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Long story short I bought a mini q-tron 10 years ago and intended to rehouse it and mod it for true bypass. I took it apart and never got around to putting it back together. can I hook up the dc jack like normal or do I need to do reverse the polarity etc... I'm super rusty on all this stuff, its been many years since I got the soldering iron out. 

[First question: is there any relatively easy way to fill in these holes without it looking completely haggard? I was thinking about sanding the metal down and spray painting the top for instance. Really I probably only need to fill in the footswitch hole most likely]

I searched around for a DIY envelope filter for a while and tried a few, didn't like them.  So I decided to just buy a micro q-tron and rehouse it but after looking up some gut shots I realized it would be a lot easier to do the mini-q-tron.  The micro had pcb mounted pots etc...but I searched for a month or so on ebay/gbase/clist and finally found one.  well, apparently they weren't all that popular and it's easy to see why.  WHAT A WASTE OF SPACE!  on top of that the one I found wasn't true bypass (assuming that the dpdt switch coming off what is labeled 'b' on the pcb means 'buffer').  In addition they are using a positive tip 1/8" plug as an adapter jack.    Heck, It's really not even all that 'mini' compared to the fulll size version even.  










So, I haven't decided what to put the q-tron pcb in yet but I might put it and a dig dug or a clean octave down circuit in a 1790.  I could even put both in this enclosure if I wanted but I also think I could put 3 switches and 9 or 10 knobs in this thing with minimal modifications as well.  So it could also possibly become at dirt/boost pedal for my small pedalboard.  

First question: is there any relatively easy way to fill in these holes without it looking completely haggard?  I was thinking about sanding the metal down and spray painting the top for instance.  Really I probably only need to fill in the footswitch hole most likely 

I had the grapevine laying around unboxed and I had an extra yellow blem 125 so I through it in there.  The wolfshirt is in a mammoth 1590 box.  (waiting on delivery of transistors still for it so I threw in some bc109s for now, not nearly enough dirt though)  I'm not really into spending too much time making things look pretty but this is about as far as I go with DIY projects.  I might add a trim to ground on the octave switch when the octave is off to make the volume output the same when used as a fuzz only. 

I can't find any 16mm ones at mouser (granted I suck at mouser'ing)

mammoth: nope
PedalPartsPlus: nope
allied elec: can't find anything like it

any suggestions?

tap trem
echo base
aqua boy
5 ego drivers
5 spacklers
sunking
5 road rages
clean octave down
sabertooh

http://cusackmusic.com/wp/?page_id=265



http://cusackmusic.com/wp/Manuals/Z-Tap%20Instructions.pdf

finished this today for a friend.  The serendipity is built out to roughly the mods I posted on the mods forum and I raised the value of R3 on the t-bagger to 560k to brighten up the input slightly and raised c3 to 100n for a fuller bass response.  I've been doing no labels on my pedals and he liked that look so this is completely finished and ready for use.  Volume on the left, Gain on the right and tone below (voice is to the left of tone on the serendipity). 

I thought about envelope filter and delay as well but I decided to just throw a loop in there pre-fuzz as I think these 3 are the ones that I can build best as far as DIY.

box would be a DD size.

i've built a few optical compressors and I was thinking these would be best for bass but I was also considering the Orange Squeezer modded for bass.  Any experience with either?  I scrapped the optical comps years ago as I never used them, they were kinda rough to being with, and was desperate for some parts.

I'm kinda a fuzz noob.  I've built the byoc large beaver (sold it to a friend who started a pink floyd cover band a few years ago).  Looking for some psychedelic fuzz, funk, experimental/electronica, stoner rock type applications. 

I use both single coils and humbuckers fwiw and I have a 'macheen' and a 'sabertooth' (although i'm planning on using the sabertooth in a multi effect box for bass which i'll detail in another thread and I don't like how it sounds stock with guitar)

I'm looking at:

muddbunny
wolfshirt
poindexter
retrograde
zombii
zygote
etc...actually i'm open to suggestions

any advice or suggestions?  does the machine>(pick a fuzz) work as well as the poindexter etc..?

