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This one went together without issue, with the exception of me forgetting to order long pin pots.  It gave me time to massage an old Telefunken radio ad artwork into the enclosure graphic and get it drilled and prepped.  Circuit together...works like a champ...sounds really nice (extremely quiet).  Get it loaded up in the chassis:





Until I realize (because the controls are working a bit funny) that I've got the labels backwards.  Left is right, and right is wrong...



Oh well, I'll pull it out of the enclosure and edit the graphic.  Sigh.

This one features the high end 3PDT that Lawrence over at BLMS is selling.  I hate paying that much but a REALLY nice switch and for those builds that deserve the best...this is the switch.

I'm really stoked about building the Uber Tuber.  This looks like a fun little project and after building the Grind 12ax7a in a few variations (still put the Atomic 16 on my board when I need drive so thick you could eat it with a fork) I'm looking forward to a now-becoming-fashionable 125b footprint.  I BBQ'd myself on the Grind circuit a few times so the 18v will save a few nose hairs.

I have an old 77 Lado Falcon F-1.  I've replaced the pickups already.  The originals were destroyed by 5 years on the road and sweating on it 6 nights a week/50 weeks a year.  The electronics onboard are an active version of the BCRich varitone and a similar preamp, all 9V powered.  The pre pooped out ages ago and the varitone is on the fritz.  They've literally disintegrated and are gooped so I can tell what's in them.

I believe they were made by Farr in Toronto.  The preamp has no markings but the varitone is called an Active Tone Modifier.

Has anyone seen schematics for either of these?  The preamp was fairly crappy sounding but the ATM sounded great!  Is Farr still around?  Calls to Lado have not proven to be any help as Joe's about done.

Thanks for any help.

I seem to be going through some sort of Mutron phase.  Pun intended.

Anyway, a couple of boards came up on the radar lately.  BYOC is selling boards to most of their stuff now so I snagged a Mutron Octave Divider.  For any western Canadian old farts like myself (Chicago now) if you saw Paul Dean play with Streetheart you heard a Mutron used to perfection in "Look At Me" and I've lusted after one since I was a kid.




The Mutron Bi-Phase at PedalPCB was too tempting to pass up.  Ironically there was a time that you couldn't GIVE one of these things away.  I had intended to do a similar output thing to the original and put a rotary in the enclosure to handle it.  By the time I fiddled around with it I decided it was overkill.  I may still do something, we'll see...  I also built this before the build docs came out and got the switches reversed in the graphics.  I may redo it...but probably just live with it.

Subject says it all.  I was waiting for Lawrence to let rip on 16mm pcb's.  Still the fastest service in the industry.

The usual disclaimer...double check this before you hack up an enclosure.  I've tacked some Dragon photos along with it to show the results.  The two weird things about this build are that I used an external buff/non-buffer switch (not really necessary but couldn't find a slide switch to fit the board), and I socketed the relay in an attempt to get the right one.  The relay is different from the MadBean VFE's and I had NO intention of trying to desolder another one...





http://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Live Series drills.jpg

http://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Live Series drills.psd

http://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Live Series drills.pspimage

http://www.gordomusic.com/Madbean/Live Series VFE 1590B2.pdf

Both made their debut this morning. Music Man Silouette and Lab Series L5. Killer combination and the pedals work really well together. A lot of sounds in both of them

I've built up (well I bought it mostly finished) the 2.1d (I believe) board and having buggered up the orientation of all the LEDs (as in didn't read the fine print in the docs) I have it up and running.  Except...when I engage the effect in either true or spec mode I lose the LEDs for the rate indicators.  The only difference I noticed as I packed it in for the nite was that the ground of the input jack is on a board ground rather than the power jack (as shown in the docs...now that I've read them).  Could it be?

I've checked the wiring at the bypass jack and all seems good, and better yet it bypasses the effect, but the lights go out.  Gotta have cool blinkey lights!  I'll get a chance to jump on this again when I get home but has anyone experienced this?

This will open up a fire storm but what's your favorite pedal you've built?

I've pondered this question for ages and it boils down to the "must have" pedal on my live board.  The weird part is that it's a "non-effect-is-this-thing-on" but it makes my whole rig.

If been thru a million compressors and barring the Cali (way out of my budget but ultra cool) I've never played a comp that beats this thing.  The MBP 4:1 comp is a variation on the Afterlife variation on the Flatline.  It has a few key points that make it my fave:

• It easily achieves unity gain but can also act as a booster.
• It's quiet unless the Sustain control is maxed.
• The Clean control is the deal breaker on this thing...your high and low end doesn't get messed with, it just augments whats already there.
• No "pumping".  If you want the chicken-pickin "puck" attack...this isn't your compressor.
• Small footprint.

