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Had a friend stay over for a few days this week, and we went through every pedal I've got here (~30).  It's not something I'd ever really ever sat down to do as a lot of my pedals get tested, boxed, tested again, and put on the shelf.  While some didn't do it for us as well as the others (Dangerzone, I'm looking at you), and some reminded me of how good they actually are (Boneyard), none of them really came close to my HT-Dual...

This really bugs me as it looks like I'm still going to have to make allowances for an oversized pedal with it's own PS until I get a CIOKS AC10 - I really wanted a straight 9v board.

The thing is, the HT has a massive low end compared to anything else I've got, and I suspect that most of the other pedals will actually play better in a live band situation without having to fight for sonic space with the bass.  The Brown Betty gets somewhat close, but not really.  It's still a completely different beast, and the boost/zen/plexi combination I have in the Leviathan seems to cover 90% of cover music anyway...

Bah.

Gudday all.  A friend of mine, who I've already built a stack of pedals for (Harley's Hammer, Phatboy, Hyperactive Overdrive, et al) saw my Dangerzone and said he wanted an OCD with the same artwork....

I tried his OCD (V4, I believe.  He sold it later on for whatever reason) with my gear a while ago, and I wasn't impressed.  Building this (V3 rev2) hasn't improved my opinion of it.  Might go better on single coils, but it just doesn't have the top end I like and sounds flubby with my gear.

Bog standard naughtyfish. Xvive vactrols. Didn't work originally due to a dodgy IC.

Yeah, I know I didn't use the MB wiring, I forgot to solder the LED and ground wires after getting it to work. I was a bit excited to finally get it in the box properly (that's what she said)....

Gudday all.

I've got a Naughtyfish populated here, and it all seems to work except for the actual effect.  I can hear plenty of signal and the tonality changes with the switch flips and knob turns, but there's just no mutron going on.  The best I can get is a trebly sort of cocked wah sound.

I'm using a pair of Xvive VTL5C3 that I got off ebay after I got the same results with my LED/LDR home rolled ones earlier.

I've gone around and resoldered what I thought might be dodgy and cleared up some possible bridges a couple of times to no result.

It's a shame because I have a sweet enclosure already made up for it (it's been mounted already, but removed when the new vactrols didn't work).

Voltages are:

Power supply: 9.27v

IC1:
4.9mv
4.9mv
.3mv
-8.56v
4.8mv
14.2mv
2.6mv
8.94v

IC2:
8.65v
3.43v
3.45v
-8.54v
-8.54v
4.06v
3.43v
8.99v

IC3:
2.7mv
1.9mv
0.4mv
-8.56v
0.4mv
2.7mv
14.6mv
8.99v

IC4:
1.2v
4.9v
0.5mv
-3.8v
-8.54v
2.54v
1.4v
9v

Gudday all.  Here's Megatron TMK2601.

That's right, 3x FV1, two of those with switches to access the default FV-1 patches, too many knobs, and two thousand, six hundred and one possible combinations of effects.

Thanks to BuGG for all his help and patience with my questions. He soldered the FV-1s and burnt some custom eeproms for me (which he now offers on his site - check it out if you haven't already).

Little wonky with the drilling, but it's all come out fairly good I think.

Second one boxed up for the night.  A friend is a member of the Watkins amp forum and he designed some PCBs for the RF Drive when they were all after a Robin Ford sound.  From all accounts it's basically a Zendrive.  Anyway, he also put together an OD of his own design using the reliable old J201s and he gave me a couple of those boards.  I've finally gotten around to doing something with them:

While I'm wrestling with my Naughtyfish (passes sound fine, can hear the switches and knobs doing things, there's plenty of signal, just not the proper effected sound), here's Dangerzone.

I don't know that I'm a massive fan of this one yet, but as it says in the build docs, it is a different sound.  Rhythm wise I like it, but not so much for soloing.

Just your standard Arcadiator. It was so nice to build a single pcb effect with board mounted pots... would have been great if I hadn't wired the input to ground initially though.

Gudday all, here's Brotherhood of Steel. It's BuGG's Brown Betty pcb with a klon buffer to kill the squeal, and dual gain channels using 100k and 1meg pots.

