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Topics - peccary

#1
Build Reports / Effects Layouts Great Vengeance
May 26, 2022, 11:51:14 PM
I posted this a little earlier today at another site but thought I'd drop it here, too. This was a fun build, my first from Effects Layouts but certainly won't be my last.

I tend to build more/better/faster when it's for a purpose: the Ukraine pedals got done because of that, and so did this one: an Effects Layouts Great Vengeance.

Fifteen plus years ago I took bass lessons from a really great instructor. After a couple of years with him he moved out to Georgia but we always kept in touch on social media. I reached out to him last week to see if anything was missing from his pedalboard and he asked about something that could do some light distortion where he wouldn't get lost in the mix. I suggested that he take a look at some demos of the D*A*M Ezekiel 25:17 to see if that hit the spot and he really though that would work well for him.

I hadn't remembered until I was going through my PCB collection after talking with him, but I'd bought the board for this a year or two ago and also just so happened to have all of the parts on hand and it all came together pretty quickly.

I got to play with this for about 20 minutes before I boxed it up to ship. While this pedal isn't going to win any "OMG it's totally nutty!" competitions, it does give you the option to dial in a good amount of distortion while keeping the low end present. Since he's a working musician who plays live with multiple different bands I think it will give some good, flexible distortion options while allowing him to still hold down the bottom end.

As for naming it, well, after Ezekiel 25:17 and Great Vengeance, I felt I just had to continue the trend...
#2
Build Reports / Madbean Boom Boom
April 30, 2022, 09:16:49 PM
I started building this board probably sis months ago or so. It took me some time to get all of the transistors needed and I took a long time going back and forth on the artwork. Initially I wanted to do some kind of play with triangles considering the original design, but wasn't really liking what I came up with.

After finishing my Edgelord, which had a TNG theme, I tried to use TNG as a theme for a couple of other pedals I was making but, again, I didn't like what I was coming up with. It all seemed forced, and that's not what I am going for.

A month or so ago I was chatting with TheWinterSoldier and got inspired to try a TNG theme with the Boom Boom. At the same time I was looking at images of trumpets and trombones and trying to work them in to it, given the "brass" reference. When Chris mentioned TNG, I immediately remembered that Riker played the trombone, and it was kismet.

I tried to work in an image of Minuet but that was feeling forced, so instead I went with the trombone music from Bach's Minuet which I thought was a pretty rad idea.

I didn't include the "brass" label because it's now the "Minuet" switch ;)

This thing is pretty gnarly sounding. It certainly has much more heft to it than many other bass fuzz pedals I have used, but it's a bit touchy and takes some care to dial in. I think that having some more room on the "sens" knob would be nice so that it's not so touchy and comes on a little slower. That said I have only played with it for about 30 minutes and I think it's just going to take some time to find my sound with it. It gets wacky really quick with any twist of the knob or flip of the switch. I mean that as a good thing, but it just takes some adjusting each time.

Here are some photos and a quick sound sample. Obligatory "please ignore my awful playing." I used my Warmoth parts Jazz bass with 60's pickup placement and S/D 1/4 lb jazz pickups and Fodera nickle rounds.

https://soundcloud.com/joe-b-575234186/boom-boom-demo?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
#3
Build Reports / Pedals For Ukraine - Dizzy Elk
March 26, 2022, 11:50:08 PM
Hey folks,

I just wanted to share my offering for the Pedals For Ukraine fundraiser.

This is a Dizzy Elk: it's a Gnat board from PedalPCB with a mod specified (and named) by Music6000 on those forms (not sure if he's a member here). I have built a few of these and it's one of my favorites. It's mean and nasty and big sounding, and, what drew me to it to begin with, it works well with bass and preserves much more of the low end on bass guitar than I'm used to with fuzz pedals.

I'm going to get a sound clip up in the next few days, but just imagine a Jesus and Mary Chain like wall of sound and that'll get you close. I just want to keep playing Spirit in the Sky riff with this thing.

I used Tesla 104NU71 diodes and a D9K diode. The diode in this circuit makes a massive difference in it's character and the D9K is my favorite.

No-film waterslide for the decal.





#4
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:



#5
Hello everyone,

I originally posted this over on the PedalPCB forum but this is the more appropriate place for it, so I hope you all don't mind. Here is what I said in my previous thread:

I'm having some trouble with this build and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

The pedal works well in Wah mode and Synth 1, but on Synth 2 I am getting very low volume as well as some scratchiness.

I went through and measured the voltages and was getting some wacky readings on the voltage regulator as well as a few pins on the LM 13700. I also adjusted the trim pot to the correct 7 volts.

On the regulator (LM317LZ) I'm getting I - 9.33 (fine) O - 7 (fine) and on the ground I am getting 5.76. I don't know what's going on with the ground because according to the docs it ought to be at 0, so this one is weirding me out.

