Topics

This month we have the Bearhug, Monocle and TrashCompactor.

- Everyone here knows the Bearhug. Jon was kind enough to offer it as a regular project on mbp so much thanks to him!

- The Monocle is The Guv'nor in a 1590B. A very meaty distortion with TMB controls.

- The TrashCompactor in an mbp original. It uses a THAT4305 VCA for the signal compression. I don't know of any DIY project that uses this approach. There might be commercial guitar pedals that do, but I am not aware. Anyway, it sounds awesome and will squish you up like a 300 pound pug. The 4305 is a very tiny SMD so I am also offering it pre-soldered with a breakout board. The chips themselves are around $6 and the pre-soldered option is only $8 so I recommend it if you want to save the hassle of trying to solder it yourself.

I have demos to catch up on from the last release so tomorrow I'm going to shoot some quick 1 minuters for a few different recent projects. I'll be sure to include the Trash Compactor.

The Collosalus has one correction on the PCB and has been noted in the doc with an explanation. If you have built this project, you can follow the instructions to make the correction manually on the previous version of the PCB. It may not be necessary however.

The Fraudhacker wiring diagram was changed. Previously I indicated a possible problem with soldering the bypass LED directly to the PCB but it turns out I had some crappy LEDs. So, the "normal" wiring should be fine.

All of this is further explained in the relevant project pdfs.

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/_folders/FilterMod/pdf/Collosalus2022.pdf
https://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/_folders/FilterMod/pdf/Fraudhacker.pdf

Some restocks are in (inc. the Current Lover and Skoolie). A few overdrive and analog delay projects are on sale.

Finally these are ready after many weeks. Six pedal projects plus two new utilities (ProtorigJR and the Strober stereo prototyping board).
I'll have some short demos of some of these on Instagram starting at the beginning of next week.

These large bat switches and rocker covers I got from Tayda are legit! I need to find a use for them.

After a long hiatus, all the VFE projects are available again. And, the price has been lowered for each!

Luckily, she got the joke...

I've got a small handful of Protorig kits available again. There will be more later on, and possibly some available at smallbear in the near future. Also, I will be releasing a "Junior" version of the Protorig in a few days. It's the same basic thing but a small PCB and no parts kit. So, you can build it to whatever size you need.

I've fallen into a real pattern over the last several years: by the time the last quarter of the year rolls around I hit maximum burnout for the year. Then once the holidays are over I gain "burn-through" on a whole new set of ideas and renewed energy.

Coming in late January (these projects are completed and ready for release):
- Prognosticator - the Stereo Memory Man.
- Skoolie - the negative ground version of the Tourbus (I gave it a different name to avoid confusion).
- Current Lover 2023 - this updated layout allows you to build the Mistress with either MN3007 or MN3207 and up to 15v operation (MN3007 version).

- I also have two other analog delay designs in the pipeline which I hope to release in the next few months. One of them is a 1 second analog delay.

Coming in 2023
- A new slate of updated VFE projects with Peter's new SPS switching and updated layouts. More on this later.
- Obviously, more new mbp projects and probably a few updated ones.
- I will finally be moving my workshop into the new space (still my house) which is about 4x bigger. This is going to allow me to do many new things and expand the range of services/products I offer.
- The new website and store will drop in the first half of the year. This was actually supposed to happen at the end of 2022 but things happened.
- There may be some genuine madbeanpedals kits coming.

Prognosis
2022 was an extremely challenging year for mbp. In the end, I pulled the lowest amount of sales going all the way back to 2011! There are a lot of reasons for it which I won't get into here (because it's not important to the actual community) but I've resolved to turn this around in 2023, or else. I'm also branching out a bit and doing more design work for other pedal makers and companies. Can't say anything about that now but I'll fill you guys in later when there's something juicy to report.

It's getting a bit late in the year and no one has mentioned it on the forum so far. Is there enough interest for a BOTY contest? We've done one for like the 8 years in a row I think. But, if people are too busy or not interested I'm fine with that. Let me know your thoughts.

All here: https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?board=103.0

Get stuff, give stuff. Let's get in the spirit.

Several projects have been restocked: Tourbus, Polytrog, Kompromat, Mangler, Glasshole, Glitchee, and Total Recall.

Notes:
- Tourbus has been updated to rev.1. The notes on the (minor) revision are on pg.1. I do not have any Tourbus Bonus Packs yet but I expect to have some more in the next 10 days. New boards are purple. Also, I was able to reduce the price a bit.
- Polytog will no longer include the 10k multi-trim but I have provided a link to the Tayda part you can use. It's only about $0.28.
- The Total Recall and TRXPN boards are now separate items (since I think most people are building the TR with the Xvive 3005 repros by this point). The prices have been adjusted accordingly.

I expect to have a few new projects to release sometime next week and then a few more before the end of Oct. A few projects are still out of stock and those should be available at the end of the month. I'm still not sure when the VFE projects will be available again but I will work on that ASAP.

I did a revision to the Archibald project to correct some minor issues with the initial release version and it is now available in the mbp store. The doc has been updated accordingly. 

It's been a long time since I've had a regular discount sale, so here we are! Everything is stock is discounted. This is going to help me push through to get all the stuff I have yet to release for 2022 which is still quite a bit.

The Fraudhacker (based on the BF-2 flanger) project is now available in the store. For the discerning swirl lover.

[youtube width=540]g3cxMeMj7v4[/youtube]

[To sign up: just post in this thread that you plan to attend by Saturday afternoon (Aug. 13th). I will use your forum email to send the Zoom invite on Saturday night or Sunday morning. If you want to use a different email for the invite just PM it to me.]

Following up on this topic, I'm hosting the first mbp Zoom meeting. All members are welcome. I'm hoping to get 5-15 participants. If this is successful I plan on making this a monthly thing with different times to accommodate those in different time zones.

Date:  Sunday Aug. 14th @ 7-9pm Central Time
Agenda: Format is open but the general idea is to just talk about what you you are working on, answer questions you might have about mbp or anything related to DIY, talk about the pedal industry in general and just get to know one another a bit better. I will host and maybe guide us through the discussion but that's about it. It should be a pretty organic conversation.

I've done many of these types of calls with Function F(x) (like hundreds) and believe me, it is always a good time. So, even if you are a bit shy (as a few people mentioned in the other thread) and don't want to participate much you are welcome as an observer. One promise I can make is that you will be glad you participated. I actually have a fair amount of social anxiety myself so take it from me, you'll enjoy it.

To sign up: just post in this thread that you plan to attend by Saturday afternoon (Aug. 13th). I will use your forum email to send the Zoom invite on Saturday night or Sunday morning. If you want to use a different email for the invite just PM it to me.

I'm really looking forward to it!

This is not instructional. Just a screen capture of a design session. Nothing was pre-planned here. I just hit record and "improvised" (same with the music).

[youtube width=720]PLl_dQQleKc[/youtube]

Image says it all. I have a batch of pre-tested genuine 3260E for the Mostortion project. You can order the board with or without it. I'm working on short demos of each project today so I will update this thread when those are up.