"Hey Willy, what's with the bird's nest under the pcb?" I hear you ask. Well, that's what happens when you add another gain pot and have to shift all the eq controls one to the left and don't bother shortening the wires.

Interesting effect, the amount (and tonality) of distortion is really dependent on the eq controls (as per the thermionic distortion too). Didn't like running this one with the trimmer flat out, unlike the thermionic distortion, as it got a bit blatty going that hard. There was also little variation within the gain pot travel. It took a bit of time to dial it in, but I think I'm happy now.

Gudday all, here's Superjudge +.

It features an LPB1 on a tayda pcb, running into a klon buffer, into JuanSolo's great little circuit. I've always found the Superjudge to really shine with a buffer in front, and it takes a boost really well too, so I decided to put all that in one box.

Even running the boost flat out, it never gets over the top and is still really useable. Not massive amounts of metal distortion usable - but just a great rock drive. If you haven't tried one, you really should.

This build fought me the whole way, or rather, I did a lot of stupid things in putting it together, like jacks at the wrong end, pots not in enough from the walls meaning I had to rip off the dust covers, and just a general tight fit. Then I dropped a 3pdt onto it, denting the face clearcoat... anyway,  it came together in the end.

Top mounted jacks are something I struggle with normally.  Too close to the corners, not far enough away from the pots, all the usual things.

This time though, I drilled out the face of the pedal, and flipped it up to drill the jacks, and then realised I'd drilled the wrong end after doing both holes.

I'd like to say that I hadn't put the label on yet, but that isn't an excuse as the template had the graphic on it too.  FB has suggested LEDs in the holes, but I'm leaning towards plugs if I can find them...

After 3 different delays that didn't work quite right (2x Cave dweller (pcb and vero), 1x Rebote), I thought I struck out with the Mimik pcb too, until I found I hadn't soldered the IC socket...

Crunchbox and Mimik as a gift for a friend's son who is really getting into his guitar.  He's a mad ALF Richmond fan, so hence the appropriation of their artwork for this one...  Hard to go wrong with either effect, very meat and potatoes.

Riddle me this Madbeaners:

In my Reactor build, I have a RGB LED (LED 1) indicating Crunch (Blue), OD1 (Green), or OD2 (Red).  This is achieved by using two switches.  I have another LED RGB LED (LED 2) indicating OD1/OD2.  This has the blue lead clipped as I don't need it in this case.

LED 1:
On the Crunch/OD switch (switch 1, 4pdt), the connections are: lug 10 (LED 1, Blue cathode), 11 (ground), 12 (Switch 2, lug 2)
On the OD1/OD2 switch (switch 2, 3pdt), the connections are: Lug 1(LED 1, Green cathode), 2 (Switch 1, lug 9), and 3 (LED 1 Red cathode).

LED 2: 
Green cathode (3pdt, lug 1)
Red cathode (3pdt, lug 3).

The upshot of this arrangement is that LED 2 only comes on when OD is engaged, and will be Green or Red depending on what OD channel has been selected.  What bugs me is that I can't tell what OD channel it will switch into as LED 2 is off while I'm in Crunch.

SO, I thought the obvious answer would be to replace the OD1/2 3pdt with a 4pdt and give LED 2 it's own set of poles.  I replaced the 3pdt, set up everything as it was, but putting LED 2 on lugs 4 (green cathode), 5 (ground), 6 (red cathode).

It's electrically separate from LED 1 right?  Apparently not.  Now, if I'm in OD2 (red, both LEDs, switch 1 set to OD, switch 2 set for OD2) and switch to crunch on switch 1, the LED will go from red, to dead.  If I'm in OD1 (green, switch 1 OD, switch 2 OD1) and go to crunch, the LED will go blue as it's supposed to.

I thought that I'd mucked something up, but when I removed the ground for LED 2, LED 1 works properly.  Hook the ground back up and we're back to where we were.

I hooked the ground straight to the power jack ground, same result.

I moved the LED 2 cathodes to another pole over, leaving one pole between LED1 and 2.  No difference.

I'm not sure where to go with this, as LED 2 works as I want (on, indicating OD 1 or 2), but it mucks up LED1.  If I run it as it was, then I don't have than indication until I switch to OD, which renders LED 2 irrelevant.

Any ideas anyone?  I will put up some diagrams later if that will help.  As I understand it, it should work - it's just switches...