I'm thinking about building another ridiculous rig from the ground up and want to consolidate all my stuff into one big box if possible.  The 17x11" boxes seem perfect but i'm a little concerned about whether the boxes will be thick enough to not be flimsy when I stomp on switches.  I don't want much 'give' obviously.  it says they are .081 thick aluminum but I have no clue on the strength of that material when it's that thin.   the 15 degree boxes even have a shelf area for knobs!

http://www.hammondmfg.com/dwg16.htm

I think either 10 degree or 15 degree will work.  Do you think i'd need to shield the vent holes as well?  (i'll be using this live)

anyone know of any round (so I can drill the hole myself) cable/jack type that I can use with 8 or more connections?

the relay's need two wires each (spdt momentary) and I was thinking that there might be some sort of cable/jack system out there (perhaps for computers) that has 8+ pins that I could use from the looper to a box that houses the actual relay circuits.  I'm not going to build it if I have to run 4 cables from it, that kinda defeats the purpose.  2 cables maybe. 

any ideas or suggestions?

good deal?

I'm thinking about building these two effects into a single enclosure then running an a/b switch to pick which one is active (following an on/off true bypass loop)

the idea being you could have one switch that does feedback loop/or oscillation feedback for whichever circuit is active.  

do I have the diodes right?  (per madbeans instructions on the aqua boy as 'back to back diodes')

will any of these from Small bear work better than the others etc?

http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok?category=Photocells+and+Photocouplers

I am looking for those switches that you can hit on the side of the wah.  Anyone know where to get them?  dpdt or 3pdt?

...and have been at it for almost 7 months!   I'm trying to build 10 pedals for a charity in the name of the late michael houser who died in 2002 due to pancreatic cancer. This is what i've come up with:

Input>Switch on/off for ego driver (modded)>switch on/off for RTO style mods to TS9 circuit into fat control mid boost>output all running off the road rage.

The midboost at the end is the key IMO as it not only give a push in the low mids it also allows you to get humbucker sounds out of single coils if needed.  By stacking the EGO>RTO>Mid-Boost in that specific order I'm able to get a ton of gain without losing much clarity.   Not having any sort of buffer before until right before the mid-boost also seems to help things stay consistent so to speak but also remains very dynamic and responsive.   

this is a mess because it's a prototype and I want enough slack to get stuff out without de-soldering wires etc...







so 'normal' represents a slightly dirty sound and with both on it does high gain SLO type crunch with amazing clarity for how dirty it is (ala SLO).   

ego mods:

- JRC4580D chip
- c3 = 82n or 68n...still on the fence about this one.  not a big deal though. 
- c8 = 56n (might go back to 47n though, it's only a tad bit more thump)
- no hi/low switch and a 27k for r11, r10 left empty
- I have a 500k in for the gain pot right now but I might go to 1m again.  Really though about 750k seems the optimum amount...any suggestions on the best/easiest way to do that would be appreciated.  (i'm a moron on pots and switches to say the least)

RTO mods to GGG ts8 pcb

I raised the 47n that comes off the clipping section via the 4k7 resistor to 150n or 180n (can't decide which yet).  I also changed the volume pot to B10k rather than 100k, used a jrc4580D, and a 2n4401 for the output buffer tranny.   

The fat control circuit has an opa2134 chip instead of the 442 type. 





here is what I'm going for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBIevxS9pFI

3:05 is 'normal' channel and 3:31 is 'overdrive' channel

I'm going to get some clips posted soon as i've still got a little fine tuning to do. 

Man, I've been loving this circuit!

it really makes the ego driver rawk!  (best placed after the ego circuit)

There are so many applications for this thing IMO and perfboarding it isn't something I want to do again. 

http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10435

So I have two circuits that i'd like to reduce the effective range of the pot on.

one is a tube screamer like circuit and i'd like to make the drive control go from 1 to 3 only rather than 1 to 10 (as in 10 = max gain).   Is it as easy as raising the value of the 51k off the drive control?

can I just put a resistor in between two lugs of a pot or in series with one lug? 

Say lug 3 is to GND on a 500k pot and I want only 250k to 500k worth of range: what do I do?

I built up the yellow shark finally and although it sounds really good there is almost a fizzy low octave noise around the notes.  I tried changing the value of c5 (I socket'd it due to the instructions) and it changed where it seemed to come out frequency wise.  

Anyone had this issue?  I'm going to scope it but I'm pretty sure I built it properly to spec.  

edit:

found this on fsb

http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6083&hilit=honey+bee&start=100

seems the poster at the top found the same thing. 

which one should I start on?  then which next?

got:

chunk chunk
yellow shark
aqua boy x2 (also have double delay time pcbs)
sunking x2
serendipity x2
egodriver x2

that is just the madbean list...I have had all the parts for two months with no time to work on them.  lol

I've also got a 100 watt sunn clone head from weber 6s100 sitting in the box it was shipped in, a few wahs to perfboard, a handful of mods/fixes for other people but I need to build one of these madbean peals at least before I get to something else.