Messages

I had the same issue with mine, so I socketed R5.  I also feel the non-delay signal is a bit bright, so I'm tinkering with that as well.

Do you want the delay to be brighter, or the dry to be darker?

The PT2399 chip has very poor bandwidth at times above 200mS and requires heavy filtering. It's also not particularly great at sounding like an exact copy even at very short delay times. The fidelity just isn't like higher end digital stuff.


I was a little disappointed in the difference between the tone of the direct and the repeats being so different. If you figure out a fix please post it..

I think your 1N4001 is backwards. Double check that the stripe (cathode) is NOT connected to ground.

Anyone have an extra one of these around I could play with?

I got you, Jason. I'll send them tomorrow morning.

Realistically I'm not going to build enough projects to use the ones I have!

Sounds like you let a lot of DC into your pickups! Volume pot scratching is usually the most immediate sign of that. If you let too much in, it can fry the inductors. That's very bad.

Check the input cap on the engineer's thumb; replace it just to be safe. Measure the input for DC. DO NOT plug the guitar back in until you're dead certain that the input is safe and at 0 potential.

Check that the guitar is still working by plugging it straight into the amp.

Bearhug Camp, commissioned by my buddy Keith for his nephew, who is a boy scout. Keith is basically giving him an entire rig -- a 100W Fender head, a 2x12 cabinet with Alnicos, an electric 12 string, and the Bearhug, along with an overdrive not yet determined.



And that is why you always hang up your food when you go camping. He wanted art kind of like Order of the Stick and xkcd combined.

Speaking of Bearhugs, here's one I built to send to Cyrus at Ovnilab for a possible review:


I also sent him an Engineer's Thumb and the Ghost Note (the Afterlife with threshold knob I built a while back), since those were on his "I want to review these" list.

Little Penguin Fuzz



This is an NPN MP38A Fuzz Face with no gain knob for a customer. He only wanted the volume external, but I talked him into some extra controls inside. Pregain, input bass control, bias ( of course), and switches to change the behavior of the pregain pot between Gagan's Easy Face and the Fuller mod. It's insanely loud -- the knob is set above unity. So it can do some legit treble booster settings. It sounded best to me biased pretty cold (6V). This is probably the only fuzz I've ever made that uses the "right" gain buckets and I can't say I'm exactly a fan of that, but it does sound pretty good and it behaves as expected.

And ... the Snow Day OD





I had the day off on Monday due to snow and thought I'd throw together an overdrive to pass the time. Instead I ended up designing a new project and spent the week working on it.

I'll do a project thread with some more info and a demo, but the short description is that it's a FET- and MOSFET-based amp simulation overdrive running on 18V that includes a switchable miniature compressor circuit and soft clipping in a "power tube" section. It has bits of several projects in it; and the really special thing about it (the mini compressor) isn't something I created (though I wish I had).

It sounds quite good. It goes from glassy "almost" cleans to either open or slightly compressed edge of breakup that feels very similar to one of my favorite amps, up to a medium gain compressed sound. It has lots of harmonics without sounding overly clipped, and a very wide dynamic range.

The art is inspired by (and borrows some images from) Calvin & Hobbes strips. The box came from John Lyons. It was pre-marked for three knobs and a switch (or second LED), and I actually designed the project specifically to fill this box ...

I also still need to do a build report for the Britannia from my demo, too, but unfortunately I didn't remember to take pictures before I loaned it to someone.

The transformer as inductor also got me wondering... maybe they just used a «standard» transformer frame and got wound to an inductor spec.

Well, you can use a transformer as an inductor, I just hadn't seen it in a production pedal. It was a trick to deal with hard to find parts a long time ago. RG (as usual) wrote about it: http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm

noice!

I just finished a LaVache pedal, but it didn't work.  It turned out that I had the transistor in wrong, anyway I got it fixed, but it still acts strangely.  First, the volume only works in the upper 25% which makes me think that I need a new pot.  Anyway, when I play hard, it makes a terrible crunchy diode static noise and also the volume is always less loud then when bypassed.  Anyone have any ideas on what else could cause me this kind of grief? 

On a separate note, I am also wiring a guitar for a friend and I cant find a diagram that gives me what he wants, and I don't have the brains to figure it out myself.  This is what I want have: 2 humbuckers, 2 push pull volumes, 2 tones and a 5 way switch.  Any ideas on that one?  Thanks in advance!

Dollars to donuts you used a 330K in R4 instead of 330R.

However, post your voltages and pictures.

For the guitar question, it's probably best to start a different thread, and describe what you want the push pulls to do for instance.

We might have a winner.  Thanks Guys.  Not sold on the font anymore, but, it's a start.

That looks outstanding, can't wait to see the final build.

Very nice.

Are they using the transformer as an inductor? 

No need to rush this one, I'll grab some film caps on my next order. Thanks.

I'll toss in a couple with the other caps I'm sending you.

If you already have a buffer in your signal chain, you probably won't notice the difference. If you don't have a buffer, you might notice a difference because the capacitance of cables won't affect your signal as much.

Buffered bypass is just that: when bypassed, the buffer is active.

It's the first stage of the pedal's circuit, so it's of course on when the effect is on, too.

There are many articles discussing the benefits and disadvantages of buffered versus true bypass. Google will probably turn up dozens that are worth reading, and dozens more that are crap.

Electrolytics must always be oriented with the stripe toward the lowest potential and the + side facing the higher voltage. In the kingslayer, both sides of these caps are at ground, except when an audio signal is present, in which case they're looking at AC.

There's a problem when electrolytic caps are used with an audio signal that goes up and down in voltage. The caps are forced to reverse conduct on the half swing every time audio signal passes through them. That can be bad -- it might cause the cap to go bad faster. However, the good thing is that C9 and C11 connect to each other and thus the side where they connect is always at ground, and the op amp pins in a split rail are always at ground. So if you absolutely MUST use a polarized electrolytic here, it doesn't matter which way you put them.

Box film caps in 1uF values are neither rare nor expensive. They also often sound better in the audio path. It's worth it to get them.

Hi all,

Picked up a hot air smd soldering station and was wondering what temperature I should use with soldering paste? I tried it with some J201's and its amazing to watch them snap into place, but I'm concerned about frying the chips.

Your soldering paste should tell you its melting temperature. If it's not on the container, check with the manufacturer online.

Is that an absolute must for getting the lid to fit on properly?

Yes, you'll never even get close to getting the lid on with full-sized electrolytics. Even putting them sideways will be difficult.

If you're in the U.S. I can send you some of the right ones.