Thanks,
Willy.

Gudday all.

I've finally boxed up a Cavedweller (pcb) in a multi with a Crunchbox (vero).  I thought the Cavedweller was working fine but when I boxed it all up I found that the volume is nowhere near unity.  Any ideas as to what I should be looking for?  I searched the forum and found a 47n vs 4.7n fix on C3, C3 on this version is 10n, and all my other values seem correct.

Thanks,
Willy.

Gudday all.  Here's Genuine Fake, a pedal I've made as a gift for a friend who doesn't know she's getting it yet.  It's a rehouse of Razorback (http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=23868.msg233581#msg233581) as I used that box for Red5.

She's a Malmsteen fan and I was going to put a YJM308 in this, but decided it sucked so the jfet drive went in instead.  The name comes from me finding a Malmsteen strat in the local Crime Converters, ringing her, her getting excited and running the serial numbers while I was trying to get the thing to intonate and tune up in the shop (it wouldn't).  Turned out it was a fake, so I told the bloke in the shop and he wasn't very impressed.  Needless to say, we didn't buy the guitar.

Tayda powercoat with datapol sticker and a couple of clearcoats on top.  There was a few issues with applying the sticker, so this isn't my best work.  No gutshot, it's even rougher than Lightspeed or anything else I've put up in the last few days.

WIlly.

Gudday all, here's Reactor, which is Baja's JVM with marshall tonestacks added to the crunch and OD1/2 channels.

As the eq sections have an unfettered LPB1 after the controls to make up for any loss, I really need to run both on, or both off as the volume discrepancy is crazy.  Sounds great, *so* much wiring.  Think I might build something a little simpler one of these days.

Not sold on 4 footswitches in a DD, but putting the Mode on a toggle wouldn't have done this justice.  Need to replace the OD1/2 with a 4pdt so I can get the OD LED between the OD1/2 gain controls working when the pedal is switched to Crunch (currently it turns off when Crunch is engaged, but I want it on so it indicates which OD channel is engaged before I switch to OD from Crunch).

Really liking this with Lart's simple cabsim.  Knobs are on order!

Gudday all.  Here's Beastmode, which switches between Zulu99's Mudflap and Juansolo's Superjudge.  I put a 1knob gate post drive, and put the boost (a modified tubescreamer) pre drive.  For poops and giggles I put a sound to light vero powering a couple of waterclear yellow LEDs behind Wolfie's eyes.  The gate will probably get shifted to just the Mudflap at some stage.

I like the Superjudge a lot, and will probably put that in a box with a boost on it's own someday.

Awaiting knobs.  Not a bad drilling effort, but it's not great.  I also messed up the orientation of the MF's pot labels in that it should be mirrored to how it is.  On the upside the gate and mid pots are correctly labeled.

Gudday all.  Here's Lightspeed, a Minitaur Klon and Afterlife compressor in a 125b.  Had to do top mounted jacks as I couldn't fit it any other way.  LEDs are hot glued in place, Afterlife is stuck to the rear of the Minitaur with doublesided tape.  The enclosure is a Tayda powercoat with datapol sticker and a coat of clear.  Not my best work or neatest guts, but it works...

We've just moved house last monday, and while there's still a bit to be done, I picked up a cheap drillpress and set it up in my new mancave today (It's pretty much exactly that.  It's a cave with shelves, a bench, and some inadequate lighting).

I haven't drilled anything or finished a project since last year, so I'm looking forward to getting some stuff done in between changing nappies and working.

It's nothing special, but it seems to go through enclosures quite nicely with my old step bit.  I haven't had to use any lube on it yet, but I'm sure that will change.  It's not as hardcore as my grandfather's old thing, but this one lives with me!

https://www.bunnings.com.au/ozito-350w-5-speed-bench-drill-press_p6290173

So, I have another stupid pedal idea.  If you had the choice, would you have a delay pedal that had multiple types of delays, or one single style of delay that had tap tempo? 

The correct answer of course is "both", but I want to build 3xFV-1 based pedal and I'm told tap tempo isn't very well implemented in those.  I guess I could use a pt based delay in the build, but I already have 3-4 of those kicking around (2 with TT in multis).

Convince me one way or the other guys!