Messages

I just started building in January... I'd happily build the Bacon Bits!

PM me your address.

I can't believe no one wants the Scuba Muff!

You have a LOGO!

Huh, I got more of a Far Side vibe to it.

This is indeed more along the lines of what I was thinking, but then the color scheme was really close to The Cat in the Hat, so I ended up doing the title lettering in more of a Suess-y vein.

Just one question -- when's the last time you boxed something up and screwed the back on... and the build was stock, no added components, altered values, or reworked circuit sections?

Probably the last time I built a prototype of one of my own circuits ...

I'll add this to the demo queue.

I has an FSH!



I've wanted this effect for a very long time. Brian's board and build notes made it easy. It fired up the first time, but as you can see, there are some extra things going on:

First, I had quite a bit of noise from one of the 3080s. So I made myself a little daughter board to use an LM13700 instead, and this really improved the signal to noise ratio.

Buffered bypass! The little piece of perf is just the two "output" caps, a 1uF for buffered, and 220nF for the main circuit (it's a tiny bit higher than stock, but it doesn't really matter because it passes all frequencies anyway).

I jumpered the 10K at the input to avoid signal loss in bypass, and reduced R4 (to 47K) to get a little above unity (it was just slightly below).

Finally, I lowered the threshold by reducing R15 to 10K, so that it works better with single coils, especially my tele.

I'm super thrilled with the art. No idea where the idea came from, but it made me giggle, so there it is.

How soon do you need the build report? Is love to do the delay, just cause it's a delay. I got stuff to so but I can bump it ahead.

I dunno. You can has.

If I take away one of Neptune's points, what is he holding.

Instead of a trident it is a bident

Ding ding! I've got your address, I'll get it out to you on Monday.

I thought gamma ray bursts were the brightest?

I'd consider that a phenomenon and not an object, though.

One for each of you! Quasars are extremely bright but also extremely far away (other galaxies!), and also might no longer exist since they're so old; and the sun is the most luminescent thing we can see. PM me your addresses.

I have a few PCBs that just won't get built and I feel bad holding onto them.

There are 4 PCBs here, each with their own unique requirement.

1) JMK Scuba Muff -- I dearly wanted to build this, but the fact is it's sized for a 125B and I just never keep them around the house. It's a super awesome muff variant (I breadboarded it) that can get a ton of sounds, almost as many as a Pharoah.

To get this one, you must agree to film or record a demo of the pedal in action.

2) JMK Delay -- this is Jacob's standard delay. You can build a Rebote or DBD on it, for instance.

To get this one, you must agree to post a build report of the finished delay.

3) Bacon Bits -- this is the older version, without the warm switch. This is a beginner-friendly build. To get this, you must have fewer than 100 posts here, or have started building within the last 6 months.

4) Whisker Biscuit -- CJ's layout of what is, quite honestly, my favorite "big muff" variant. I have two of these to give away. To get this, you must answer the following question: What is the brightest object that currently exists in the known universe? I will accept more than one answer for this, with one board for each correct answer.

5) Neptune Delay -- this is a black PCB, and I'm not sure which run it's from. Another CJ PCB (I have a few ...). To get this, answer me this: If I take away one of Neptune's points, what is he holding.

Have fun!

Welcome!

Well, a 13700 solved it ... bit of a pain and it looks kind of ugly, but it sounds really good.

That chip was a little quieter, so I also jumpered R2 and then reduced R4 to 47K to bring it a little above unity.

Welcome.

Smallbear sells a et of PNP transistors appropriate for the Buzzaround:
http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=1272

They aren't NKT213s, but that doesn't matter -- what does matter is that they have appropriate gain and leakage for the circuit.

You can also buy a set of Tonebender MKIII transistors. Smallbear sells those, as does Chromosphere at his store (he's in Australia, but his shipping is reasonable).

You could also buy a batch of germanium transistors from Ebay and test them, but that involves a lot of datasheet hunting to find some with the right gain ranges.

Today's lesson is: Part numbers don't have a sound.

Once in a while i have to disagree... It depends on ambition level of course, but if you want to reach decent-to-pro mix result, a pair of good (or "halfgood") monitors is The one most important part of your studio.

This isn't necessarily true for people who are inexperienced mixers. But you're right that it depends on the level of ambition. In reality you have to do both, but if you have to pick only one, you should mix on something that won't just make everything sound good. Listening back at low volume is also a big thing (it's amazing how easily you can hear that things are out of tune when the music's not compressed through volume).

Also, while I don't necessarily advocate mixing to mono, you have to make sure it sounds good in mono, because that's how it's going to be heard.

Unless you're going to splurge on a really great set of monitors with the DAW to back it up, use your computer speakers. Many good engineers use cheap computer speakers in part of the mixing process. I can also tell you that you should get it to sound good on the thing 90% of people are going to hear it on.

Headphones are bad because they'll give you too much bass (pressed against your skull).