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I just got a cello with a pickup, and my guitar and bass pedalboards have been in disarray for at least a year now. So I'm building a simple grab n go board with tuner/comp/dirt/delay.

What would you guys suggest for a good dirt pedal that does medium OD -> medium distortion that can double duty both on guitar and bass? My guitar amp is solid state (but in my defense, it's the Johnny Greenwood Fender 85) so nothing that's tone relies heavily on overdriving the amp's preamp (klon, TS, etc.). The input signal will also be buffered, if that makes a difference (it shouldn't as I'm not getting into fuzzface territory!).

So... thoughts?

Not *that* kind of 3-way... move along...

Ok, as an obsessive mod/tweak type of person (sympathizers anyone?) my strat is a SSH with coil tap on the H and switches to allow for almost ever type of pickup combination imaginable. It's been fun.

But it's time for me to take what I've learned from using all these options and realize that there's really 3 settings that I use 99% of the time. So I'm going to buy a new pickguard that hasn't been turned into swiss cheese yet, and set up just a 3 way switch with those settings. I hope.

Here's the trick(s):
I want 2 volumes and 1 master tone. One volume dedicated to the humbucker, and the other shared between the neck and middle.
I want the switch positions to be:
1: Bridge
2: Neck + Middle
3: Neck

I feel I have a really good handle on switching most of the time, but this one is just blowing my mind. So I'm here to either bow to the hive-mind as you take me to school, or blow all your collective minds as well and declare that it can't be done.

Here's my initial notes:


But I think I may have to go the route of a dual-gang for the Volume 1 (neck and middle), so I can perform all the volume before the switch.  If I do that, then I think all I'm left with is figuring out how to get the neck+middle on in the middle position.

I know I could very easily accomplish the sounds I'm looking for by adding another switch (like push/pull on the V2 to have the neck always on, etc) but I'd REALLY like to keep the controls dead simple as outlined.

so.... help?

I keep getting entry level vox and dunlop wahs in trades.  I don't really ever use a wah.  Any suggestions of some other effect to build in there?  I've got a decent volume pedal already.  I'm just fresh out of ideas and needing inspiration.

Cheers,

John

Sometimes it's fun to build something that's pretty much the opposite of what you would personally use.  I had just such an opportunity arise when I saw an ad on kijiji for someone looking to trade some drum cases for a good bass distortion pedal.  I've play drums and gig around town, and definitely could use some cases, so I dropped him a line and we started on this project.

The build is a straight forward Slow Loris build, with the input cap put on a switch.  You'll see the LED clipping option actually only has one LED populated.  After much experimenting, this really turned out to be the clear winner for bass since it's literally half way between LED clipping and a complete diode lift.  Before noon on the gain pot it's still letting a good chunk of clean tone through.  Past that it gets into super clipping territory. 

This was also my first shot at etching a faceplate.  I was impressed that it turned out so well, but definitely have a few things different to try next time.

So here it is, the Bass Four Knob Rat (Bass FKR):

I was lucky enough to receive an OptoFET Squeezer board as part of the holiday PIF party.  As excited as I was for the board, I was also excited that the condition of the PIF was that I had to do a build report.  Almost all of my builds are just for myself, and are usually a bit on the half-assed side when it comes to keeping things neat and tidy.  So I knew with people watching, I'd be motivated to actually put some thought into this one.  Here's how it turned out.

The Circuit Salad OptoFET Squeezer board I received was obviously designed to fit easily in a 1590a enclosure.  Not having any 1590a spares, and hating that format with a passion, I bumped the size up to 125b.  So I had to decide how I was going to make up for the fact that I copped out on the tricky enclosure size.

When I realized that I was running a little low on jacks, the answer came to me.  I had an old 70's patchbay that served me no purpose.  But it did have some pretty kickass switchcraft jacks...

So here you go.  The compressor is simple, and does it's job like it should.  I think that's probably the best compliment a compressor can get IMO.  No extra noise, it's subtle when you set it subtle, and squishy when you set it squishy.  Definitely a recommended build if you have some of the opto chips on hand.  Even if you don't, they certainly don't break the bank.



Pretty sure these jacks will last awhile before failing...


Cheers,

John

Please don't hate me for being one the lucky SOBs that managed to snag one of these short run Dirtbabies.

Hate me for the other following reasons:
1. It sounds absolutely incredible
2. I also managed to nab the lone Moodring that was available

In all seriousness though, I have been disappointed with every PT2399 delay I've built and was ready to just write off building any more digital delays until DIYer development moves to a newer/better platform.  I'm very glad I built this one, because now I know there's hope for these chips yet!  Honestly, it feels like Brian polished a turd and by some miracle made it shine like a diamond.

Obviously my build report is a little premature (1 in 10 of you guys should be able to relate), but I'll update later once I've prettied it up a bit.




The only thing that I need to troubleshoot on this is that I have some footswitch pop.  Since I've wired it for tails, I get a click...click......click...........click............ both when engaging and disengaging.  Might just be the switch, but I'll dig up what I can on them interwebz.

Ok,

So my plan was to build a 2 in 1 1590DD that would sit in my effects loop, with a Zero Point DLX running into a reverb.

I've got the Zero Point set up in there, but now I'm starting to question myself on whether I want a reverb in there, or something else.  I've got reverb on my amp and I like it, so the reverb in the pedal would either be a way for me to toggle between reverb/double reverb, or dry amp/pedal reverb.  Don't get me wrong, this sounds good to me, but I'm wondering if there's something else that I should put in there instead.  Trem?  Boost?  Other?  I've got roughly the size of a 1590b left to play with inside my enclosure. 

And yes, I realize this is 100% a personal preference thing, but I'm just looking to riff off of other people's ideas (I'm actually a drummer, so this makes sense!).

Thoughts?  What would you put in there?

I knew something was fishy when tracking said that it was sitting with customs for 10 days before heading along its merry way.

Guess it makes sense, Tayda could be slipping anything into these to avoid x-ray.

So my two swarm boards arrived in the mail today (woohoo!).  I think rather than 1590Aing these suckers (1590A is now a verb, fyi), I'm going to build them up side by side in 1590BB. 

I'm looking at JuanSolo's sheet here:
http://juansolo.demon.co.uk/stompage/muffbuild.html

I'd like to stick with the classic models:
1971 Triangle
Triangle
Civil War Russian
Green Civil War Tall Font Russian
Green Russian
3rd Edition
Ram's Head
Violet Ram's Head

After spending an evening listening to countless videos, clips, thoroughly reading Kitrae's page, etc. I'm still on the fence on which two of the above to build.

My goal is simply to avoid having two versions side by side that are too similar.  Right now I'm leaning towards Green Russian and Triangle, but what are other people's thoughts?

Cheers,

John