On the LM 13700 most values are pretty close but there are a few that are pretty far out of whack: 1 reads 0.96 (should be 1.12), 5 reads 2.19 (should be 5.9), 7 reads 2.18 (should be 5.9), 10 reads 2.02 (should be 5.82), and 12 reads 2.07 (should be 5.83), 16 is 0.96 (should be 1.15).

I'm hoping that this is a bad regulator or chip that I can replace and that someone can tell me that based off this information, but if I need photos I can grab some. The 4558's and transistors all align somewhat well with the reported necessary voltages, though there is some variance. the ones I listed above were way off. I haven't had a chance to go through it with my probe yet, but I won't have time for that for a few days, at least, so I thought it couldn't hurt to ask here. It seems odd to me that it would work perfectly in two of the three modes, or at least that makes me think that it's something specific and that someone might be able to point to something based off this info.

Here's a photo of all of the values I got written out on the build docs that list the correct voltages if that's helpful: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RhLxVyPRG7RX2oo76

Here is the component side of the board: https://photos.app.goo.gl/jD3heK2awRG2jrDQ7

I know that I committed the cardinal sin of boxing it up, but it's no trouble to pull it out and get a photo of the bottom side if that's what is needed.

I did not sub any parts out on this build. I did have to roll a few of my own resistors, but that's it and all measured fine.

I guess I am wondering if the voltage regulator is faulty, or, if not, what else would give me a voltage reading on the ground pin of the regulator when there shouldn't be any (and why should that affect just the synth 2 mode, or are these somehow separate issues?). I don't want to start pulling parts out until I can get a little bit of a direction. Looking at the schematic I am having a tough time following/untangling the three modes, but I feel like I can fumble my way through it with my probe on Wednesday.

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions, I really appreciate it.
#6
Build Reports / PedalPCB Trembling Loon
February 21, 2022, 04:58:23 PM
Hey folks,

I finished up this Trembling Loon build over the weekend and am pretty happy with how it came out. A member of the PedalPCB forum sent me a vactrol and I thought that a trem pedal would be a good use for it since I didn't have one.

When I first plugged this in it sounded really bright and chimey, but that was in the garage through a practice bass amp (Acoustic B-10. I'm new to guitar but have been playing bass for a couple of decades). When I had a chance to spend a lot more time with it yesterday and play it through my mixer it lost the brightness, which I was happy about.

The thing has a *lot* of gain on tap as well. It's at unity almost instantly from zero. I was playing around with the order of this pedal and a few others and when I put this in front of the Aion Meridian (bass version) cranking the Trembling Loon's gain in to the Meridian gave me some pretty interesting distortion. The Meridian was one of the most underwhelming pedals I built until I started using it with other pedals - it feels like an extension of anything you plug in before it and I kind of love it.

Anyways, I don't have any experience with trem pedals other than this one but I think it sounds good, especially with a little bit of delay and grit added to it.

Edit: the IMG tags weren't working so here's the links:

https://imgur.com/2ebtjiY

https://imgur.com/EXbac4V
#7
Build Reports / PedalPCB Mercurial Boost
May 09, 2021, 05:36:41 PM
I finished this one yesterday morning and it may be one of my favorites already. It's a clone of the Catalanbread Varioboost.

I have been able to pull sounds out of my precision bass that I've never heard from it before. If I ever end up getting the band back together I could see having a couple of these for different songs. It's just so good at sculpting a base tone that it may be actually be one of those "always on" pedals I've heard about but never thought would be something I'd have.

Anyways, I'd highly recommend this one. It's an easy build without any hard to find parts and relatively few components, so it's a good one for rookies as well, I'd say.

#8
Introductions / Hello from Southern California
May 03, 2021, 10:56:37 PM
Hey folks,

I just thought I would stop in and say hello. I've been building pedals as a regular hobby for the past 8 months or so. About 9 years ago I did my first build, which was on vero. I've done a few vero projects since I started last year, but have been doing 99% PCBs now since I discovered people were actually selling PCB clones. Not sure which rock I was hiding under before then. I've completed 8 full pedals and have probably 10 others in various stages of being built, waiting for components and time.

I play bass and a little guitar (cowboy chords). I've been playing bass off and on for the past 20+ years, though it has been at least 5-6 years since I've been in a band, so most of my time has been spent as a bedroom bassist. I tend to play just about every day, even if it's noodling on the couch while watching reruns of Law and Order while the family is sleeping.

I have no real experience with electronics. The closest it comes is when I did facilities management for a restaurant and fixing animatronic monkeys suddenly became part of my job. I have a mechanical mind that can take things apart and put them back together, but the theory of it all tends to be far beyond my aptitude. I am trying to learn, though. Who knows, in a decade or so I might be able to actually sound like I know what I'm talking about.

I have spent a good amount of time on the PedalPCB forum proving my ignorance and noticed some familiar names here. Since they all seemed like good folks I figured I might as well pop in here as well. I've not built any MB boards yet but I will probably grab each of the bass pedals once the Edgelord comes in.

So yeah. Hello!