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I've been keeping my eyes open for a ridiculous deal on an AT-200 once I found out that the luthier install kit was 2 times the price.  Nailed it yesterday and waiting for it to arrive from MI.  Anyone have any experience this this?  Seems like a stupid cool technology and I'm a big Variax fan so it's an easy sell for me.

I'm going to derail my own post in a bit but before I stray here's a couple of notes I jotted down while putting together my second Aion L5 build:

• This goes without saying...put a few hours into the build and walk away.  This is a project that is best done in a lot of sessions.  Trust me on this.
• Use the right parts.  Everything in the build docs will point you in the right direction.  Most importantly EVERYTHING that has anything to do with the power section.
• When it comes time to stuff the chassis, base the entire build on the Mid Freq pot.  This one sits higher up than all the rest, as it's a dual.  Once the board is leveled and soldered on that pot everything else will literally fall into place.  The rest of the pots and the switches will sit proud of the board but your spacing will be dead on.  Bonus is that you don't need to worry about insulating the back of the pots.  They'll be nowhere near the board.
• This may be overkill but I had great results trimming the socket pins on the solder side of the board.  This takes the pressure off of having a pot case touch the pins.  To be honest I don't normally worry about such things and I never use an insulator on board mounted pots.
• Another no brainer.  There's a lot of depth between the parts and the lid of the enclosure so socket all the chips and trannies.  I didn't socket the trannies on my first build and while it works great I have no flexibility to tweak.  Trust me.  Once this puppy is wired up and stable you won't be tempted to EVER take it apart again.

If you have this board I strongly encourage you to get rolling on it.  This is one of the most significant builds I've ever done and being a Lab Series freak it might allow me to retire my L5 from it's perch in the church (I'm a poet and don't know it) I play in and drive a power amp with the pedal.

Here's where my post goes off the rails.  2016 has been the year of MAJOR significant builds.  There is a ton of stuff that really needs to be singled out this year and I'm sure that this could be a long running list:

• Brian's work on some of the big boards: LazerWolf, Freekout, and Rust Bucket come to mind.  I have absolutely no idea how I'll use the last two but just having working versions of the old EHX effects is cool enough to build them.  The little stuff is insane too.  The Moar is my main overdrive these days.  The 4:1 is my main compressor.  The Tapanatorator stuff is still being worked out but the potential is huge.  I just don't know how to box them at this point.  The DigDug2 is another one of those WTF am I going to use this for, but the few people I let loose on it kept it till I literally drove to their place and kicked in the door to get it back.  Speaks volumes.
• Lectric-FX you guys are really carrying the EHX torch.  The Celeste is just stupid (boxed up right away).  The Bloodstone...
• Grind, you guys are killing it.  Your website being down just gives me a chance to get caught up.  For my normal gig (prog praise) you would think I don't need metal drives but the Aeons and Shred Dominator rip congregation faces when needed.  Superb.  And don't get me started about the STM800 project.  The first one as an 800 I'll never see again because the buddy I lent it to would give me his Les Paul before he'd give this up.  I did a second one as an Atomic 16 and don't let anybody near it.
• Juansolo the Dominatrix board is bonkers.  Right about the time I figure I need another overdrive like I need a hole in the head...I need another hole in the head.
• Electricb.  You've taken a bunch of been there...done that projects and made them goofy cool.  You need to do more of this.  Everyone should have a TripleTreble on their board.  Just sayin...you have a gift.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and really looking forward to all the new stuff happening at Madbean.  I love this place.

This one has been on my bucket list.  As many compressors as I've done I've never done a Ross.  The Aurora can be done as a stock Ross but why stop there?  Keeley "Attack" control and JangleBox treble hi-jinx.  This is a cool build and both mods built into it.

Pretty ho-hum graphics, but it's for my board so works for me.  Combo of Tayda and Smallbear parts, and BLMS enclosure and hardware.

Finally got my Harb One built. Not boxed yet and will send over some pix when it is but just wanted to note I had no issues with this, or any of the thin boards I bought. Sounds very nice. I have a hand etched Forum Vibe, a Duo Vibe, a ROG tri-Vibe, and a Voodoo Lab Vibe and they all sound different but good. Too many choices. Pangea gets finished next. Obviously my fave effect.

I'll post some pics tomorrow but, Brian, I gotta say kudos on the layout. It's a breeze getting this thing to look good. I don't have any of the T-pedals finished yet but the outputs look good on the scope.

