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Purple Haze and Fairy Dust is two UniVibe derivates in one box.
A mixer board to seamlessly blend between both or to blend between clean bypass and into one of them. The mix can be done with the knob on dash or via expression pedal, which is where the sweetness really comes in.

I'm a vibe-a-holic and this goes right up my sweet spot. All the cool vibes I can handle squeezed in one box.







Built on pedalpcb (aka Prof von Poopenhauser, the top secret new pedal company or so... sorry this will become a running joke me thinks...) boards, the "Abyss" (Fairy Dust side) and the "Photon Vibe" (Star Dust side).

I designed the mixer board with smd parts and through hole electros, makes for a nice compact utility for this and I will use it in other incarnations as well. That's why I made three versions, one pot mounted, two with onboard expression jack (sideways and frontal orientation).

Mixer board in place:



Mixer boards different versions:









Since I made the 'Phase Melter' dual Mutron I dig the concept of blending between two circuits and/or blending between clean (bypass) and wet side.
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=27872.msg269844#msg269844
Made me use expression pedal a lot more.

It was a build that didn't want to go down too easy, not just because it's a bit of shoe horning as you can see, but mainly because I had a faulty part in there. It didn't reveal itself at first and took some debugging, swearing, fighting and head scratching to isolate and get it right, I'm sure you all have a story of sorts like this.

Initially all circuits worked on test rig and all seemed plain sailing, however when I had it boxed up and played it euphorically, all sounding well something started to smell funky after ten minutes of playing... like toast in the kitchen left on... and my power supply that has a voltage meter started to get a bit wobbly, which is rather unusual.
A quick check under the hood revealed a toasting (literally... crispy brown...) 100ohm R29 towards the 15V voltage regulator.
I changed the 1/4 W resistor for a 1W 100ohm resistor and that still got hot as, didn't burn up, but really too hot too touch and that's no good obviously.

Really shouldn't do that seeing that downstream of that resistor the regulator powers just mainly the ICs.
That much current draw and dissipation was clearly off the mark. I measured overall current draw and that was about 260mA. Too high for comfort.

So I had to take it all out again (insert your favorite swear words #$&^^##**@...) and did all the usual double and triple checking of solder joints, measuring voltages, current draw etc.
No stone unturned I could only assume that the voltage regulator was somehow dodgy.
Off course as Murphy was around I didn't have a second 15V one at hand to replace.
So waiting for the next order of parts twiddling thumbs and building something else in between I finally got another 15V regulator, a bigger body one as Tayda doesn't stock the small version.
Since the board is very tight I had to coax the regulator offboard wired in. And it was all worth it, fired up just fine, the 100ohm resistor was replaced with a normal 1/4 W again and doesn't get hot at all as it should. It was indeed just a blimmin' faulty voltage regulator that caused this.

New voltage regulator off board wired:



Current draw measures now around 160mA slightly fluctuating with light bulb glow, that's in the more to be expected range I think.

So all back in and it works just peachy now, dig it.

Another thing that didn't quite fit in was that I wanted initially to also add a three position rotary for UniVibe cap mod on Photon Vibe board, I had it all wired up already and tested.
However I miscalculated in a burst of optimism and it just physically didn't fit in, the switch assembly was too big, no way. Enclosure was already drilled with the extra hole for it and the label was done. Yes, very optimistic.

So I un-soldered all that offboard rotary arrangement and replaced it with standard caps. That's why on the enclosure there's a filled hole in front and the 'voice' label on top that wasn't gonna be. Nevermind.
And since the Photon Vibe is quite flexible with the bass/treble dials in voicing anyway it's not a biggie to miss.
There's so much possiblities in this pedal, it'll do me for awhile...

Really where the money is having both vibes set to different speeds and voicings (they both sound unique to each other anyway) and blend between the two creating a change in speed as well as flavour and intensity. In the middle position this can sound like the faster vibe modulation sits on top of the slower swoosh.

Or the option of blending in and out of one vibe sound while the other is bypassed is also very useful and fun, fun, fun.



Really happy with it and glad that I could find that gremlin of faulty component, yay.

Here's the soft touch Weener that has the blue lights down low...
(I don't think this thread has much chance of getting off the slippery slope... so I might just run with the pun...)





I have been attached to this Weener for awhile now 

So to try to be a bit more serious I have built this about 4 years ago, can't remember if I've posted a build report back then, I don't think so.
Anyway, sounds great and as said I'm attached to it and it is a permanent fixture on my board.
The one thing that kept bugging me is the switch on the wah, the original wah switch gave in at some point, I replaced it with a blue 3PDT which worked ok but was a bit noisy with the click when it touches the treadle and it never felt quite right or smooth operator like. I just don't like the stiffness and mechanical noise that the switches make, it's too obvious at bedroom sound levels and even if at higher band practice and jam levels you don't notice I kept thinking there must be a way to get a soft touch relay switch in there.
So I hacked a mini momentary switch in there which drives a 1776 fx relay switching pcb (I dig those, they work great).
And as I'm on a 'fun with acrylic' trip at the moment I made a light fixing for the front to make the LED more obvious as well as light plate underneath. Because why not.

