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Powder coat is a powder that you spray onto the enclosure and then bake on. It's exceptionally durable. A powder coat setup will run you about $150 for an inexpensive one, though you will also need an air compressor. And it's extremely messy. Unless you're doing tons and tons of enclosures, consider just picking them up from Pedal Parts Plus (if you're in the U.S.) or even direct from Hammond Manufacturing. PPP does great work, and the Hammond finishes are extremely durable if not particularly exciting as far as colors go.

Man, if I make it to 90, I really hope I can still identify a guitar out of a lineup, much less still play it!

Sexy!  I had a Focusrite sapphire for about a week but ended up returning it because the software wouldn't go into any mode higher than 44.1k. The do make great sounding stuff and I'm sure they worked out the bugs by now across the model line.

The Scarletts go up to 96K, but I haven't tried recording anything above 44.1K yet.

Did a bit more recording for practice tonight. Still learning Ableton Live, so this one's in GarageBand again, using their amp sims. Still direct ... not really much space here for my pedalboard, though this one could have used some volume pedal work, and I would have preferred to use the El Cap for the delay, but still, I'm pretty happy for it as a practice setup. You catch so many more mistakes and can really try a lot of licks. It's also helping me understand arranging better. I just forgot how darn useful recording yourself is for a practice.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/jon-patton-3/hard-times[/soundcloud]

That sound is just stunning. Far and away best solid state tremolo I've ever heard. Seriously, Jon, that's a masterpiece.

Thanks, Jason. It's four FETzer valves, so it does sound a little tubey! The channels are almost identical to the Cardinal's full-range band.

Hoping there's a demo forthcoming.

Sure, here's a clip. Direct to the Scarlett into GarageBand, sparkling clean for the amp (with the effects removed). Little bit of reverb. Don't really have time to do a video demo of this one.

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/jon-patton-3/cosmo-tremolo[/soundcloud]

Square Wave stereo > sine wave stereo > Vibe mono (slightly offset wave for some lope) > Harmonic stereo > Vibe stereo (surprisingly awesome) > Harmonic mono

This might be the most complicated tremolo pedal ever ... Stereo Tap Tempo Tremolo based in part on the Cardinal using essentially every feature of the TAPLFO. I think the only pins I didn't use are the basic tempo LED and the "next multiplier." The stereo switching is kind of cool. I set it up so that it can run in mono (left channel only), left mono in > stereo out, left TRS in > stereo out, and dual mono in > stereo out. The only thing it doesn't do is sum stereo inputs to mono ... except it kinda does because I also added Harmonic and Vibe modes via a DPDT on/off/on switch (it's accomplished a little different than the Cardinal, but similar cutoff frequencies and it sounds pretty awesome), so you could have a different effect in the right channel and cross it over in the vibe mode.

There's also Expression pedal input selectable between the Rate and Multiplier (he wanted the multiplier instead of depth, otherwise I would have used a 3PDT toggle instead of a rotary ... the multiplier is a pain) and sync in/sync out.



The jacks are drilled in the back with exactly enough room to put seven normal right angle plugs next to each other, but something like George L's or straight plugs will fit much easier.

This was for a customer in Switzerland. I hope he's happy with it, it was a HUGE amount of work figuring out all the wiring and switching and I'm not keen on ever building another regardless of price. :p

p.s. I did fix the mistake in the waveform graphic.

I expect we'll all have to await the reveal with trem-pedation.

Looking and sounding good guys, got short ribs braising in the oven

Holy coincidence batman, that was our dinner tonight, too! I did just potatoes (on top of everything -- not in the liquid), onions, carrots, and celery, with some reduced red and white wine in the bottom for the braising liquid. Almost no oil, just the rendered fat from searing the short ribs first. Tinfoil covering and an hour and a half in the oven. Twas very good, but it was one of those cases where I should have had the foresight to let the ribs sit in some salt on the counter for a couple hours beforehand to dry out a bit.

Have I mentioned my love of omelets?



Spinach, italian hard cheeses, novello olive oil, smoked salt, and a bit of herbs de provence.

Sounds great, Alan. I prefered it when you turned on the space, seemed to soften things a bit and it was easier for me to imagine it not just sounding like the 80s.

My buddy Keith has a Ceriatone Dizzy 30 (I think that's the same model). It sounds quite good. Their parts are top-notch.

You might want to check out Warehouse speakers. They have a good selection. Weber is probably okay, too, but they seem to be a bit less on the ball now, and they're not as forthcoming about specs.

I can upload some clips if interested...

Please do!

I'm going to be switching to Ableton (and then Logic when I can afford it), I just went to GarageBand last night because I haven't finished reading the instruction manual and wanted to test things. I'll need plugins for other DAWs.

New recording interface day!

My Scarlett 18i8 arrived yesterday and I set it up tonight. A pair of Audio Technica mics (2020 and 2021) also arrived, but I decided to try recording direct to one of GrarageBand's amp emulators ("sparkling clean" with a tiny bit of delay and reverb) to test out the preamps, and it sounds pretty good ... in fact I'm not totally sure I could mic my amp well enough to make it sound too much better.


[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/jon-patton-3/bbotb-interface-test-scarlett[/soundcloud]

Recorded something with overdubs ... all the guitars here are the Don Q caster, including the bass.
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/jon-patton-3/strattin-around[/soundcloud]

I think we discussed the J310 some time ago and you pointed out the high Idss.
Well, these have the same. I haven't checked all the other values but maybe these are just two J310 in one package? (Would explain the name...)

Edit: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=12423.0

Ooh, good catch!

Just off the top of my head I'm thinking Mu-amp drives ala Catalinbread and then discrete opamps. We all know REAL phasers use optocouplers 

Hm, Mu-amps are kind of a waste of matched fets, since biasing them doesn't do much of anything ... now, matched FET pairs like Wampler, on the other hand ... maybe someone should send the link to Brian, I'm sure he'd appreciate the hell out of not having to match SMD FETs!