This whole website got past me till I saw it in daleykd's signature.  I snagged the test board kit even though I already have a perfectly fine testing rig.  I thought it was a cool idea.  I'm far too lazy to go about finding the right connectors and stuff to populate the board so I got the kit.  Has a bypass, test oscillator, and probe built onto a fairly small board (that I might mount to a bit of wood to keep it from getting dragged around by a cable).

For anyone that doesn't have a test rig yet, this is a recommended setup on the cheap  << gets off of and puts away soap box  >>

It's been ages since I posted a build.  Too busy building I guess.  Here's a Lectric-FX Celeste Chorus that took forever to get boxed up.  I used a screen shot from the EHX website and tweaked it a bit to get the waterslide decal.  This is easily one of the nicest chorus' I've used and bumped 2 spots off my 1590G-only pedal board so there goes that concept right out the window.

So it wasn't bad enough I had a clinically certifiable case of GAS. Now I'm building entire pedal boards at a pop.

I'll post some pix but basically all 9 boards went together and into the cases without a single glitch. Jury still out on the chorus but this is by far my fave compressor and filter. Now I just need to finish the Linda looper to work them.

Just a heads up that I scored two of these on eBay from (I believe) a reputable stateside seller.  Not at all cheap but at least I got a couple.  I only need one, so after the Bean boards arrive I'll build that one up first so I can verify VTL's are good, I'll offer the other one up for sale.

I shoe horned this one in just because I was too lazy to buy the tall version of the box.  I'm going thru a second wave of sparkle obsession and it bit me because I didn't shoot enough clear coat before the decals to smooth it out and it ate a few areas of the decal. If it wasn't for my stash I'd have redone it but as long as I can read the labels...

Stock except for the external Filter and Rez knobs.  I'm glad I put them on the outside as I fiddle with them a lot.  Lumberg jacks to the rescue (I love these things).  This one fired up on the first go around. I had to grind the lip off the inside of the bottom cover above the jacks but other than that just a bit of careful measuring.

I honestly have no idea what I'll use this for, but it's a fascinating effect and I've been monkeying with it for some time now.

i've spent a ton of time binge-building for a while now and less time actually playing the damn guitar so I dragged a few old magic boxes out of the closet. I'm down to Line6 modelers (DM4, MM4, DL4) which cover a lot of territory. What they lack in analog goodness they make up for in real time flexibility and ease of use in a live setting.  All driven by an Afterlife when needed. Anybody else get burned out like this? It's getting harder to get any real time on the bench with job pressures and stuff around the house.

How's everyone else deal with it?

Wife has been out of town all week so I've had a chance to get a few projects wrapped up:

This is the Flintlock Flanger.  Little bit of troubleshooting (thanks Scruffie), and took advice to pickup a DMM with a frequency counter.  Made the setup very painless.  Total rip-off of the original graphics.




Here's The Beast.  The thought of stripping 18 little wires gives me a rash, but makes for a nice clean build.  This is a great overdrive.




You can see I've backed off of powder-coating and painting lately.  This next one is the Easy Peazy and figured as long as I was using the mojo caps I'd copy the graphics.  Obviously this one stays in my possession as I don't think it's ethical to clone enclosures but wanted to get as close as I could 

Just a heads up that both these boards kill.  I haven't had a chance to work them at big volume yet but am really impressed with both.  The Sparklehorn is a different distortion from most I've built.  Similar to the Timmy but a bit more constrained to my ears (I mean that it a good way).  Lots of drive on tap but never gets too nutty (I suspect it has to have reins to keep it from pushing the snot out of the echo circuit).  Has sort of a studio feel to it.

The Mood Ring is a great sounding reverb and the delay-verb is a very nice touch.  I used the short brick on this one and am looking forward to putting it to use on my board.  I tend to use reverb as an effect as opposed to having it on all the time (I HATE spring reverb).

Sorry if this sounds a little gushy/kiss-ass but finished these boards back to back and am obviously impressed with them both.  Highly recommended and will try to post a few clips asap.

OK, cheesy subject line but I got these knobs from BLMS and was going to use them as the two outside freq pots so I could tune them with my foot.  Looked pretty stupid with normal Davies in all other positions so I swapped them all out and voila.  Still not convinced it's worth the extra 10 lbs of knobs but it's an interesting look.  The decal is dead stock Juansolo 1590BB portrait with added boxes (thanks Juan), and the board is GPCB Dual Voice Filter.  Crafty (if heavy handed - no complaints) cocked wah circuit that's capable of a ton of whacko or not-so-whacko sounds.  Sort of a ChopShop/Harmonic Energizer on steroids. Note all the fried pads as I replaced wires to the offboard stuff.  This was one of those projects that everything went wrong.  Real happy with results though, and the jury is still out on the knobs...



