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When the last discount coupon for Tayda hit this forum I decided it was time to try them out, so I placed a big (well, for me) order. Overall, I'm quite impressed, especially by the cheap shipping (Singapore to Holland for $11) and the pricing of their parts. I do have a few observation, maybe someone can comment?

1: They don't count very carefully - I ordered 30 DIP8 sockets and got 25. Not really complaining here, they are only $0.02 a piece, and I got over 30 resistors and 10 box caps more than I ordered   Anyone had this experience as well?

2: All the types of switches I ordered (except the momentary DPDT's) seem a little less sturdy than the ones I got from Banzai previously. Any thoughts on their durability? Of course, you get what you pay for, and they are cheap, so again not complaining, just curious.

I think I'll probably order from them again, cause you can't beat those prices! Lots of parts sorting and soldering to do!

Paul

Edit: when they start selling Alpha pcb mount pots and a couple of IC's needed for chorusy/flangy projects, it's one-stop shopping! We should start a campaign.....

Some time ago I built a Mudbunny with sockets for all the parts, with the intention of giving the different permutations a try. Well, that never really happened (been using it with the VRH specs now for a while, pretty good) but this afternoon I tried out a number of different transistors in the circuit as a small start in my search for The Ultimate Muff  Thought I'd post the findings here for all you Fuzz-lovers!

2N5088:
Slightly dark, smooth, not too much gain, liked it a lot for leads on the neck pickup

2N5089:
Sounds almost the same as the 2N5088, but with a bit more gain

BC549C
A bit brighter than the 2N5088/89, about the same gain as the 2N5089

BC550C
Also a bit brighter than the 2N5088/89 and higher gain than the BC549C, very cool for powerchord sludge

MPSA18
Harsher sounding than the others, but that can be easily remedied by a twist of the tone knob (either on the guitar or the pedal). To my ears the most gain of this bunch

I also have some BC182L's (and a lot more on the way) but those required some subtle leg-bending pin-out wise, which didn't seem like a good idea after last nights beer consumption 

I'll be doing the same thing with diodes, the different BOMs and more transistors soon, so if you have any requests or suggestions, please post!

Paul

Maybe there's someone on the forum with a bit of power tube knowledge.... I've been researching tube amps as of lately, maybe with an actual build in the not so near future, and have seen some info on the interweb that KT66's (yes, I want a JTM45) and 6L6's are interchangeable. As 6L6's are way cheaper than KT66's, not considering brand, this might be interesting money-wise. Anyone have any info on the possibilities and tonal differences of this swap? Thanks in advance,

Paul

As with the Shoot the Moon tremolo of my previous post, this was long overdue. For some reason I enjoy populating boards much more then boxing them up, but to use a board....... well, you get the idea!

Collosalus in a 1590BB:


With top-mounted jacks, how the hell.....


Well, this is how:

By rotating the board 180 degrees around the pots, components facing the other way around than we're used to, the board moved toward the 3PDT, thus freeing up the space below the pots to squeeze in the jacks (mounted as low as possible in the enclosure). It took some planning to figure out if this could actually be done, but as you can see, there's just enough space for the switch and LED. Made wiring a bitch, by the way.........

Got some plans to build a few more of these 'upside down' pedals, as I'm redesigning my pedalboard and need the top-mounted jacks to get the maximum amount of pedals on there. It's gonna be a long project though.....

Paul

This has been lying in the crate that houses my tools and supplies for a couple of weeks now and I finally boxed it up. It has been tested (weeks ago) and works, but I can't try it out right now, as my power supply is at the rehearsal space and I don't have any batteries/clips, but that will be sorted tomorrow. Very nice sounding trem, gonna get a space on my board for sure. Thanks to CJ for the great board!



Top-mounted jacks:


Guts:


Let me know what you think, I'll probably be posting some more today.....

Paul

Does anybody know if it's actually as easy as connecting all the centers and all the sleaves of a bunch of 9V jacks to create my own power "daisy chain"? In other words: all plugs, except the last one, would have four wires connected to them.

Paul

Hey guys,

I'm in the process of redesigning my pedalboard, but I have my Crybaby in the rehearsal space..... Could anyone measure up the base plate (lenght, width at top, width at bottom) of a Crybaby wah? I can work with both imperial and metric units, anything will be appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Paul

Guys, I've got a Mudbunny board loaded with just sockets (except the pulldown resistor and power supply parts) to try out some different component values. Currently it's set up as a Violet Rams Head with all parts per the BOM, diodes, trannies and all, as that seems to be pretty popular. Haven't had the time to try it out yet but my question is this: where should I start experimenting, some other layouts (like the Green Russian or Triangle) or the transistors and diodes. I've got a heap of different trannies and Midwayfairs Diode Kit on the way (Thanx man!) and all components to try every permutation available, so I'm a bit overwhelmed with possibilities! Some help in the decision-making process would be very appreciated.......

Paul

There's a new music venue in Amsterdam, called Ziggo Dome, and the company I work for has built the HVAC installations there so I had the chance to see Pearl Jam there two nights in a row. Needless to say it was brilliant!!! Officially I was part of the "Standby Team", which was there to act in case something went wrong with the installation, but in reality, I was only there to see the show! On Tuesday I even got to see the sound check, awesome stuff! I think I'll never leave the company....

