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Thanks to Haberdasher I was able to build this Dirtbag as he had a PCB he was willing to part with.  It is for a sideman in NYC, he wanted the control layout and spacing the same as a big box DMM, and did the graphics layout himself.  Enclosure is from PPP and features their printing.  These MN3005's are another set of good ones from funkward tech on ebay.  I used the new 3PDTRR board from Madbean to run the DBD at 15v using a LT1054 that Jon (midwayfair) was nice to send out quickly when I realized I only had ICL7660's in the parts drawers.






[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/timbo_93631/dmm[/soundcloud]

Quick question about a discrepancy between the DMM and DMM reissue schematics vs. the Dirtbag.  C50 goes from the NE570 pin 13 to ground and is shown as 100n on the BOM, in the vintage EHX DMM schematic it is shown as being tied directly to ground.  Can anyone explain why it was added?  Also the values for C4 (47uf) and C32 (22uf) are the same as the reissue, but twice the value of the vintage DMM's (22uf and 10uf respectively), I wonder if that change was made to mitigate noise/hiss, or if there was another reason for it?

There is another guy on the offset forum that is on a pro-tour and his DMM got killed by baggage handers even though in a flight case.  He needs it repaired basically overnight, or a good alternative analog alternative.  His post on offsetguitars.com:
http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=80737

From my spring contest entry:
"Razzle Dazzle"
It is a Zero Point DD/Galacticon Phase Shifter/Rub-A-Dub Reverb 3-in-1
I am timbo_93631







clearanced center screw boss:


I have built a few pedals with the Galacticon on the repeats of a ZPDD or pre/post that have been in the regular build reports, this is an expanded version that includes a Rub-A-Dub.  The rotary switch on the right assigns the Galacticon to the repeats or pre/post delay with an additional toggle and it is footswitchable.  The rotary on the left assigns the rub-a-dub to the repeats or post delay and it is always on.  The ZPDD has been modded for trails bypass following midwayfair's shunt bypass method, and the Galacticon has a phase/vibe mod and a 50k blend pot labeled "nature" on the controls.
The ZPDD also has the feedback and slam controls on a momentary 3PDT so you can dial in the speed that it slips into self oscillation.  Clip to follow.

Happy Easter guys!

This one is for a guy from tdpri that missed out on the last one I built.  Again it is a Zero Point DD and Stomptown's fantastic Galacticon Phase Shifter.  I socketed the ghost resistors on the ZPDD, and have an OP275 op amp there, also it is wired for trails by moving R7 to a 3PDT.  The Galacticon has a 50kB pot instead of 20kB or 25kB and I think it gives a little more depth to the effect than the last one I built.  It also has the "uni-vibe" mod, however it has a 330n cap instead of a 470n cap for the uni-vibe pair.  The middle toggles are the same as the first, allowing switching between the Phase 45 on the repeats or on it's own and order switchable to be before or after the delay.

[Doctor Strange]

Doctor Strange





Fabien, 2flAZ on OSG, has done a bunch of graphics for me over the past year or so to make my etched enclosures from and in thanks I wanted to build him something special, and also square up in terms of a labor for labor type of trade.  He came up with the idea for the pedal, basically wanting a fixed wah and an octave up pedal, and the graphic and enclosure choice etc.  A total departure from my other stuff, this is a Sunshine Sparkle powder coat enclosure from Pedal Parts Plus, and a full face waterslide decal.  The circuits are both madbean projects, one side of the PCB is a Weener Wah II with a Whipple Halo inductor and some mojo 2n2925 transistors, the octave up side is a Sqweeker which has been placed in one of Rockhorst's blend loops so it can be mixed 100% wet or dry.  Special thanks to Cody, selfdestroyer, for the etched Weener Sqweeker PCB.  The big knob on the wah side controls the fixed position of the sweep, and the 3-way toggle adjusts the center frequency of the sweep.  The yellow knob adjusts the volume of the wah.  On the octave side the 3-way toggle is wired for the GGG null mod function that selectively limits the fundamental guitar notes and emphasize the octave up note, and the big knob is for the wet/dry/blend.  Outer stomps are bypasses, the center swaps the effect order and the LED's illuminate on whichever side is first in the signal chain.  It is one of the nuttiest pedals I have built, but really neat and in a live situation it will be a murky mix machete.  Sounds like:

I have been kicking the idea for this one around for awhile now and finally had some free time on the bench to get it together.  It is a Zero Point Dual Delay (proto from oshpark?)/Stomptown Galacticon Phase 45 2-in-1.  The toggles also allow you to put the Phase 45 in the normal signal chain before or after the delay or as modulation on the repeats.  It took awhile to visualize the switching but it works great.  When the Galacticon is on the repeats the regular bypass footswitch is disabled.  Other little things are feedback and slam pots are on a momentary 3PDT, so the onset of oscillation can be dialed in as desired, and the delay is wired for trails bypass.  On the Galacticon I did the regular Phase/Vibe mod, using 47nf/330nf for the vibe caps which sounded really nice and juicy on the breadboard.

So 2 ways of Phase 45 times infinite awesome of self oscillation = eternal love. 

["Happiness Gun" for tyoac on OSG:]

"Happiness Gun" for tyoac on OSG:







A Blackout Effectors "Musket" clone built on a Mudbunny board and a rullywowr fo-SHO from oshPark.  The fo-SHO is great because it is only one trace cut and a jumper away from being configured as a LPB-1. 

I haven't fired up a dirt pedal and just sat and played with it in a long while, maybe about 20 minutes plus recording a hack demo for most of them and I know if it sounds right and then I move on.  This little guy had me playing around for an hour and a half tonight.  So many levels of dirt, so much control over the EQ, just really inspiring to try different settings and then play around with picking dynamics and guitar volume.  Really a neat pedal and a great expanded take on the Muff.  I made some changes to the Musket schematic floating around on the web; the 470k on the ground leg of the pre control should probably be 470R, I went with 1k and find it to be perfect, for the tone control I used 250kB and that is also pretty good. 

These are for OSG member jaycemumford in trade for this beautiful custom built Pine and Spruce, double-bound, chambered, and f-holed body:

"Radio Sweetheart" is a La Vache with a Bacon Bits boost that is switchable to be on the input or output with an order toggle.  The gain boost toggle also lights the beacon at the top of the radio tower when engaged!  Advancing squadrons of bombers are my only addition to the otherwise perfect artwork by Fabien also on OSG.

"Electric Warrior" is a NPN Rangemaster clone with mojo parts like ERO axial electrolytics, Sozo axial input and output capacitors, and a beautiful black glass OC139 germanium transistor, the T/M switch pads are jumpered and a MLCC cap is paralleled with the .0047 Sozo to get the value dead on.  Artwork also by Fabien, pinholes light up violet on the musical notes when the effect is engaged.





Between the two there is really every shade of  low to mid gain OD and boost, with lots of cutting tone from the RM added in, a nice compact solution to get many nice shades of dirt.
Video shows the different switching positions for the first half, but around 5 and a half minutes in there is a good display of the wacky sounds the "Nuevo Jefe" delay can produce in the different modulation positions and in combination with these drive pedals.  I have a MN3005 and MN3008 in the delay for about 480ms of max delay time right now.  The two MN3005's I initially had in there in the clip linked above produced about 660ms which is quite a bit longer than I ever set my delay for.  Nearly $100 of hard to get BBD's in the same pedal is a little excessive for me if I'm not going to use them to the max potential. 

