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Yeah, but... today the project page says it's a Rat with extra clipping options, not a MoD, so I guess we're back to audio taper. 

Anyway, I'm trying to re-create the '85 small box I foolishly sold, so I'll just go with the audio taper.

The project doc for the Slow Lorus says all the pots are 100kB.  I always get these new fangled codes wrong, so I looked it up - the first reference site I found says the "B" means "linear"  What?

All the old (Keene, et al...) Rat scehmatics I have stashed away say 100K log in all three spots.

What kind of pots does Mr. Lorus really want?

My buddy called from St. Louis - he says the Nutrino I built him is too bright. I built the "Black" version.  He says he runs it with the Glass pot all the way down, but he wishes it would go down just a little bit further.

Problem is, he lives halfway across the country, and we don't really want to ship it back for a quick fix.  He says he can do simple soldering, so whatever change we make has to simple.

Suggestions?

We oughta break this off as a new church thread.  By the way, there is a dedicated "room" on the TDPRI (Telecaster forum) specifically for worship players.  It's a good resource, keeps to the music and gear, and stays away from religious debates.

Anywho, in my experience, there is nothing wroung wioth small tube amps in church.  I used my 13-watt, 1x12" baby Marshall clone for a year with no problems.  I used a silverface Vibro Champ a couple time4s with pretty good results, too, although it might have been a tad underpowered.  The Blues Junior is just about perfect in size, IMO.

I think the best way to use an amp in church is to choose the right size (anywhere from 5-20 watts, depending on room size, band volume, and the amount of clean headroom you need for "your sound").  Put it on an amp stand, and point it directly at your head.  This guarantees that you will hear yourself clearly, which is the most important thing.  If the congregation can't hear you, it's the job of the soundman and the PA to make it so.  If the rest of the band can't hear you, that's a job for monitors (whether in-ear or wedges) although some compromises in the position, direction, and volume of your amp can help.

My personal preference is an amp that gives me a good clean-to-crunch sound (by dialing in the guitar volume) augmented by an overdrive stompbox to kick up the dirt (though not necessarily the volume) for solos or very dirty rhythm parts.  Some people might prefer getting all their dirt from the amp, some might like channel switchers.  It's a matter of personal preference.  The important thing is not to show up with an amp that's too large.  Don't bring a non-master half stack and expect folks to deal with you reasonably.

Are any of the MadBean projects close to a Univox Super Fuzz?  I know a guy who wants a sound-alike, originals are too pricey.  I know BYOC has the Leeds kit, but scratch building is more fun.

This brings me to my suggestion: it would be nice if the website had a guide to "Stompbox Geneology for Dummies".  Most of Brian's projects list a boutique pedal as the reference.  However, I'm not up on all the boutique pedals out there; I can't afford them, so I just ignore them. 

I was recently looking for a board to build a Rat, but had to e-mail Brian because I didn't know that a Landgraff MoD was a booteek clone.  What if someone wants a Marshall Guv'nor, but doesn't know to buy a Crunchbox/Krunkee board?

I thing a simple three-column table would do the trick - original vintage pedals on the left, all known boutique clones and adaptations in the middle, and the MadBean projects on the right.  Discussing the fine points and variations can be left to the forum.

Thanks for the report.  I plan to order a Fat Pants (as well as some othrer stuff) as soon as the store reopens tomorrow.  But I can't decide if I should build it into the front end of my pedalboard permanently (mounted under the deck for buffering and slight, fixed boost) OR if I should build it into a the carcass of of dead Cry Baby I have around, using it as a volume/boost pedal.

Maybe I should just buy two.

Do distortion pedals count?  If so, three with another on the way.

I have a Boss SD-1 that's not on my pedalboard.  It's modded like a Monte Allums GT, but with stock clipping diodes.  I loan it to friends, or us it for jams when I don't have my board.  Bersides, everybody should have at least one SD-1 around the house.

My main OD, after years of experimenting, is a Nutrino.  I love its clarity, dynamics, lack of mid-hump.  Its tight, chunky low end doesn't overwhelm my 18 Watter clone the way pedals like the OCD and Box Of Rock do.

As my "other" dirt sound, I have a Recto-mod DS-1 on my board.  I use it mostly for times when I need really saturated high gain, but without the volume boost I get from the Nutrino.  The DS-1's distortion pot is usually almost all the way up, and its volume control really low.  (Example:  I was forced against my will to cover Journey's "Separate Ways" at the recent band-reunion gig.  I used the DS-1 for the arena-rock rhythm part.)

On the bench, I have a Rat clone.  It's going to replace the DS-1 on my board for special cases, weird noises, and faux-Ebow parts.

I'd like to take an informal survey about youze guys' reasons for building pedals.  Are you a pedal builder, or a guitar player?  Is building pedals a hobby in and of itself, or just a means to further your guitar tone-chasing?

Me, I got into modding first, because I wasn't getting the tone I wanted out of stock pedals. Then, I progressed to building because I couldn't afford the boutique overdrive I wanted to achieve "my" tone.  So, I think of myself as a player, who mods/builds pedals to improve my tone.