Paul

Just got home from Amsterdam, where I saw Slash play at the Heineken Music Hall, and man, it was a great show! Lots of old G'nR, some Velvet Revolver and a whole lot of work from his new album. It was 20 years ago that I saw him for the first time on the Use Your Illusions tour, and being only 15 years old then, my mom only let me go because my older cousin went as well. Tonight, I felt like that 15 year old boy again, and it was amazing! Slash, you are one of the few reasons I play guitar, you rock!!! 

Hey guys, would one LT1054 be able to supply enough current for both a Collosalus and a Porkbarrel? I'll be building a Collosalus soon, and as it will be sitting next to the Porkbarrel on my pedalboard, it might be worth it to make a +15V output.

Paul

Hey guys,

Received my last batch of boards yesterday, and noticed that on my Boneyard on one of the pads for R11 the hole is closed up. Would it be safe to drill this with my Dremel, or would that most likely ruin the pad?

Paul

Hi all!

Been a while since I last posted any new builds, so here're two in one build report! First up: ChunkChunk

Nothing to special about it, except for the headaches I got wiring and biasing this monster! It's been an ongoing battle of soldering, swearing, biasing, swearing some more, getting away from it for a while and repeating the whole damn thing, but it's done and sounds quite good! Not sure about the knobs, maybe a bit big, don't you think?

Board is held in place by the mess of wires, and check out the marked pots..... Couldn't remember what was what....... 

Next up: CurrentLover


This went a lot better than the CC, and started flanging just fine the second time I tried biasing it (first time it took almost 10 minutes of twisting pots for me to realize I forgot to put Q2 in its socket, doh!!  )
Gonna put it head-to-head with my Electric Mistress very soon!

As you can see, wiring is loads cleaner, I'm really happy with that wiring job. Knobs are on loan from my Bananasplit Dual Overdrive, still haven't decided what would look good, so suggestions are welcome.

There's so much free space on both of these pedals that I feel obliged to try my hand on some graphics, maybe this weekend....... Still on the workbench/washing machine: Bloviator and Wolfshirt, both tested, working and ready to box up. And some new boards and a sh*tload of new parts on the way!!

Paul

Hey guys,

A friend of mine from the UK is coming over in a couple of weeks, can anyone recommend a cheap UK parts-source from which I can order and let them ship it to his house so he can bring it with him and save me some international shipping? Or are the prices not so low as this to be an advantage over, say, Mouser? Thanx in advance!

Paul

Hey guys,

I was getting ready to toss out two old PC's that where gathering dust and decided to open them up and see if there was anything usefull in there. Wasn't much, but I removed a lot of wire from them. After being my OCD self and sorting them by color and gauge, I ended up with this:


There's a whole lot of AWG18, mainly in black yellow and red, and some AWG20 and AWG24, all mad by the Zhenshen Wire Company (aaaaah, those guys!.........?)

Do you see any reason not to use this for building pedals? Apart from the AWG18 being a bit big and unflexable, that is.....

Paul

Hi guys,

While checking out the datasheets for these chips, i saw that the pin out is identical, while the Porkbarrel docs gave me the impression that it should be different, with the jumpers and all?

Am I missing something or are these the wrong datasheets?

Paul

I'm still waiting for the 100k Log pot for my Current Lover build, so I'm wondering: If I solder a resistor (say, 47k) from the connection for tab 1 to tab 2 and one from tab 3 to tab 2, wouldn't that function as a "pot" in a fixed position? This way I could test and bias the thing, without having the actual pot.

Any thoughts on this?

Paul

This got finished a while ago, but hadn't gotten around to posting a Build Report until now..... The enclosure was advertised as being purple, which I guess it is but I expected something different. Not shure if I like this shade of purple





Neat trick: I mounted the board to the pots/switch with some resistor leads, really cuts down the amount of wiring, and solves the problem of where to put the board. I drilled the enclosure first and noticed this could be done after that, so it was a bit of luck, but I like the way it turned out. Check out that monster cap 


Tried it out at band rehearsal last week and got a lot of "Turn that down!!!", man this a loud pedal! Sounds very nice though, so if anyone knows how to tame this beast......

Paul

He guys,

I'm about to finish my Chunk Chunk today, and one of the things still to do is putting a resistor across pins 1&3 of the 5kB mid pot (as mentioned in the doc). After looking at the schematic and reading "The secret life of pots" over at Geofex.com, I was wondering if I should put it across 1&2 instead of 1&3, since in this configuration 1&3 doesn't seem to do anything until the pot is rotated CW completely. Or should I put it across 2&3? I tried modelling the resulting resistance in a spreadsheet, but that didn't really clarify anything.....

Paul

This was one of the builds I was really lookink forward to, because I'm a bit of a chorus fan.... Right now there's a Visual Sound H2O on the board, with a Boss Bass Chorus as backup, but this will probably bump them both down a notch, as it sounds soooooooo good! I'll have to figure something out for the delay side of the H2O, which I mainly used for some rockabilly type slapback, so suggestions are welcome! The wiring went pretty well, which was a surprise, as I had a huge hangover and my hands were shacking very badly..... It's built with a v3207 and has both a normal status LED and the LFO-indicator/depth mod. The LFO-indicator bezel is mounted very professionally with superglue, as it's to close to the edge of the enclosure to get the nut on it on the inside...... (see last pic)





Paul