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Hey guys. It's been a minute since I've built a pedal, mostly because I convinced myself that the two (excellent!) optical compressors I built weren't working right. I was just imagining distortion, though, I guess, as they're working now.

Anyway. I want to build a 2 in 1 Greer light speed and southland, but want to differentiate the sides a bit more. The southland is essentially a light speed with some small changes, including bat41 diodes as hard clipping diodes, along with the same asymmetrical 1n941's in the feedback loop like the light speed.

Do those bat41's do anything? Is there enough voltage to even hit the hard clipping diodes after the feedback loop diodes?

KOT Clone with some 8ball inspired mods: 47n input caps for a lil more bass, 250k gain pots, 100pf caps in the loop of the IC. It sounds quite glorious.

I think I've been cursed by the ghost of vactrols past, or something, because I can't build an optical compressor that actually works.

I finished building and boxing the Convex and Oceanid projects from AION FX over the past couple of days, and have had a persistent problem: terrible hissing and/or distortion when the comps are on.

Here are some pictures of the board side of the compressors:



And here are some audio clips of the behavior.

Recorded with low output (Lambertone Crema) humbuckers. The same behavior occurs when I use my Tele with single coils.

https://soundcloud.com/andrewbrautigam/oceanid-sound-samples

https://soundcloud.com/andrewbrautigam/convex-sound-samples

I am stumped.

IC voltages for the convex are

1:4.53
2:4.55
3:4.51
4:0
5:4.28
6:4.53
7:4.52
8:8.98

Q1
G: 1.85
S: 4.47
D: 8.98

Q2

C:3.98
B: 0
E: 0

Q3:
E: 7.48
B: 3.93
C: 0

Q4:
C: 0
B: 8.25
E: 9.1

Q5:

E: ? Draining slowly from 1v to 0???
B: 0
C: 9.09

Oceanic:

Ic1& IC2 - essentially the same a few milivolts lower on IC2

1: 4.89
2:4.89
3:2.44
4:0
5: 2.44
6:4.89
7:4.89
8:2.44

IC3

1: .01
2: ..01
3: .03
4: 0
5: 0
6: .05
7: .025
8: 8.84

Ic4

1: .14
2: .14
3: .04
4: 0
5: .08
6: .14
7: .72
8: 8.85

Q1: C-B- E

9-4.43-4.6

Q2 : CBE

7.98 - .69 - .10

I hope there's some clue in these numbers. I'm going nuts!

I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out the pin out for the Smallbear/macron vactrols. I have a pair of 5ct3 work alikes for a compressor and I can't for the life of me figure out which leg of the LED side is the anode and which is the cathode.

The dot is on the opposite side of the letter (a "c" in this case) and is on the same side as the short leg. Normally I would just stick the long leg in the square PD and be done with it, but these things are screwy.

And I am also too breadboard incompetent to put a LED in series to figure it out that way.

Send help. Please!

Sunking II. Could only fit 2 of the 3 switches, but kinda wish I had just left all the mods off. d9e and LED diodes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BomZ8z1Fwh9/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

It sounds great. You can also see the computer amp-overlord in the picture.

Is there a project out there that can do this? I am no routing genius, but would like to put my SA Nemesis/Ventris in paralell in the loop of my Kemper. In an ideal world it would take the mono send from the amp and send it to the two stereo effects, then put those fx in paralell at a stereo output.

I know it's not very DIY but it's what I need now! Any ideas?

So about 6 months ago I bought a Kemper profiling amp. I was looking for a silent stage solution, and didn't want a Helix or axe fx.

Long story short, this thing freaking rules. The onboard drives are meh at best but the amp sounds are amazingly sweet, and the wet effects are good too. I'm still running an unnecessarily huge pedalboard, but can't imagine going back to an analog amp for my current playing situation, which is either at home with the chilluns sleeping or at church with an otherwise silent stage.

Has anyone here gone over, in whole or in part, to a digital solution?

Since it's April, right?

Not that I have any time to build anything.... but still

Thinking of buying an eventide h9 (max) and moving to that system for all of my delays, reverbs, and modulation needs.

Anyone go that route and regret it? Any Strymon apologists want to talk me into the holiest of trinity's?

So I wanna etch a topper for an Ernie ball volume pedal - what would you guys use for a faceplate? And, more importantly, where would you get it?  I'd prefer to use aluminum, not fr4.

I am trying to come back from the pedalbuilding dead, and get some new builds going!

One thing I have been thinking about is the (relative) inconsistency of small value ceramic capacitors. I was poking around on mouser today, and found that WIMA has small value film caps that should work in most builds. Not cheap, but 5% tolerance instead of 25%.

Worth it? Has anyone ever actually tested the effect of capacitors on low voltage circuits? Will my crystal lattices be shinier with all fancy caps?

I recently saw this kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vfepedals/vfe-pedals-new-pedal-line-educational-kit

Pedals look cool, very functional. Most interesting, though, is the new hammond enclosure size, which has the same footprint as a 1590b, but is taller for TOP MOUNTED JACKS.

That's right, I said TOP MOUNTED JACKS

TOP MOUNTED JACKS

Not that anyone round these parts like jacks on the top.

One's for sale at a local yard sale, for $125. Buy it or pass?


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I have a partscaster that I assembled like a ham fisted hack. I managed to split the neck at the heel, but the crack doesn't go all the way through.

It really needs a new nut and setup. I'm thinking of just bringing it to the (awesome) local shop, but will replace the neck if the neck needs replaced before paying for the setup.

What are your thoughts, wise ones?


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Could someone post these for me? Cody emailed me these a while back but they got lost in the crash.


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Selfdestroyer's face. Check the carpet.






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I'm in a rut as far as building goes. My last 3 projects have not worked, and it is ticking me off.

Most recently, my turnabout from ep has no sound.

My voltages are goofy- fluctuating on pin 1 between -.5 and .6.

Audio probing gets me clean audio through gain pot but nothin after.

Here are some pictures







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I'm determined to etch boards. No good reason for it, but I just want to.

In that pursuit I bought some cheap China PNP paper. The yellow stuff. I have tried to apply it and have failed.

My first try the toner was on the yellow side, which is dull and cloth like. I got an ok at best transfer. So I went back to the drawing board and printed the image on the shiny side. After ironing that image is permanently melted to the copper.

So which side is it? Is there any special trick to this paper?

How long do I need to iron the boards for? Should I just buy a laminator? Or learn eagle or dip trace?


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'01 bad cat cub 2x10. Tone tubby albino red and Webber ferromax.

This is a "Sampson era" cub, and it screams. Loud as all get out, I am actually a little shocked. It sounds really good.

I got a screaming deal on it, and I am excited about getting it cranked up.


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Hello Beaners with more time and skills than I:

I've been thinking about Rat variants since I saw this video:

http://youtu.be/oMuRmpDJD-E

I'm pretty sure it's a Rat with the filter/parametric Mid from the Pearl Od-5. It sounds good in this video (no surprise) but not that ratty.

Anyways, I have been thinking that the ideal rat variant would have the typical controls - Volume, Tone, Gain, along with a whole bunch of clipping options on a rotary (mini 1p4t?) and the ability to add some mids, maybe with the mid control from the Ultra Stoner, along with the Ruetz mod.

Is that possible? I was looking at the schematics, but I don't really know how to analyze this idea.