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Holy balls this thing is a lot of fun to play! Of course, now that I've tinkered around with it I've come up with some mods that are going to increase the functionality and fun factor of this thing. So, as it turns out this is not the final design which is why it isn't boxed up. I will be reducing it form 8 stages to 6 for sure, and adding a "Univibe" option (which sounds pretty amazing). And, there will be blinking lights.

I've received shipping notification from the manufacturer for the pre-order boards this morning. This means that the pre-order boards will actually start shipping on Nov.16th or 17th since it usually takes about three days to get them to TN. I've kept all the pre-orders well organized so I expect to start sending them out the same day. It might take a couple of days to get everything out....the pre-order thing was a huge success (yay) but it takes a bit of time to bag and tag 100+ orders.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I feel comfortable enough with the process that I will do pre-ordering again for the next batch of projects.

On that note, I'm actually quite close to placing the next order. The past three weeks have been absolutely frustrating as hell. Every single build, prototype, idea has had problems (none of which are important enough to go into). It's a bit discouraging...yesterday I found myself saying "okay, let's build the next failure", ha ha. But, I've slogged through the issues one by one and passed a tipping point, so to speak. I'm quite energized to keep things moving at a fast pace.

Anyway, I'll have more details at the end of the week on what the next batch will be. I expect there to be between 5-7 additional projects. I would like to get at least ONE sub-mini tube project in there, and one or two of the baby boards.

Also, we are going to get this end of the year contest going. I've been dragging ass on that but I will touch base with the party planners ASAP so we can have something announced. Prizes will be offered, women will swoon, and pets will rejoice.

And in case any one is wondering, I am, indeed, keepin' it real.

This is an early version of one of the two Univibe projects. This is not the exact version I am releasing, but it's pretty close.

The light plate was done by rigging up a couple of resistors and an NPN from the LFO. It does not pulse exactly in time with the LFO, but it's really for show anyway!

The power section was done with an LT1054. No regulator...it runs off about 18v. There is no noise from the charge pump or the LFO so I am quite happy about that.

Pre-Ordering is available for the Thunderpuss, ChunkChunk, Current Lover, Road Rage, HoneyDripper, BumbleeBee and the Dirtbag Deluxe. These PCBs will ship approximately Nov.15th. Pre-orders will incur a shipping charge, however, if you place an order for any currently stocked PCB at the same time, I will ship that portion of the order immediately (obviously, there will be no "second" shipping charge for pre-order boards).

I will also get the BOM available for the Current Lover, Dirtbag and HoneyDripper up in a couple of days. The others are the same, although I will be adding a little space to the Road Rage so you can do a flat mounted TO220 type regulator (15v for example).

The Quadrovibe doc errouneously listed two component names in the "notes" section for changing the max speed for the LFO section. Previously, I stated R11 and R12 should be socketed and adjusted for setting the maximum speed limit. This should have been R16, R17. The document has been updated.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/Quadrovibe/Quadrovibe.pdf

Here's my build using the new BumbleBee board. It still needs a little work. I had it sounding perfect before loading into the enclosure (which used to contain a Tonebender). Had nothing but problems getting it in. I had a simple push button switch to toggle the battery on and off so I could leave the jacks plugged in, but the switch was bad. So, I replaced that with a Road Rage board and DC jack. Then I had problems trying to fit the PCB mounted pots into the holes for the previous build that was in there. I replaced those with wired pots but one of them must be significantly different in resistance value because now there are a few slight "mis-biased" spots. So, I'll have to unload and test again. The LED is just a dummy for now. Frankly, I'm tired of messing with it so I probably finish it off in a few days. But, when it's done it will sound cool as hell! I used OC75 for the transistors.

The bad news is that my 6011 tubes appear to be duds. Multiple tries to get something going with the couple I have on hand have failed, and unless I've forgotten how to read datasheets and schematics then they must be toast.

The good news is I've caught the bug. I'm working on a few ideas for pedals and mini amps. So, I think this will be the next big area for development after the baby boards get finished.

Don't everyone start asking me "when" yet, though! Keep the suggestions coming on projects you'd like to see and I will take them under consideration. So far, I'm pretty solid on a SMT Rump Roast, a Big Muff-like amp, and one basic OD. I'm thinking a SMT version of the Vox Night Train would be pretty killer, too although I will probably want to get some experience first before tackling that. The ultimate for me would be a tube phaser or univibe 

Despite a few small layout errors, I got the Current Lover up and running. This is the MN3207 version. Sounds spectacular and was actually really easy to dial in. I'll get a demo of this one done tomorrow and post it here.

This was a pleasant surprise for me today! My band is on io9:

http://io9.com/5844763/wistful-music-video-about-a-rocket-scientists-greatest-invention

Here's a preview of the final Univibe design which I will be prototyping soon. It's fitted for a wah enclosure and has some mods borrowed from both the Forum vibe and the Mojo Vibe. I'm pretty fired up for this one!



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Baby board prototypes are here and I am totally stoked to start putting these together. I have a mess of 3mm resistors and multi-layer ceramics on the way from Mouser, too.

I'm going to build one small multi-effects unit with custom power supply and a couple in 1590A's to showcase what you can do with them. Fun, fun!




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Here's video #2 (released today) for our record that came out last fall. This one was done by our bass player/professional editor. It's really pretty amazing....way more than I could have hoped for!

Internets bad today. But, it seems to be resolved. New server, now with 100% more madbean.

[Fabbed boards]

Here's an update on what's coming up in the month of September!

Fabbed boards
I'm placing the order tomorrow for the next round of manufactured boards. These will include new projects and some that are out of stock. Here's what's coming by mid-Sept:

Dirtbag Delay - DMM
LowRider - Octaver
Slow Loris (new layout)
Pork Barrel (new layout)
Ego Driver (new layout)
Tube Screamer (I need a name for this one!)
Pepper Spray - Percolator
Mudbunny - these just went out of stock
Aquaboy (if I can afford it with everything else)

The Deadringer is going to be redesigned and re-stocked at a later time.

Sept. 10th - Mark your calendar
I'm formally ending the hand-made service for PCBs on 09.10. This is the culmination of the process I started a year ago to go to manufactured boards exclusively. It will also free up a lot of time for me to work on design, new projects and some website stuff.

There are about a dozen hand-made boards right now. Some of these will become manufactured boards eventually, and some will be eliminated. I will definitely be discontinuing the Cosmopolitan and Spackler on 09.10. I will start work on the Loophole ver.2 as soon as time allows (I have three new chips on the way to test out design ideas!)

Baby Boards
I submitted ten projects for prototyping yesterday for the new mini builds series. I tried to cover as many different types of fx as possible, and they include a booster, overdrive, a couple of distortions, a vibrato, a phaser, a delay, a compressor and chorus. There are 5 more designs I have not yet submitted.

You can expect some of these boards to go into the second round of manufactured boards to be released at the beginning of October!

Other Projects
I am really close to finishing off these projects: Dirtbag Jr (v3205), Stage Fright phaser, the reverb, Dipthonizer, Electric Mistress, Weener Wah and two other delay projects. Most of these only require another couple hours each of bench time to complete. Depending on what gets done when, some of these will be released with the Baby Boards. The rest will drop in November.

I will definitely have all of these projects done and released by the end of the year...most likely by November.

Tutorials
Jacob has submitted a really nice set of tutorials on project building that is fairly comprehensive. This, along with some other tutorials that were completed several months ago, will be making an appearance on the website really soon!

That's it for now 

Some 1590A projects may coming up. So far I've got a mini Tube Screamer and a mini "Quadrovibe lite" worked out. Any other particular desires for tiny little pedal projects?

Wanna play with me? I wanna play with you! If only you would start working a little better!!



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Here's the new Pepper Spray build. This one was done to stock values and sounds pretty much totally insane. It is a really unique sounding fuzz...super compressed. With the switch you can open it up though and remove some compression.

I built up a second prototype of the LowRider (Pearl Octaver) to see if I could overcome some of the issues with the first. I'm happy to report it came out really well! Now I can fix the first build

Here's is a really short demo featuring some octave up, one and two octaves down all mixed together.

BYOC forum member and superhero dcountry13 (Rob) has fallen on some hard times and some folks are auctioning off stuff to help him out. Here's the link to what I put in the auction. There's some good stuff!

All proceeds go directly to Rob, so have a look


http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=32117

This is ridiculous.



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