Oh, did I mention that I mis-drilled a 125B enclosure?

This marks the first time I've used one of Steve's SmallBear enclosures.  It's also my first (well at least my first successful) powder coat.  I used the cheap power coat rig from Harbor Freight and their white powder.

Figured I'd outfit it with one of Josh's 3PDT boards as well just to keep the symetry.  Steve's case has a battery door but I don't use batteries.  I can see it being easy to lose so I should just throw it in the garbage now to ease the suspense.

I know this goes against the grain but for anyone that needs a do-anything pedal the iStomp is pretty cool.  It doesn't do anything spot on but comes damn close on a whole bunch of pedal models.  So for the one time in a blue moon that I need a ring mod or a clean 5th and 2 octaves up...done.  Plug in the iPhone, upload the model (the iPhone 5 connector was such a fiasco that all but one of the models is free to repay whats left of the loyal fanbase) and boom...a realistic Electric Mistress, or Gonkulator, or whatever.

Just sayin...

Won't slow down my building but gets a permanent spot on my board for the fact that it does damn near anything.  Tomorrow is Easter services and it gets to be a Lexicon reverb.

Jimi, I thought of you when you'd posted a while back that you have some cheap eBay Chinese decal stock that wasn't working.  Me too and I finally have a solution and ironically has turned it into my "best" decal stock.  The problem was that I was using the Testors decal spray that works really well on Testors paper but not on the eBay stuff.  They had a tendancy to stick to the backing too much and would stretch as you tried to place them. I picked up a can of Rust-oleum Painter's Touch 2X ultra cover gloss clear from Home Depot.  It goes on real thick and takes longer to dry but the results are amazing.  This is a shot of my Nautilus.  The photo makes the sand and nautilus graphic look more like a pidgeon but you get the idea.  Also excuse the fact that I'm waiting for more knobs to arrive...

For anyone that hasn't built up their GreaseGun board...don't think that because this was "charity" stuff the board doesn't rip.  It does.  No surprise.  I love this thing.  It's very true to Bean's demo (although I think he used a fairly bright sounding guitar and amp setup).  This is one of those "sleeper" builds that can be used in a ton of different ways.  For me, I tend to use my Afterlife into a Vox Night Train set relatively clean but with the volume 2/3 of the way up (goes for a gutsy AC15/30 clean sound) to where the Afterlife doesn't wreck my volume settings on any guitar but keeps a nice tab on levels.  The GreaseGun takes those polite settings and gets a bit nasty without introducing too much low end grunt or spikey highs.  I'm using it at about wide open volume with the gain set to about 3/4 and tone at anywhere from 2/3rds up to wide open.  This will be one of your "secret weapons".  I don't think I can do better than Bean at a demo but will do a few ">clean" and ">overdrive" examples to stir it up a bit.

This is probably really obvious to most people but it's been a revelation to me.  I've been very fortunate to have been given a TC Nova Delay a while back and the tap tempo (or even cooler the "strum" tempo) is pretty slick.  Programming and switching between presets is less than intuitive but the delay sounds so killer it's worth the effort.  I play in a praise band on Sundays that's quite progressive and we use off-stage cabinets, an isolated drum cage, and a wireless in-ear monitor system.  To make up for the lack of "feel" from stage volume we've been using a click track (which is a process in itself to get used to) and from time to time we lock to loops as well.  So all was well and I'd fiddle with tempos with my feet and was pretty good at getting dotted "Edge"-type rhythms (which has been massively over-used by most contemporary Christian stuff).  I went on vacation and a buddy of mine stepped in for the week and changed over my display from milliseconds to BPM.  At first I was pissed because it took me a while to figure out how to get it back, but it dawned on me that if you already know the BPM of the click...just set it on the pedal.  This has proven to be a cool enough feature that I'm surprised more pedals don't have it.

I'm too lazy/stupid to do the math to calc gain on the Bacon Bits, but what kind of boost should I expect on this thing?  Seems to be working just fine...full counter clockwise appears to be about unity but cranked is probably about (I'm guessing here) about a 10 or 12dB boost?  I was thinking this thing would be just roaring, given the amount of headroom on 18v.