a week ago that mentions them: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/us/another-mans-death-another-round-of-questions-for-the-police-in-baltimore.html) When did you start to hear? When the rioting started.

I think many of us may not be aware of the problem media has with riots. I personally didn't think much about it until Ferguson forced me to last year. When black people riot, they're presented to us as "thugs" or "looters". When white people riot, nobody cares. For instance: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/white-people-rioting-for-no-reason.html

Is it less legitimate to riot because yet another black man died in police custody than because your baseball team won a game? I was in school in Boston in 2004 when the Red Sox won and caused the riot pictured in that link; the norm for those situations was for people to start flipping over cars and breaking everything they could. One girl was killed by the police. I say "those situations" because this was a regular occurrence. If the Red Sox or the Patriots won, there'd be riots. I lived around the corner from all of this. It's not okay.

While we all wish reform could occur without violence on either side, the real fact of the matter is that the police use military force on their own civilians as a matter of course. Peaceful protest can't work when the state is throwing tear gas and pepper spray at you, when peaceful protesters are kettled and treated as enemies simply for making their voices heard. The protest movement is called Black Lives Matter because they do, but as a country, our normal course of action is to let centuries of institutionalized racism take precedence. In a very real way, these riots are literally self-defense. They have no power to resist with except violence.

Try not to think of it as "what do the rioters hope to accomplish?" Think of this more as the natural consequence of the state's (and media's) actions. I'm not asking anyone to condone destruction and looting, but it's important to view the rioters as people who deserve understanding and compassion before dismissing them out-of-hand. Someone on another forum I read said this, and I think it's an excellent summation of the topic: "I don't think violence will necessarily solve any problems but I also cannot blame a race of people who are being systematically oppressed and murdered for being angry enough to throw bricks at their killers."

Slate writer Jamelle Bouie also said it well:
"...one can both disagree with an act but also understand the impulse behind it.

Shocking, I know." (https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/592899257797111808)

This is a very complex and charged subject, and I'm not making any assumptions about anyone's statements or thoughts here. But I really believe we can't have a discussion about this unless we're willing to address the question of why these things happen. (And by "we", I mean we as a country as much as we in this thread right now.)

Great post. Sums up my thoughts, and adds to them as well. Thank you.

it was rock hard but yeah..might take some time to adhere to the enclosure i guess

I've never used Envirotex, but I've used plenty of other epoxies and paints. There's something you need to keep in mind - there's a difference between something being "dry", and something being "cured". Just because something feels dry to the touch and hard doesn't mean it's ready to be handled roughly, scrubbed, etc. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but curing is the process where the all of the gasses have finished evaporating out of the chemical solution, and the paint/glue/whatever is truly hard.

I love mayonnaise. I recently switched to the Helmans made with olive oil in an effort to eat healthier. I can't eat a turkey sandwich without mayo, it's too dry. Ham sandwiches require mustard though. Mayo has no business being anywhere near ham.

Awesome topic!!  Rej covered French Canadians pretty thoroughly , and I imagine east coasters (Newfs and PEIers) have their own thing going on.  But out here on the west coast at least for the last decade, the #1 swear to insult someone else is douche, most often combined with something else:
- douche-bag (very popular)
- douche-nozzle
- douche-rocket
- douche-bucket
- and my personal favourite because it really takes the Canadianness to the next level, douche-canoe.  Example:  Look at that raging fucking douche-canoe drinking a Canadian (Molson Canadian beer, the Canadian equivalent of Fosters, something no self respecting canadian would drink).

Hoser might have been an insult/swear at one time, but is only used as a term of endearment these days (see the movie Strange Brew if you have never heard the term hoser).

Also despite (or maybe because of?) being one of the more diverse and least religious parts of the country, we reaaaaaly like to thow Jesus' and God into the mix.  EG  Fucking god damn jesus fucking christ.  Sweet fucking jesus on a stick.

I yell "Jesus fucking christ" and "God fucking dammit" a lot, especially in traffic. I'm also fond of douche-bag (and occasionally douche-nozzle) when talking politics.

Here in the States, "Fuck you you fucking fuck" showcases our American laziness and lack of creative vocabulary when it is time to curse.

We often combine the f-bomb with other insulting words to increase effectiveness: i.e. "hey fuck-tard", etc.

Silliness.

That's probably because the f-word is still considered the worst of the worst. It is kinda lazy to only use the f-word though. You've got to mix it up.

Last week we had a snow storm on the first day of spring, so I could be heard saying something like "Fuck this fucking snow straight in the ass. This cock sucking mother fucking snow can go eat shit and die. Fuck." Or something like that, while I was shoveling.

Good info, thanks midwayfair. I do remember Reverb Nation being rather confusing when I was using it a few years ago, although I had no problem using it the other night - got two tracks uploaded and shared within a few minutes. RN does seem rather cheesy and overbearing.

That's fine, thanks for your response lincolnic. No need to elaborate :-)

Reverb Nation or Band Camp?

Hey guys, which one do you use to share your band's music? Do you have a preference? Why? What do you like about one and not the other? Do you use both? Is there a different site other than these two that I should consider as well?

I was in a hurry to share some originals from my new band, so I quickly created a Reverb Nation page & uploaded the songs, so that I could share them on our Facebook page & elsewhere. This morning I thought to myself "hey, what about Band Camp? Which one should I be using?" Etc

Thanks!