That said, it's not really an effect.  My double-neck sounds crazy cool thru this but not in a Byrds sort of sound.   It drives my overdrive pedals nuts and sounds great behind a booster but it also changes the tone, width, and attack of those overdrives in a way that makes it almost an A/B switch on them.

My only issues were that as a gain changer it would be audible if I forgot to engage it before my delay (Nova) which I almost always do.  You'd get a click...click...click..click thru the FOH.  And a tongue lashing from the sound person.  So what to do?  Add a relay bypass.  But in a "G" enclosure?

Roll back to the Christmas PIF's and I was lucky enough to score a Soup39 enclosure.  It was a "G" and I had no idea what to put in it.  It was the coolest pattern though. The 4:1 would be a perfect candidate because I didn't have to rely on labels.  This is a set it and forget it pedal for me.  I had a 1776 relay bypass waiting for a relay and it dawned on me that I could float the 1776 board under the 4:1 board.  If I'd had the foresight to not socket the ATTiny chip it would be invisible but it still worked.

Drilled out the enclosure and figured out where I could double side tape down the relay and wire it up for power, lights, jacks, and switch.





Then layer in the effect board.  Pretty easy at this point, just have in/out/gnd/9v connections.  I have the luxury of making sure that the bypass and LED portion work correctly first.  BLMS knobs, switch, and jacks.

Looks like all my other builds so doesn't really warrant pics but DAMN this thing sounds nice.  It has the best (I hate the term amp-like) signal fade I've heard in a while from a pedal.  The signal dies out more like a tube amp than an overdrive.  I just buttoned this up last night and will take it to a rehearsal tomorrow night but I'm pretty excited about it.

These FV-1 boards are really nice to build once you get over the fear of the SMT chip(s).  Low parts count and nothing really exotic.

This is PedalPCB's Octagon.  The killer feature on this one, besides the fact that the 8 presets are all very cool, is the pot/digital switch.  Rotating the pot by about 20 degrees changes to the next preset.  No switching noise.  Crafty stuff here.

PedalPCB switch board.  BLMS knobs, jacks, switch, and enclosure.  Waterslide decal.  I realized as I was uploading the photos that I bumped one of the electros out of whack and I'm way too lazy to open it up and reshoot.

I got this from Lectric-FX recently and then waited impatiently while I repeatedly buggered up a few parts orders.  I kept forgetting to get B100k pots.  This one also uses a L-FX 3PDT board, which makes for nice clean guts.

Anyway, killer compressor with a bit more "effect" on tap than most opticals and a lot more available output.  The jury is out on the lack of clean blend but I won't know till I get it on my live rig.  I also made the Hi-Cut switchable externally.  It's very subtle but adds a nice bit of jangle regardless of the EQ setting.  With Hi-Cut off and EQ and Sustain at about 2 o'clock the level of detail and shimmer on my Music Man guitar is just sick.

The enclosure started as a PIF from Soup39.  I got a 1590G enclosure and was blown away by how cool it looked.  I wanted to box up this 1590B project in something a bit out of the norm for me so I cruised over to Soup's Etsy store and found this enclosure.  The photos do it no justice at all, it's just gorgeous with insane amounts of tiny details.  It goes around the enclosure 360 with no break in the pattern.  I have no idea how that's done, but it's going to kill me to put velcro on the bottom...

Honestly, I have no idea how I'll use this except that in front (or behind) an overdrive this thing sounds pretty whacked.

A PedalPCB board loaded into a 125B with a manipulated ripoff of the EQD graphics.  I ran out of "BuGG boards" (PPCB 3PDT pcb's) which make anybody look like a wiring superstar so I wired it straight.  Might be influence from the current wave of BOTY but I did my best to make this look intentional.  Normally I don't care, it's for my stash, but I'm shamed into getting a bit more serious about this stuff.

The current stock of SB decal stock is probably the best I've used.  It's a bitch (Zigcat I check myself everytime I use that word now...good for you to open eyes) to get the film off the front but this stuff is terrific.  Draped over a LMS white powdercoat 125B it's really easy to get repeatable results.

I went thru a sparkle phase (Jimi) and I might be getting to the end of a "Clone graphics" phase but this one was a no brainer.

