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[Breadbuddy for DPDT on-on-on toggle switch]

I think its great that you have some bread buddies up. I might just draft these up myself, but I wasn't sure if other people would find them useful as well.

These came up from my own experiences with breadboarding, so I know there is at least one person who would find these useful    but I figured other tinkerers could add to this or maybe support some of these "useful suggestions".


Breadbuddy for DPDT on-on-on toggle switch for "path" switching.  I would say for capacitors switching, but it does have a much broader application.

Breadybuddy for 3PDT or 4PDT toggle switch for making multiple changes to a circuit at multiple points.
This one is probably not as broadly applicable to people useful to as many people, but I've come across a couple situations where I wanted to be able to switch clipping diodes, and switch the gain stage resistor to compensate for the volume loss, and at the same time switch the signal path.  Again, not common but could be useful.

Breadbuddy for 16mm and 9mm Dual gang potentiometers
I'm not sure  how other people use dual gangs on their breadboards, but i have to spread them out, or connect large lengths of wire to them for the 16 mm.  But I know smallbear has the 9mm PC mounted one (like in the PING reverb) but i would think that something for this so that right angle pins could be attached would make testing out dual gang potentiometer situations MUCH easier.

and lastly...
Breadybuddy for rotary switches. Man are these thing big, and even the smaller ones like miniature 1P8T and 2P4T don't look so breadboard friendly. The 1P6T is another good one too.


Thanks for your time looking over this, like I said these are based off of challenges I've run into while breadboarding, and seeing the new breadbuddies made me go "Oh yeah" that is really really helpful!!!

Hey team,

I was wondering how much of an issue it is for a signal to be out of phase.
For the most part I think a lot of the circuits I've seen usually flip the signal back and forth, but usually have the output in phase with the input.

But what about the older odd number transistor circuits (e.g. LPB-1, Tonebender, rangemaster, etc)?

How much of an issue is the signal phase not matching the input if typical use is to put all pedals in a series, and not in parallel via some sort of mixer or signal splitter? I've read that this can lead to some sort of cancellation issue, but have never tried to test what that cancellation sounds like or if it is a big deal.

When pedals output signal is out of phase with the input signal, is it better to flip it?

Best,
   Bradford

DREAMEATER

It's been a minute since I've been active here, but let me take you on a journey...

From the time that I started learning about building guitar effects pedals, I was captivated by the ideas behind Death By Audio and the crazy sounds of A Place to Bury Strangers live shows. Hearing about Oliver's mysterious Armageddon pedal being his so called "ultimate fuzz" drove me to learn about what was going on inside of it. I had to know more!! Come to find out that the Armageddon is an evolving idea based on Oliver's continuous experimentation. Several variants of the early idea have been realized and presumably released as custom DBA pedals. Supposedly DBA eventually released part of an earlier variation of the Armageddon as the Fuzz War which was based on a 7 transistor design. 

There had been some schematics floating around online, but the general consensus was that the design was problematic and highly dependent on transistor choice. My curiosity led me down a rabbit hole where I tested transistor types to figure out which ones worked best. I would breadboard, and re-breadboard ideas determined that I could make this work right. Nevertheless, there were always issues with the underlying design. The instability of the design, lower max volume, and peculiarity of transistors, most likely contributed to the retirement of the 7 transistor Fuzz War and introduction of the current production model Fuzz War (which in itself is a beast!!!).
So time passed, I breadboarded multiple variations on a theme, but always stuck to the source schematic. I took a break from pedal building for 3 years because...well, life happened. July 2019, I decided to get back into exploring pedals, and decided: I'm going to find that sound that started it all. The sound that started my journey. So I cracked open my 7 transistor fuzz war and traced the circuit. Lo and behold it was slightly different from what I had seen online, confirming my suspicions about the evolving nature of the design. I breadboarded this but was weary of some of the design limitations. It was at that point I decided to take a different approach. Continuing to re-use the schematic would only result in the same problematic issues over and over. I had to take a different approach. I finally understood I was searching for a sound not a schematic. I've taken the DNA of the 7 transistor Fuzz War and expanded on it.

From a design perspective, I wanted to achieve the following:
1.   Improve the circuit stability
2.   Increase the maximum volume
3.   Maintain the unique clipping and gating characteristics
4.   Add variability to the tone control for Mids and Highs

This isn't a clone, it is a sonic recreation of the older Fuzz War heavily inspired by the source material. I have had so much fun working with this pedal, experiencing highs and lows as I overcame challenges to bring it into creation. It does everything the old Fuzz War does, but can do more,...and LOUDER. This is sound has kept me up late at night, consumed me for years, and so it goes...fuzz never sleeps.