So, last night was fun:

["Nuevo Jefe"]

This is a repost of my submission for the best of 2013 contest, but there aren't a ton of ABDLX build reports out there so here it is again:

"Nuevo Jefe"








Aquaboy Deluxe with mods

-Legit MN3005's from funkward-tech on ebay
-modulation Depth Pot changed to 500k
-R50 and R51 switched to 5k1
-Slam switch added to feedback pot
-JMK Panner effects loop on the output
-Wedge cut 1590BB Tall enclosure with top mount jacks
-Mini-Chickenheads from smallbear, love these knobs to death.
-1776effects Opto-tron bypass

I can easily say this is the best delay I have ever built, but by far the most difficult.  I tried the effects loop between the PCB mix pad 3 and mix pot lug 3 as I have done on some Multiplexes now, but for whatever reason this brought in an unacceptable amount of clock noise, and wasn't totally stable for me.  I ended up putting it on the delay output. You can adjust the wet mix of the loop and the dry delayed signal; therefore, the effect is very similar to having the loop before the mix pot, just that the first things you play before repeat are run through the Panner too.  Very subtle difference unless you have the mix and loop both full wet.  The changes to the bigger pot on the modulation depth and R50 and R51 make the modulation less wacky and extreme at maximum depth and give a better lower boundary on the minimum setting. 

Clip below shows it effects loop dry and with a Cardinal Tremolo/Rub-a-Dub 2-in-1 in wah shell in the effects loop.

Merry Christmas (Eve) guys!

I had a request for a Fat Fuzz Factory clone and ended up using the cap arrangement from the Pudgii build doc on a GuitarPCB Industrial Fuzz PCB.  Usually I don't care for their PCB's, but this one was laid out by someone else (Bruce R. IIRC) and it was really nice to work with.  I unded up using 100nf, 330nf, and 2u2 on a DPDT On/Off/On switch with the 100n bridged across the middle lugs so you get 100n, 430n, and 2u3.  The guy I built it for didn't want the traditional Z.Vex layout so I put it in a wedged 125B.  It has a bypassable Klon Buffer on the output.  I usually find most fuzzes to be fun, but kind of one core tone per pedal, maybe some versatility by rolling back guitar volume, but this thing is incredible how different it can get depending on settings.  I have two etched PCB's selfdestroyer made for me from the Pudgii build doc and I am going to build a 2-in-1 for my board using them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you guys!  Have a great day!

Hey, Paul Rhoney a guitar builder here in CA is trying to get a grant for his business considered and he is and all around good guy and fantastic guitar builder.  If you have a second click here and you can vote for him to be considered for the grant through facebook: https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/business/detail/24382
His facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/paulrhoneyguitars

Also he is currently selling this baritone prototype for (comparatively) cheap right now:

I think it can be had in the $1000-$1200 range, about half the price of his other guitars I have seen. 

I started on this build at the beginning of the summer and it has been a long haul.  The enclosure is from Pedalenclosures.com and it didn't ever ship, after a month of waiting I emailed and got it about 2 weeks later.  No big deal, but maybe some foreshadowing of things to come.  After that I started trying to do the power supply and circuit on the same bit of vero using some pretty standard charge pump arrangements and regulators before or after the polarity conversion as well as voltage divider networks etc. to get the voltage down to -1.5v but everything had hum, oscillations, ripple and other problems that way.  So I went to the breadboard, just trying to get the supply right and after studying the datasheets and then seeing how some other charge pumped PNP projects are laid out and how that corresponded to the example schematics in the datasheets I got to a much more stable design.  I'm going to try and learn Eagle so I can contribute this info to the member's projects section of the forum soon, all my work is on graph paper right now.  The FZ-1a circuit itself is not complicated, but I chose to audit a bunch of transistors on the breadboard to get it to work right with the stock schematic instead of biasing things to accommodate individual transistors.  Over the course of the summer I had been setting aside leaky transistors for this and in the end the best set was a leaky Amperex 2N2430 in Q1, a not-very-leaky-at-all Texas Instruments 2N404 with highish gain in Q2, and a super leaky Mullard OC75 in Q3.  Sounds cool.  Bunch of bunk attempts:



The winner on the breadboard:

So I am starting to look around for a job and also thinking about going into missions. 

