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I haven't bought a pedal in years and the demos for the 'Urei 1176 in a stomp box' made this thing sound irresistible and now it's in my house.


I've played with it for about 4 hours and have to declare: Hype deserved. It's huge and expensive, but the tone and performance is amazing.


Early observations:
It's HUGE! I included a pic with a 1590b for scale. I mean, I knew it was big, but I didn't know it was going to be BIIIGG.


The input 'buffer' has quite a bit of gain and lots of color. It came in buffered bypass mode and it was immediately obvious this wasn't my normal bypass tone. I moved the jumpers to go to true bypass since I need to test other pedals.


It's not completely silent like my favorite optical compressor, but it's close - not anything like OTA comp noise.


Headroom isn't as high as I would like, even running it at 18V. Being able to adjust the input gain is nice. When I was taking the gut shot pic I moved the gain reduction jumper over one space, so I'll see what that does.


It's got a blue 3PDT in there, which I don't like at all. I won't be turning it off much, so what's the difference, right?


I think I counted 34 transistors - 4 SMD. Lots of BC547 and that top row of 2n7000 is all for the LED light show. Build quality is excellent - all metal film resistors and Kemet caps.


SO, you gonna trace that thing, buddy?
Duh, of course - when I can do without it long enough to take it apart ...
There are some test points around the board and you can see it's a monster, so I'm not promising any results.

It's like the 'What are you listening to?' thread, but for GAS.


I can't get this Ravenswood 12-string out of my head. Looks gorgeous, perfect scale & size and sounds great in the demo. $1,000 seems pretty steep for a guitar made in Indonesia, even though they say they QC them in Chicago. No way I can try one, either. 


Keep Calm and Gas On, I guess.

Really having a ton of fun playing with this one. Brilliant work.


Yes, I got the jack top-mounted. I used Smallbear's smallest, Shaved them down and took them right to the edge. Nerve-wracking. That's also a 1776effects relay bypass in there.
The box is etched, painted and envirotexed. That can of red glitter blast is going a long way.   

Hello, My name is Jubal81 and I'm a dirt junkie. Built tons and I still had 5 on the floor at my amp. The idea behind the Brazen Bull was to take my favorites and get them all (well, not all, but a good few) in a 125B with just four knobs and a switch. I used headers and two PCB stacked together to get it all to fit, so lots of careful measuring and calculating.


There are four settings:
JFET boost
JFET Mu-amp overdrive
CD4049UBE distortion
Muff variant


These all go through a James tone stack. What you see here is the first prototype. There are a few things I want to fine tune and I've been back at the breadboard all week - 3 hours today and I ended up just changing one component. Maybe I'll be done before my beard turns gray.


The box is etched and then - gulp - electroplated with copper, rubbed with shoe polish and clear coated. Yes, it looks cool as hell, but I'll never do it again. I ruined two other enclosures, my favorite pants and spent about 8-10 hours just babying that thing in the copper bath. I wanted to get that 'excavated from a Greek island' look and I'm pretty happy with it.

Saw this on Reddit and it's just outstanding how he made his own pedal-controlled, 4-servo bending telecaster.

Here's a link to the build photos

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I think I've gotten an indestructible 125B from Smallbear. It's one of the polished ones, and I had it in the etchant for 45 minutes and nada. I swirled. I heated. I cursed.

Never had this happen before and I just did another of the same type yesterday which etched just fine. Same bottle of Radio Shack FC, too.

Any ideas?

Yah, so cool. 17 days left on the campaign.

http://teespring.com/autorouter

I was just about to put in an order at Smallbear and saw Steve's started stocking fresnell lenses for LEDs. I get a lot of PMs from people who want to know where to get them, so I thought I'd post a link.

http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=1533

I was rocking out with my new Duplex build for a few hours today and just having a blast, but it's got me thinking.
How much am I, as a builder, influenced by the aesthetics of a pedal I've made myself?

The Duplex is a rare instance where I never heard it before I'd boxed it up - and spent a couple days sanding, etching, painting and clear coating. I really like a lot of ODs/Fuzzes that never make it to a box, even ones I honeymoon over for a while. And here, when my first impression comes with a neato box I'd worked really hard on, I've got maybe my favorite Muff variant ever and an opamp OD that I like as much as my favorite JFET ODs, which is pretty crazy.

No doubt these are a pair of highly-regarded effects, but I can't help but wonder how much I'm susceptible to "pretty box syndrome" even though I know what's what inside these things.

TL;DR: I think maybe I'm not as objective about circuits as I thought I was because - pretty box.

I came up with an SMD opamp buffer that's small enough to fit in an oversized 1/4" jack. I tried the Tillman FET boost in a cable and didn't like it much. Plus, it was a dead-bug and I have no confidence in that.

I've been using it in a junky prototype setup for a few months and it works beautifully. The circuit takes elements from the Klon and the AMZ super buffer. The dual opamps are in parallel, so this little thing can run a long stretch of cable. I used a two-conductor mic cable, with one wire for signal and one to run power up to the jack at the guitar.

In the pedal is a Beauty Booster from JMK PCBs - really a beauty, warm and sexy sound. I wired it true bypass and used a 2SK170 JFET. Another first on here is that I used an illuminated vandal switch from Seeedstudio, and this is paired with a Finish Line relay module from 1776effects. It's a momentary switch, but it gives a feedback "click." It's different, but I think I like it.