Bonus:  Once you've done any sort of SMT the fear factor goes way down so doing FV-1's or the PIC chip is easy.  I use a hot iron to prep the board by preloading the pads with a bit of solder. Then turn the heat down a tad and using blu-tak or painters tape to hold the chip down hit each of the legs quickly but firmly with solder and the iron.  It should melt into the pad instantly.




Yeah, I know, I'm not sold on the knobs either but they'll do in a pinch.  The green LED looks nice but makes the blue knobs look even worse.  Bummer...

So Carvin is back.  Does this smell fishy or was this a lame excuse to sell off warehouse stock because you realize you aren't going to see this stuff again or am I wrong?

Is this the way America does business now?  Rope a dope?  Geez I've dealt with Carvin before but this just feels so cheesy.  I dunno, maybe it's me and I gotta get with the times in terms of marketing.

I just HAD to do it.  I ordered a bunch of 125B's and some jacks and switches to update my stock.  I've been building a bunch of PedalPCB stuff lately, so I need 125B's.

Just as I was about to commit to the order I decided I needed a Bitches T-shirt.  Who doesn't right?

It's going to be a good year, I can feel it.

So this PIF was based on a Catlinbread CB30 and I was not only in the thread on time but seriously interested in the board.  I'd never heard of the CB original but the video demo had me hooked.  Fast forward a few days and I got the board built up except was missing a few weird caps.  A 0.1 electro and a 0.22 electro.  I substituted the film equivalent and was crazy about the board and as Christmas services rolled around I had the pedal pegged for a live cover of Chris Tomlin's "Joy To The World".  The parts showed up at the last minute and I had the enclosure ready to go.  I worked some crazy hours and decided to abandon the project except my dog got goofy about 4:00 AM and I took it as a sign that A: he was being an knucklehead and B: I needed this pedal.  Got it finished except for knobs. 

The guts were clean until I decided to tack on a Coda bypass.  It all fits in there but doesn't look pretty. This thing sounds excellent. Thanks again for the PIF!!!

These boards popped up here recently and while the Xotic stuff has been around for ages and have been on my bucket list for ages I never got around to it.  Dan's boards are really top notch so I jumped on it.  The AC and RC are on the same board and I scored two of them.

The BB is one of the last of the PPP old stock enclosures I bought over the summer.  Really cool orange sparkle and was waiting for both: a good project to put in it and one that would fit.  I'll likely crack this one open again and go with a Coda bypass now that it has edged it's way onto my board.  I had no idea this thing is capable of such stupid amounts of output and recently I've given the old L5 amp a little time off and am torturing the front end of a little 20watt Plexi build.  I live by the volume control on the guitar and this combo is ridiculously effective.  Also diggin the BLMS aluminum knobs.



The AC is sort of a BB subset but on the Vox/not-very-clean-boost side.  This and the RC are the first time I've accepted the fact that while I'm not good at 1590A builds...it's simply a matter of fitting these buggers together "tetris" style and any time spent up front in the box layout pays off in spades when it comes time to close it up.  Quite happy with these.




The RC is the straight up side of the booster set.  Clean until you push it and like all of the Xotics the treble/bass sweeps are right on the money.  This would be a good solo boost for acoustic setups.  For me it makes pedals like the Cascadia and VFE Merman throw down way harder than they were intended.




These also demo my new Brother HL-3170 color laser.  Really liking the output and getting used to dealing with color.  The AC decal warped on the bottom left as the lacquer set and for some reason lifted it.  I'm lining the base plate on the 1590's with thin lexan cut out from sheets from the pick punch place.

I screw this up every year but actually got one this year.

This one is a no brainer.  I chose to stuff it in a 1590BB and overshot on the jack placement.  It works.  Possibly one of my worst finishing jobs to boot but the photos are kind here.  This is a great pedal so it's not leaving the flock.

A really easy build despite the parts count.  Couple of wires to the jacks and power and you're done.  Bone stock with SB diodes.  Pretty true to everyone else's review: crazy range on the tone controls.  Great sounds over the entire range of the Gain control and really nice response to guitar volume.  My laser printer, an old Brother I've had since early 2000's packed it in on the decal for this one.

I'm looking to place an order to round out the BOM on the Cascadia and the thought occurred to me that I seem to recall that larger resistors have less thermal noise.  Is this still true?

And if I push this further, are 1/8th watt resistors just a stop-gap measure to SM stuff?  I've accumulated a turd-ton of 1/8 lately, only because normally you buy in quantities of 100 or so even if you need just slightly more than 10.  Economy of scale.  But can 1/8 be substituted for 1/4 or is there a reason to stick with 1/4?