I owe much to all the things I've read through posts here and from AMZ, and the old RG Keen website

Best regards,
   Bradford


breadboarding things out...



First ordered PCBs and the inspirational source material...




Prototype...




Batch of screen printed pedals



All ready to go...





Kitchen Countertop pictures




Some youtube demos on guitar, bass, and in the context of a song...

Greetings all,
    I have looking at digging into switching options via relay bypass, etc, using microcontrollers. I saw the Coda Effects post, and this has further sparked my interest. I was curious if anyone has had any luck with sourcing a PICKit 2/3/4 starter kit. The link to Amazon appears to be dead and some reviews of the kits on there seem to point toward Chinese knockoffs.

Has anyone had luck with purchasing a PICKit programmer recently?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Best,
  Bradford

Hey everybody!
   I hope you are all doing well.

I'm working on a design which requires a 5PDT footswitch to operate properly. I'm not aware of any switch, so i am looking at CMOS solutions for switching. In particular I was looking at the old GeoFex article based on the CD4043 and CD4013 as a way to incorporate as many SPDT's into my design as I need. 

http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/cd4053/cd4053.htm

However I noticed that with the "Normally Open" momentary footswitch, that sometimes it will switch back and forth rapidly at what seems to be one click.  I'm looking for something a little more reliable...Does anyone have any suggestions on how to use CMOS for switching, or is there another alternative?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated..

All the best,
   Bradford

Whew!!!
It's been a minute, but after the passing of my cat I just haven't been that motivated to create.  I've been trying to get back into it, but as I move forward I need to get ride of some of the pedals I've built. 
Based on user feedback, I modified the sunshine reverberation to include a volume knob (HUGE MOD I KNOW RIGHT?!?), Any way I thought I would share


Heh not dead yet...

Bradford

Looks like a straight up copy too!!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electro-Harmonix-Big-Muff-type-FUZZ-PCB-with-mods-DIY-pedal-/292087432743?hash=item4401c48627:g:5EYAAOSw5cNYg4U7

Hi Team,
   I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with inconsistent quality between Belton BTDR-2H's?

I've typically purchased them from smallbear where they sell for $18 each, but I've recently noticed that mammoth electronics sells them for $12.50 a piece. 

I wasn't sure if there is some sort of quality issue like with PT2399s, or if it just happens to be a different in price.

Best,
   Bradford

Heh you guys know me by now and my love for DBA and my quest for Armageddon.
I've built some workalikes based on my knowledge of DBA designs and following the Fuzz war timeline.  I may never know what is exactly inside the pedal, but I've built up 6 of them i'll be putting on eBay later today.

This is basically my modified take on the DBA Apocalypse with a footswitchable filter.
6 fuzz stages (bypass, muff, reverse beta, bandpass filter, octave, and 741 speaker ripper), frequency tuneable low Q notch filter and Tilt Filter.

These are the only 6 I'll ever make of this pedal with this artwork (I'm trying to cover some vet bills)  I've gained a good bit of knowledge with this project and look forward to working with the general principle in future designs. 


Best,
   Lubdar

Hey team,
  it's been a while since I've been able to sit down to fully assemble a pedal, but over the course of the past two months I've managed to find bits of time to piece this guy together. You've probably figured my appreciation for DBA stuff, and this is the result of my examination of multiple DBA schematics and ideas.

It's a combination of ideas from the newer Evil Fuzz/Harmonic Transformer/Interstellar Overdriver.
It is comprised of 2 reverse beta gain stages, with level controls for each, that way you can turn level1 all the way down and get fairly clean overdrive tones, or max it out for fuzz, and anywhere inbetween.  The density knob controls the input capacitance for thin treble all the way to bass bass bass.  The toggles are for switching out a transistor stage in the 1st gain stage, and the second is an output pulldown resistor to give a slight volume boost.

I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, My main goal was reducing my issues with offboard wiring, which I think i can now say I will try to do that with my pcb designs from now on as often as possible. 

In addition to this, for the enclosure I tried a couple new aesthetics. I screenprinted the sides of the pedal with a lion logo, and used some brass parts from the hardware store to make portions of the pedal pop a little bit. Kind of like character design, I wanted to have a primary dominant color(black sparkle), secondary less dominant color (White), and tertiary highlighting colors (gold/brass/silver from the hardware).

I dig the sound, although it may not be for everyone, but for me its a really cool feeling to have taken this from looking over schems, slowly understanding how to create a circuit, and taking the design from concept to completion. Heh, I goofily gave myself a pat on the back, it still makes me smile thinking about the process.





Best,
   Lubdar

This is kind of general, but I'm planning on switching the input capacitor into a circuit between a smaller (0.047uF) and larger (10uF) value. Is there any reason why a DPDT would be preferred over an SPDT?

