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Aw, crud... my first pedal that didn't work right, first try.

It's a recent-rev Mudbunny built with Triangle component values.

Symptoms:  Actually, everything seems to work.  The pedal passes signal in bypass, and when activated.  The volume control turns the volume up and down, and the sustain control adds dirt.  The tone control sweeps like a Big Muff tone control should (based on my limited experience with a NYC Muff).  The problem is, the pedal isn't making anywhere near the amount of dirt it should.  It gets kind of crunchy/farty with the SUS all the way up, but doesn't approach the singing sustain and over-the-top dirt of a real BMP.  It makes some dirt on the low notes, but has very little effect on high notes (say, open E and B strings).
Note: All testing through Vox PF15, with the pedal powered from a 9-volt output of a Voodoo PP2+.

What I've done so far:

• As advised, took a few days off and ignored the pedal.
• Checked my wiring, both for correct routing and for bad solder joints.
• Checked all component values, reading them off the board with a magnifier and then comparing the as-built list to the B.O.M.  All components check out.  (BTW, I checked them all with a meter when I populated the board, to catch any off-spec values.)
• Checked polarity of diodes and transistors.  All are correct according to the silkscreen on the PC board.
• Visually inspected (with an illuminated magnifier) the soldering on the PC board for cold joints and bridges.  Found a couple that were suspect, but appeared to be okay once I scraped away some flux that was causing glare.

After all that, it's late, I have a headache, and I'm half-blind.  Tomorrow, I'll try to get some voltage measurements and post them.  In the meantime, anybody have any suggestions where to look?

Well, I finally finished wiring up the Fuzzrite clone last night.  It's really the first true fuzz box I've owned in 40 years of playing.  Compared to my usual buffered overdrives and distortions, it's a lot more finnicky.  The controls a very interactive, with each other and with the pickups and guitar's colume pot.  I knew this fromreading about it, but this is the first time I've actually messed with a pedal like this.  IT definitely likes my Duncan Quarter Pound Tele  better on the tapped setting (~7K) than on the full coild (~13K).  Interesting that the tone thins out and gets brighter  if I roll the guitar volume down a bit, kinda gets into Communication Breakdown territory.  

Guitar volume and fuzz control full up, it's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, BAY-BEE.

Next up, the matching Mudbunny built to Triangle specs.  It's gonna be a fuzzy Thanksgiving here on the _S homestead.

Take a look at the enclosures I used here:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=6694.0

I love the old-school look of the black textured paint.  These two enclosures came from MAdBean, but they were a close-out and he doesn't carry them any more.  Does anybody know where I can get pre-finished enclosures in black texture, in the 125-B or normal B and BB sizes?

I hope this is i hte right area...

I'd appreciate it if some one would check my layout.  I'm going to build this on a scrap piece of Radio Shack perfboard I had in my toolbox, the kind with 1-, 2-, and 3-hole pads.  Since it's not normal veroboard, I had to do my own layout.



Did I get it right?

Where'd you get those big red knobs?

This, from the first post:

The knobs came off an old Bell & Howell Model 34 oscilloscope, made by Heathkit for inclusion in a "Learn Electronics at Home" course.

I finished the fab work on my second fuzz box today, so the Trianglemuffinator has a sister, the Fuzzrite-inator.  Now I can clean all the metal shavings of the workbench and make with the wiring and soldering.  Tone reports to come.



Yes, the pennies are all from the right years for each pedals' release:  1969 for the BMP and 1966 for the Fuzzrite. 

How do you guys affix the plates to the enclosures?

It's just held on with the pot nuts, but I spent a lot of time sanding the back of the plate flat after driiling, so it would sit flat on the enclosure. I thought about both epoxy and double-stick tape, but with all those holes, there's not much surface area that the adhesive wouldn't peek through.  We'll see how it holds up as-is...  

The ever-increasing hole size for your knob markers is a stroke of genius.

I think the largest hole might have ended up a bit too big, but the steps were as small as I could do:  every 1/32" from 1/16" to 3/16".

I've sworn that I will never make a numbered legend plate for a pot, it's just too big a PITA.  Check out the "swooshes" I used on my amp:

My new build:


The prefinished textured black enclosure from Small Bear. The knobs came off an old Bell & Howell Model 34 oscilloscope, made by Heathkit for inclusion in a "Learn Electronics at Home" course.  Originally, the little black knobs wre mounted concentrically, on top of the red knobs, but finding concentric pots with shafts long enough is nigh on impossible these days. So, I separated the knobs, and topped off the red one with a penny from 1969, the year Eletro Harmonix introduced the Big Muff Pi.  

The combination of the textured enclosure and the old-school knobs (all of which I had squirreled away in the junk bin) inspired the steam-punkish theme, and pushed me to fabricate nameplates out of hobby-shop .025" copper plate.  I really need to get to the local Ace hardware and get a black nylon washer to replace that white one.

I'm working on a 2-knob version as well, which will house a Fuzzrite clone.

No report yet on how it sounds: I'm in enclosure-fab mode now.  Once the second pedal is done, I'll switch over to board-populating and wiring.

If you give an infinite number of monkeys a small pair of diagonal cutters and an SD-1, eventually one of them will successfully complete the C6 mod.

OK, he'll need a Phillips-head screwdriver, too.

I haven't been here for a while.  Workshop's too junked up with home remodeling projects to build pedals.  Anyway, I got a little bit of "funny money" in my PayPal account today, so I headed right here for a Mudbunny board (decided I need to build a steampunk Triangle Muff).  Anyway, I saw the ad for Brian's album.  Since I had a a few bucks left over after my bunny board, I bought the .MP3 download.

I'm not even halfway through, and I'm totally bowled over.  It kind of reminds me of Dada's Puzzle album, but that's not to say it's derivative; the similarity comes mostly from in the Strat-in-sparse arrangements tonality.  I hear occasional snippets of the band's varied influences: RHCP at their least funky (in a good way), Rush polyrhythms, some Devo-esque spastic rhythms.

Given his alter-ego Madbean, you'd expect an effects-fest, but the band's use of effects is fairly restrained.  Some tremolo and wah, spacey delay (as an effect, not as means a of music generation).  Mostly, it's the dirt sounds that impress me - several different levels of dirt from funky rhythms to soaring leads.

Brian, kudos on the album and a request:  would you be willing to share some tone secrets?  What gear did you use on the album, and were those Madbean effects?

Can anybody confirm what impedance ratios are good for my purposes?  I'm guessing 10K/10K for guitar splitter/isolator duty, and 10K/600 for a direct box.  Ja?

Meh.

If you'd put the LED above the switch, you'd have room for two peeps.

I'm thinking about a couple projects requiring small audio transformers. One would be a splitter to drive two guitar amps (maybe with a Fat Pants as the front-end.), with two transformers providing isolation against ground loops.

The other would a passive direct box, built into a small pedalboard for my acoustic. This one would need to provide the impedance match to a Lo-Z PA mixer as well as isolation.

Anyone have any recommended models & vendors for such things?

Pffft.  I don't know nuthin' 'bout Muffs, anyway.  I just want to use 'em cause they're free.

Somehow, I've played guitar for almost 40 years and never played through a BMP.  Time to change that.

Thanks, JakeFuzz.  You surely live up to your name.

Another question about transistors:  I just discovered I have a little bag of MPSA18s that I got somewhere for free.  Will these make any appreciable difference in the sound?  I notice on the MPSA18 spec sheet is says, "For characteristics, see SN5008."

With luck, I may be able to build this almost entirely out of my junk box.