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interesting, i'm going to test it some more.  tbh i'm pretty ok with it turning to angry noise past 3 o'clock as i feel like most of the effect lives in a pretty small range of output.  i'm also going to look at some mods, and go back to some earlier LM386 projects to see if i can find anything worth tweaking.  if you ever do feel like cracking it open i'd be interested to see what changes can be made.

according to the datasheet (http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm386.pdf) it's also possible to adjust the overall gain by adding a resistor to the capacitor between pin 1 and 8 on the first IC - this may be what you have changed if you grounded pin 1?  or it could be pin 7 grounded which is recommended in the datasheet but not on the vero as far as i can see.  bypasses the unused input.

i wonder what happens if you play with the gain on the second IC.

smooth as all hell!  that wiring is physically satisfying to look at.  and the enclosure art is fantastic too

aha not even joking it's meant to have a bigger knob (...) but that has yet to arrive from hong kong after a month and i've lost all hope.  i think this size is probably as big as it needs to be, i already had to dremel down the pot so it wasn't mysteriously floating above the enclosure.

about the noise, i haven't cranked it since boxing but it's not noticeably noisy under 11 o'clock.  i only have a gibson with humbuckers, it gets slightly muddy on neck pickup but on all settings sounds 'rockier' and less creamy than the big muff clone i did couple weeks ago.  there is a sticky plasticky undertone as well which gives it the doom vibes i think.

when i was testing, past about 3 o'clock it just squeals out and is unusable, though i did pick up some radio stations (?!)

a weird thing about it that i need to test is, i have a LM386 amp which can power a decent sized speaker on its own at 9V, but this doesn't seem to be able to.  i'd also love to a/b with a real version and might buy even one at some point to do so then trade.

hey folks

played this pedal in a guitar shop and really enjoyed it, plus the one knob design is hilarious.  saw the vero design on tagboard, super small circuit and already had some LM386 ICs around so built it on vero a few weeks ago.  finally got around to etching and boxing over the weekend.  few errors in the etch and layout and not the cleanest soldering/wiring ever but hey i like it and it sounds ludicrous.  lots of fun. 

also had two madbean PCBs arrive last night so many thanks brian and on to the next ones!

cheers!

that etch is like.. 12/10.  just fantastic

it's beautiful!  also thanks for the heads up on this effect, never heard of it and i think i have almost all the parts to hand, might try this weekend

i wish i had your graphic design skills!  looks stunning, great job

that's freakin glorious!

that wiring is the stuff of nightmares, excellent job

this is one of humanity's better achievements

great job!  that offboard wiring is inspirationally clean, if there's any secrets to lining it all up and getting the lengths right please tell

many thanks! 

Whoah. Looking at that build wouldn't prompt anyone to think there are that many "first"s involved. Nice etch and nice build!

Did you go by Cody's/Selfdestroyer's etching tutorial?

yup followed those etching and painting guides quite closely.  i had a try at etching a random pattern a few weeks ago with caustic so i kinda knew what to expect, though the caustic freaked me out so i ended up grabbing some ferric chloride instead, and the reverse etch with ferric was a different feeling.  my plan was to get some offcut aluminium panels and practice everything but i got impatient and went for it.  the painting and drilling was entertaining.  so many mistakes (holes not quite centered, one hole a full step too big, paint uneven, some parts dripping, left painted base to dry.. in the rain) but it somehow turned out looking solid.  just fun, literally every step was a learning experience, feels good on the brain

got some more PCBs on the way and about to put in a tayda order so i'm keen to refine this all for rounds 2-3

looks great, super clean job!

just ordered this PCB myself so it's good to see someone's success with it.  and yeah having done my first prefab a few days ago it's a dream compared to the head scratching of vero.  plus looks so damn slick.

thanks very much everyone!  really appreciated. 

selfdestroyer thanks in particular for the etch and paint tutorials they account for a very large percentage of the enclosure working out.  (like high 90s)

The mudbunny is a great sounding pedal and with multiple ways to build it, you may end up with 2 or 3 of them. Which specs did you build it with?

part of the desire to build one came from playing a skreddy perestroika in a shop which sounded just crazy good, so i tried to build with the civil war specs, ended up being mostly green russian as i couldn't find the right caps.  definitely some room for variation, i socketed the transistors and diodes and next time i would like to try a switch for the tone circuit and maybe a few more things. 

first power up sounded awful which was a huge bummer as i had spent almost two full days on it, took some deep breaths and the time to clean up all the mess from the build - turns out the diodes which i had originally used were just ruining the sound.  took them out and it roared into life, so i replaced them and now it sounds like what i think it is supposed to sound like.  i can't crank it in my little apartment but going to head off to a rehearsal studio next weekend and see what it is like at proper volumes...

cheers again!

hey folks

had a lot of fun (and many mistakes) making this, my first pre-fab PCB, first etch and first proper enclosure with a stomp switch.  learned heaps and keen to move on to the next one!  i love how much problem solving and general mixture of creativity and tech is involved.

many thanks to this forum for etching and painting tutorials in particular.  i did a bunch of reading here and around while gathering parts.

cheers!