I just wanted to clarify my understanding of the Wolfshirt's signal clipping.
It looks like the signal is clipped via diodes to ground before it hits the tonestack, but the way I've seen the diodes presented in schematics is usually attached to one of the legs of the bridged-t (low pass filter leg). 
My question is: Were the diodes in the FTM supposed to clip the signal pre-filter, or was the filter supposed to be clipping the waveform such as in http://www.muzique.com/lab/tclip.htm ?

Does any one have any good explanations or references to explanations about the placement of output buffers (or the lack thereof) and volume controls.
Some examples
1.) on the SLOW LORIS, the volume POT is after an output buffer
2.) on the  STANK, the volume pot is before the output buffer
3.) on the GREENBEAN, the volume pot is before the output buffer
4.) MUDBUNNY doesn't have an output buffer and there is only the volume control
5.) PEACEKEEPER doesn't have an output buffer and there is just the volume control


Any help would be greatly appreciated

Ehhh somewhat of a re-post from the other thread, but I got the guts in there and it works out great. For those that missed it, this was my first etch with Ferric Chloride, then I sprayed it down with black and black sparkle spray paint and finished it with a glossy clear coat.

This is for all intents and purposes a Heavily modified Big Muff (my 4th attempt) based on the DBA Apocalypse.  Internal wiring is still problematic for me, but I"m getting there...

Hey team,

Does anybody have an explanation (or reference) for what exactly the tone circuit topology is for the KLON?
From what I've gathered it looks like a dual inverting op-amp set up for more gain in the first half than the second. Where the first half of the op amp is providing a little bit of gain via the inverting input and the 392k resistor in the feedback path, presumably the 820pf is there for smoothing out harsh treble content. And the second half has 100k in the feedback loop in order to maintain the gain from the previous stage.

Maybe its the orientation of the topology in the schematic that's throwing me off, but are signal paths going in parallel through the 100k and 6.8k resistors.
If the tone pot is fully CW, then essentially the lug 2-3 path is wide open, and the signal would pass through the 6.8k, and 5n6 cap right? but when it is fully CCW, the lugs 1-2 path would be wide open and the signal would be sent through the 100k resistor and through the 5n6 and the 4k7?

I've looked through a couple KLON analysis articles, but everybody seems to focus on the dual-gang pot aspect and not on the tone control portion.

Any guidance/topology references/thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Best,
  Lubdar

Hi everyone,
   I wasn't sure if I should ask this here or in the Tech help section, so I apologize if this is in the wrong place. While I am mentioning the ZP micro II, I was just wondering in general about building an effect pedal for use with microphones.
I'm looking into how feasible it is to build a quasi-vocal delay pedal.
In my naivete I would think that I just connect the PCB in and PCB out to XLR male and female connections, but then again, I don't know much in this area.

I'm wondering what/(if there) is a way to go about using XLR male and female jacks for connecting a microphone to the zeropoint micro II pcb, are there any references/resources that someone could point me toward?

Best,
   Lubdar

Alright here is the first build report that I've ever posted here!!!  Its the foxx tone machine but I've tried to make modifications similar to what I've seen from Laowiz. I've made the fuzz/octave modes foot-switchable with the filters switching as well.  The next part I'm working on is the diode clipping in the tone section.  I'm still trying to figure out which combination sounds good.  I goofed and made the artwork before I knew I could make the pedal work.  So it says Ge/Si but I'm not sure what it'll end up being.


Gutshot trying to work out the clipping options...

This has been fun thus far.  I've learned some more things about screen printing along the way.  Even as messy as the insides are, I think I've come a long way from the ridiculous rat's nests that I used to have.

If you're interested in more, I've put more of the process on my craft blog http://www.blackskycraft.blogspot.com

Hi everyone, having missed out on formally introducing myself in this thread, I thought I'd take a moment to do just that.
Lubdar is the name I'm going with (like "Tub"+"Dart"-"t").
My hobbies have varied over the years, but mostly in the spirit of DIY, I've always just wanted to say "I made that".
I don't really play guitar; I was a drummer whose messed around with guitar, but nowadays I enjoy the learning/building/creating phase.

I used to blog about papercraft for old squaresoft related videogames . This year I started building pedals using a breadboard looking PCB and the Beavis Audio Website.  For the longest time I'd seen the words "Madbean" come up on Chromesphere's youtube videos but I had never tried my hand at an actual PCB, but then earlier this year I decided to order the Slow Loris. Turned out great, had no problems with the build, and I was able to give it to my friend for his wedding present.   But recently I've been trying to learn more about pedals and how to make them sound different ways, I've been doing a very poor job of documenting it on my effects journey blog http://www.blackskycraft.blogspot.com.

I hope to learn many a things from the community here.
-Lubdar