Box is etched, painted and clear-coated.

I'm planning on releasing the Jack Buffer as an open project when I get the documents together. The board is so tiny, 3 of them cost less than $2 from OSHpark. I also have a Mouser BOM ready that includes the big jack I used to house it in. Hopefully should have all that together within the week.

Cornish pair on an excellent layout by electricb.
I've never tried either of these effects before and I'm very impressed - really inspiring sounds.




Just got a cheap USB mic and got a little bit of audio of the G2:
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/jubal81/g2-mini-clip[/soundcloud]

I'm finally to the point where I love the sound I'm getting from my rig and my Toanz-to-Skills ratio is way out of whack.
Looking for suggestions for a good online resource - ideal would be something that isn't a jumble of different lessons that make it 'what I feel like learning today,' but a step-by-step, chronological drill sergeant teaching method with a focus on theory, technique and ear training.

My most challenging build yet - tough, but VERY worth it.
Inspired by the Hoffman ReVibe, it's an all-analog reverb/tremolo combo based on classic Fender versions.

Constituent circuits:
Surfy Bear FET Reverb
Cardinal Tremolo
Custom split/mix circuit for parallel operation
Madbean Bloviator (used as switchable output buffer)
Two 1776 relay bypass boards

Other parts:
Hammond 10" x 6" x 2" amp chassis with walnut sides
Accutronics 8AB2A1B reverb tank (spring unit remounted inside hammond chassis)
Custom faceplate designed by me and laser etched by Mojotone

The Rundown:
The Sufy Bear Reverb uses FETs to emulate the famous 6G15 reverb, with a MOSFET pair driving the tank. I've got this running in a parallel configuration with Midayfair's Cardinal Tremolo, which uses FETs and optocouplers to get a sound similar to Fender tremolos. The modulation settings you see on a rotary switch are Black (blackface/bias), Brown (brown face/harmonic) and Vibe (a univibe-ish sound).
Running in parallel sacrifices the extreme settings of both effects, but the overall lushness of parallel operation was just too good to pass up.
For switching, the soft-touch, momentary switches (thanks to Josh's relay boards) make a big difference because you don't want a hard click clanging the springs. The left switch bypasses the whole unit, while the right switch turns the modulation on & off. I used an Opto Fet to make the Modulation indicator light flash in time with the speed of the effect.
The Bloviator (State variable EQ) on the output is independent and switches on the back. It was on during all the demo samples.

I think it's time to make some patch cables. Tayda, of course, has some really cheap 1/4" plugs, but I'm dubious. Any reviews or alternatives?

New Study Finds Only 88% Of Guitar Center Customers Become Famous Musicians

Dunno if you guys have seen these, but Fishman is about to start selling electric guitar pickups that are printed to circuit boards rather than wound with wire. The idea is that every pickup is consistent, modeled after the best sounding examples and totally hum-free. They're also paired with an active preamp (battery - boo).

I'm typically a luddite, but this looks really interesting to me. I HATE components that aren't consistent unit-to-unit and pickups are one of the biggest offenders. The demos sound really good, too. I'm most impressed with how impossibly quiet they are.

This might be what forces me to get an iRig or some other interface. It's an amp emulator in which you can change out all the components in your amp and set bias, mix & match tone stacks, etc ...

Anyone got a favorite for iPad interface hardware?

I've been reading up in the Hoffman ReVibe, which is a combination of the Fender tube reverb and harmonic tremolo. Well, I've got the SurfyBear spring-pan reverb PCB on the way and fortuitously our own Midwayfair has created a brilliant little harmonic tremolo. So they just have to be paired together. It's destiny.

There are just so many variables I'm not sure the best way to do it. Floor unit, like the VanAmps SoleMate? I have a hard time picturing how that's all going to fit together in a 10" X 6" X 2" Hammond box. What about an enclosure on my amp cab and under the head with remote footswitches?

Then there's the implementation. These thing really belong between the preamp and the power amp, but I'd rather not modify my amp since it's a 'booteek' and it's brilliant. What about series & parallel? The ReVibe runs he effects in parallel, so do I need to design a mixer to marry these beauties?

Love to hear what you guys think. Here's some pictures of what's out there:

This article on EDN breaks down why even X7R could be problematic in certain designs - basically they change value with voltage and produce harmonics. They were hitting it with max-rated voltage, but in a humble stompbox we're only talking about a couple volts - maybe 10% of max rating. The harmonics thing is interesting.

I've used them all over the place and never noticed any difference in sound, even in A/B comparisons. Might be enough of an excuse to start using the cheaper electrolytics more.

Anyway, here's the link.

Excerpt:
" ... As a result, the value of the capacitor is changing instantaneously due to the applied signal, causing distortion in the current waveform. We demonstrated this by producing a SPICE model for a capacitor that replicates the voltage coefficient of a typical 50V X7R capacitor. The X7R capacitor models produced a large number of harmonics when used to simulate a Sallen-Key lowpass filter."

I don't know if you guys remember the Surfy Bear spring pan reverb that was shared here a while back, but I went to go check it out and Surfy Bear is now selling fabbed PCBs for the project. Boards are only $8 and he'll even sell you one put together for $68.

I've been wanting a really great analog verb project for a long time and already sent an email to get one - I'm giddy. I've screwed around breadboarding chip amp ideas for one and wasn't happy with the results.