Let me back up a bit.  My wife has been teaching high school for 5 years, before that I was painting houses to put her through college and pay the bills.  I kept on with painting the first year she taught until she got pregnant with our oldest and then selling the family farm she had inherited and buying a house in town became a full time job for a few months.  After that I stayed home with the baby and went back to school to pursue a math degree.  The goal was that I would sub after getting my degree and a sub credential, then do the credential program after all our kids are in school (we've got 3 now), then start teaching full-time.  I am about halfway done with my Bachelors', taking one class per semester and a few every summer, in Calculus II this semester and ready to transfer to CSU Fresno next fall.

My wife and I have come to terms with the stay-at-home-dad stigma and felt justified that what we were doing was right, and by far better than her teaching and me painting while our kids were in daycare being raised by someone else. 

I'll back up a little more and get into the God side of this whole deal.  We both were raised in church going homes and walked away as teenagers for various reasons.  When we met I was bartending, and she was drinking and for over a year of being together we never talked about faith or God.  Then one day we did, and God called us back to him and we started going to church together and reading the word together daily and have grown very much since then to the point we are at today where we try to live everyday serving Jesus.  It has been a long and awesome journey.  Our attempts to get past ourselves and serve him is not always successful, but in our hearts we are striving towards that goal.  We have viewed her school, one that serves a large population of often gang affiliated, low income, and socially repressed students, as our missions field and ministry for the past few years.  We have tried to go above and beyond to help the kids there reach their goals and go on to live successful lives, and to escape the many snares of the neighborhood.  Time and time again we have seen good things come from the work, and that has been a real blessing.  But both of us feel a change in our hearts this year.  I feel a stronger conviction than ever to work outside of the home, or to put it more directly, we both know without a doubt she is the right person to be home with the kids in this point of their development.  Because we both dealt with the worldly side of the stay-at-home dad thing when we had our oldest we feel this is coming as a conviction from God and not societal pressures etc.

She's making about $50k a year with 80% benefits, I add a little to that with the things I build, maybe selling 4-6 pedals per month, but that is just a drop in the bucket compared to her earnings.  I do have the ability to save us money by maintaining the house, cars, and building things for the place, kids etc. by myself, as well as doing all the shopping and cooking, taking care of the bills and budget and other little things.  All of this means we make it every month, but things are tight on one steady income and we always have to be diligent and thrifty, but God does provide what we need.   

We have missionary hearts, and would go wherever God calls us to if it is his will for us to be missionaries.  I also have been given a large skill set, from mechanics, and electronics, to the ability to do quality control work, construction, some engineering and difficult math, all of which could be applied to many different fields of work and also be very useful in the missions field.  My wife has said more than once now that she believes in my pedals and amps and that we could pursue me doing that full time, but we both agree working for an established company while continuing to build my own brand on the side is probably a better idea than striking out on my own.

If you pray, I'd ask for prayer in these areas:

1. That God would make our path clear.
2. That we will lean only on our faith in Him in making decisions, and not be swayed by fear, comfort, etc.
3. That he would provide an opportunity to serve him day-to-day however things end up.

I know some of you guys have done missions work, any commentary you could offer would be greatly appreciated.  Also any leads on jobs would be very handy.  Above all else I'd appreciate your prayers wholeheartedly. 

Weener wah II using my mojo parts, including 2n2924's in Q1 and Q2.  Cap selector has three additional caps wired between lugs 4,5,6 to lug 3, for 6 positions total.  Sounds great!  Artwork, "Her Face", is by Mehran Heard same artist that did the Cok Fite drawing on the double Fuzzface I built a little while back.  Check out his website at www.eatcho.com.

*edit*  I almost forgot to mention this has Joe Gagan's 12 tooth pot in it!  I used a razor sharp chisel to slightly deepen the mounting slot for the pot so the rack didn't run off the pot in full heel down position.

The new Weener Wah II, I used six positions on my rotary adding caps onto the #3 lug with each step past position #3.  Shown with a long brick rub a dub and hipster with OC139 in Q1 and AC187k in Q2: