I got the pedal making bug early this year and have been on a tear! It all started with me getting back into guitar and having a vision that I could make every pedal on my board to-be something I made with my own hands (minus the great madbean & other PCB designs). So, I drove right in, built up some boards and then realized I needed some decent artwork and enclosures, which proved much harder than I realized. I admit that I've always been weak on my graphic design skills. However, after combing the madbean forum I realize that there is a wide spectrum of examples, from amazing custom designed art to "found" and borrowed images on the good 'ol Net. This helped me be ok with borrowing from some other designs and grabbing ideas off google images as starting points. All in all, I think the artwork stage takes the longest for me, maybe because I suck with Illustrator.
Anyhow, here's a few that I've got decent photos of. Perhaps I'll post others later. Oh, some I don't have gut shots handy for...I didn't realize this was a thing (sorry still getting the hang of this!)
1. Current Lover (May)
This was my second build, first was a Pork Barrel chorus). I saw all these awesome etches around and figured I'd give it a try. I always loved the sound of the electric mistress (especially The Police) so I thought I make one. Was a little hard, some debugging had...learned to pay attention to the BOM and learn my resistor color coding!
2. Hipster (June)
Next I did a fuzz face. Never had a fuzz before...figured I'd need at least one.
3. Green Bean (June)
I realize that I needed an overdrive as well. Seemed to be a good place to start. Tried a reverse etch following Cody's guide but it was a lot harder than I thought. Mostly it came out ok.
4. Kingslayer (July)
Read a lot about the Klon and it seemed to be something on the must-try list. I'd never seen or played one so this was kind of just a total what the heck. I like it a lot and use it with mild settings and for gain staging. Figured I keep to the original art style, though I get a lot of feedback from friends on the (unintended) placement of the stomp =\
5. Runt (July)
A friend recommended The Rat, like it's a must have. I've found that I like it for saturation when I have loads of effects on...not sure It's my style using it solo. I had this idea of the rat holding the cheese, why not the IC?
6. Doubelganger (August)
This build was hard for me. I had this crazy problem which turned out to be a bridge hidden under some flux, preventing one of the LFOs from working. I couldn't debug it for the life of me even checking voltages and all the posts I could find here (oh the hours sunk :-( ) Finally wisened up and went back to basics: scrubbed the board with a toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol. Magically, that was it!
Anyhow, I really loved the doppelgänger artwork Cody (@selfdestroyer) used on his build so I tracked down the New Yorker magazine image and asked Cody if it was cool to use his design idea. I chose an Art Deco type font which seemed to go well. Oh, yeah. I nearly started a fire with this etch too- it's a lot of surface area to etch on that big 1790ns enclosure...I think some of the packing tape I was using to mask the sides dipped into the hot enchant and it flared up...scared the crap out of me. Lesson learned to go slow on this part of the process!
Well, that's all for now. I'll try to remember to post a few more after I get another round done. Thanks again to all of you for the inspiration, ideas, knowledge and support!
Anyhow, here's a few that I've got decent photos of. Perhaps I'll post others later. Oh, some I don't have gut shots handy for...I didn't realize this was a thing (sorry still getting the hang of this!)
1. Current Lover (May)
This was my second build, first was a Pork Barrel chorus). I saw all these awesome etches around and figured I'd give it a try. I always loved the sound of the electric mistress (especially The Police) so I thought I make one. Was a little hard, some debugging had...learned to pay attention to the BOM and learn my resistor color coding!
2. Hipster (June)
Next I did a fuzz face. Never had a fuzz before...figured I'd need at least one.
3. Green Bean (June)
I realize that I needed an overdrive as well. Seemed to be a good place to start. Tried a reverse etch following Cody's guide but it was a lot harder than I thought. Mostly it came out ok.
4. Kingslayer (July)
Read a lot about the Klon and it seemed to be something on the must-try list. I'd never seen or played one so this was kind of just a total what the heck. I like it a lot and use it with mild settings and for gain staging. Figured I keep to the original art style, though I get a lot of feedback from friends on the (unintended) placement of the stomp =\
5. Runt (July)
A friend recommended The Rat, like it's a must have. I've found that I like it for saturation when I have loads of effects on...not sure It's my style using it solo. I had this idea of the rat holding the cheese, why not the IC?
6. Doubelganger (August)
This build was hard for me. I had this crazy problem which turned out to be a bridge hidden under some flux, preventing one of the LFOs from working. I couldn't debug it for the life of me even checking voltages and all the posts I could find here (oh the hours sunk :-( ) Finally wisened up and went back to basics: scrubbed the board with a toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol. Magically, that was it!
Anyhow, I really loved the doppelgänger artwork Cody (@selfdestroyer) used on his build so I tracked down the New Yorker magazine image and asked Cody if it was cool to use his design idea. I chose an Art Deco type font which seemed to go well. Oh, yeah. I nearly started a fire with this etch too- it's a lot of surface area to etch on that big 1790ns enclosure...I think some of the packing tape I was using to mask the sides dipped into the hot enchant and it flared up...scared the crap out of me. Lesson learned to go slow on this part of the process!
Well, that's all for now. I'll try to remember to post a few more after I get another round done. Thanks again to all of you for the inspiration, ideas, knowledge and support!