In all honesty, though, I've played exactly two gigs in the last year; both 25th reunions at my college.  Looking forward, I have no prospects for gigs.  On the other hand, in the last 4-5 months I've built three Nutrinos (one for me and two for friends). Also for friends, I've built a custom amp-channel switcher and modded two Boss compressors.  I have a half-finished Rat clone on the bench for myself, with a loop switcher and a Fat Pants in the planning stages.

So, circumstantial evidence indicates I'm a builder, not the player I believe myself to be.  So much for self-awareness.

What about you?

May 2010 Update:  I just got back from a 25th reunion gig with my old college frat-party-and-bar band.  Band members (some of whom hadn't seen each other in 25 years) came came from as far as upstate NY, Dallas, and San Francisco to Philadelphia for 2 days of 80s-style rock & new wave and plenty of sophomoric behavior.  We held a six-hour rehearsal on Friday, and played a 1-hour set at a reception for the Drexel University Class of '85 on Saturday.

This was the first time I used my Nutrino in a full band setting, and it was brilliant.  On it's own, it strikes me as a bit fizzy, but man does it slice through a band mix just right.  It was way better than the Xotic BB Preamp I used last year.  The BB has a mid-hump that I don't like.  You can dial it out, but I never saw the logic in dialing out a characteristic of the BB to make it sound like my E-clone.

If you're interested, search "ETC Drexel" for video clips of the band, two from last years Class of '84 shindig, and one vintage clip from 1985.  If anyone manages to post new material from this year (featuring my MadBean Nutrino) I'll post an update.

It seems there are a couple of noise sources.  The radio interference come and goes, so it's hard to quantify, but a 47pF across R1 has reduced it.

11_Gauge over the the TDPRI "Burnt Fingers" room suggested replacing R3 & C3 with 2.2K  & .1uF.  This help reduce the hiss & hum I was getting, without taking to much of a hit on the gain.

I also tried 11-Gauge's suggestion of lowering the input impedance by lowering R2.  Mine is about 570K right now, but I didn't hear any reduction in noise.  I could afford to drop the input Z, since I have a buffered pedal in front of my Neutrino - those who drive a passive guitar straight into it might not want this mod.

At the risk of some embarassment, I'll tell you the biggest noise source I found... a ground loop in my pedalboard.  For a long time, the noise seemeed to come & go with the Neutrino, but after some further experimenting, I found a source independent of the pedal.  I have an old Boss TU-12H tuner, and added my own external stomp switch to mute the amp signal while tuning.  (I've had this tuner so long that stomp-box tuners like the TU-2 and Pitchblack didn't exist when I got it.)  When in "play" mode, my tuner switch was supposedly isolating the tuner from the audio chain, and grounding its input to keep it from blinking as it attempted to tune noise.  Something in this scheme was introducing a ground loop through the tuner, and making the whole board noisy.  Once I rewired that, it quieted the whole board down.
 
Next time I have my Neutrino off the pedalboard, I might go back to the original component values, to see if it's OK now that the board is fixed.  On on the other hand , if it ain't broke...

BTW, the OTHER two Neutrinos I build are in the hands of a couple of good friends who are also experienced amatuer players.  I'll share they're reactions to the pedals as soon as they get back to me.

Hi, all you desciples of MadBean.  For my first post, I present three Nutrinos I built.  I'm a huge Andy Summers fan, and his tone on the 2007 tour sold me on the uh... overdrive pedal after which the Nutrino was designed.  Mine would be yellow, in honor of my favorite (but not quite "there" yet) modded SD-1.

As soon as I said I was building myself one, a buddy jumped on the bandwagon.  He wanted a green one.

Then my wife got involved with a charity auction at our kids' school, so I decided to build a third to auction off.  I grabbed some Lake Placid-ish duplicolor for that one, since I've recently been obsessed with LPB Telecasters.

I built them all what I believe are the black E6 componenet values (which the mighty Bean kindly added to his instruction sheet).  Finding them a bit fizzy, I then added the Burst version's  47pF cap across the diodes.  Still asymmetrical, though.  I also added another 47pF to ground at the input to reduce radio pickup - these beasts sound great but they are noisy.

Mine was the noisiest, so it got a few more minor mods to quiet it down, but without changing its sound much, if any.  It has now replaced my SD-1 (not to mention a BB  Preamp) in the overdrive spot on my pedalboard.  I use it for a combination of dirt and clean boost, mostly for solos. It's bright and gainy, but never fizzy or shrill.  It lacks the TS midhump that I hate, and it's lows are chunky without being bloated.

The yellow and green boxes were bought already powder-coated from Small Bear.  (The green powdercoat was very brittle, which explains the clunky-looking bezel and washer on that one's LED.)  Graphics on all three pedals are inkjet waterslide decals with Krylon satin clear acrylic over top.  "Drive" and "Volume" are pretty apparent, the center tone control is "Glass".  I figure if Mr. Lovepedal can make up new names for standard controls, I can make fun of them with icons.

As so... I give you three Nutrinos:

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