The acrylic helps also to protect the mini switch from impact from the front if some stuff, cables or so, would come between the treadle and enclosure. Mini switch is held in place with epoxy.

It works great and smooth as, very pleased with the update of the ol' sausage...

You can see the switch in photo here:



Gutshot:



More low light action:





Here's the acrylic piece I made and polished for the front of wah:



LED glued in with clear epoxy. It's not often that you can drill into a material and you can see in real time how deep you go...

Vertigo, built on pedalpcb Mesmerizer pcb.
Very cool modulation sounds in the vein of vibes, phaser and tremolo.







I had trouble getting this to work properly, initially all populated it worked but sounded off and did not work evenly over range of controls. Checking voltages it showed that the charge pump circuit didn't deliver the 18V to point Vcc on schematic as it should.
And I scratched my head how it could have, I couldn't quite understand how it should have according to schematic.
Turned out that there was an error on schematic and subsequemtly on the board. I contacted BuGG / Robert and he was helpful, saw me right after discussing this.
So if you also have this problem, if you want to get this board working here's how I fixed it:
I got it working in the end by circuit hacking an external charge pump board into it by connecting the 9 V input of charge pump board to pin 1 or 8 of the IC socket on board, the 18V output of external charge board to pin 7 on pcb and the ground of external charge pump board to pin 3 on pcb.
Works now like a champ and sounds great. Unfortunately I forgot to take a gut shot of it. It's now with a friend out of town who wanted to give it a spin and he's quite liking it too... he might be twisting my arm.

JHS Haunting Mids take / version on a pedalpcb board.
This is a bit of a weird cookie I feel, it has a few sweet spots but as a tuneable boost it is not as fully thought through as the Catalinbread Varioboost (the Mercury I recently built).

Anyway, as always curiosity killed the cat and I had to build it of course anyway, and yes it can do some good stuff too, so it's not all wasted or so.
Gotta build 'em all to find out and so on...
I did mount the resonance control which is normally an internal trim pot on dash and I'm glad I did to get some more out of it. Overall not quite as "Magnifico' as my naming was hoping for.

Very nice spring reverb emulation here, and I don't say that lightly since I'm a sucker for old school reverb.
I think it does it very well and I do have a Deluxe Reverb amp clone and a ReVibe free standing tube driven spring reverb unit to compare.
Came together well on a pedalpcb.com board, the belton brick is hidden under the board. So as the Belton brick is I believe basically 3 x PT2399 in one enclosure and the then one PT2399 on the pcb itself this circuit employs a total of four of them to get a nice haunting springy reverb.

Relay bypass by 1776 fx, acrylic faceplate over laser decal as I usually roll these days.

Freakin' HOT, flames bursting into high gain, pyrotechnics, spandex, screaming groupies, the lot.
All in a 125B, and there's not that many parts to it either. That's why one of the knobs on the original JHS AT pedal must be called "Air".
Yes it screams sounds good and has a ton of gain in store should one so desire, especially when clipping switch is up.

Anyway, a bit of MI Audio Crunchbox repackaged and remarketed going on here. If only recycling would always work that well in the real world.
Maybe JHS should consider going into recycling.  Officially I mean. It has future.

Mercury, compares to Catalinbread Vario Boost.
Built on Pedalpcb.com board, 1776 fx relay bypass, acrylicfaceplate over laser decal.
Excellent sounds out of this one, very useful and flexible boost circuit. Love it!









Brett Kingman can demo it much better than I can:

This is a bit of a "Larry Carlton-in-a-box" pedal.
Dumble type sounds with a Zendrive first on right side into a pedalpcb.com VHS (a take on JHS VCR pedal) which does boost, chorus and reverb, FV-1 based.



I made it to go with the "Indigo" amp that I just finished, posted in this thread:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=28276.15

The amp is a great clean to slight grind platform that takes pedal very well thanks to it's high headroom EF86 input.
So it would be rude not to make a suitable pedal for it to give it the ingredients of gain, chorus and reverb.
A nice amount of tricks in one box.
And since all this is for a friend who is just getting into electric guitar and didn't have an amp that he liked so far it's great to give him a package that will keep him busy and happy for awhile with sound possibilities.





Initially I found that the VHS pedal had a too high noise floor / hiss going on for my taste, I contacted BuGG from pedalpcb and he was great getting right onto recommending substitutions that reigned it in.
Great support there, shout out to BuGG!

What else to say: laser decal under acrylic faceplate, relay bypass by 1776 fx.

I never owned one of those gazzillions of Blues Drivers that BOSS must have pumped out over the years.

Now I do, a DIY one.

Pedalpcb board, 1776 Effects relay bypass. Came together smoothy, nice classic overdrive.
I have admittedly lost count of how many overdrives I've built... but hey it's all good fun and they all sound different, at least somewhat.

And another delay, because why not. This is also different really, quite unique trippy sounds in there.
It's BuGGs Daydream delay, demo here:

Obviously nice for spacey ambient stuff and the like, have to explore those soundscapes a bit, not my usual terrain.

.... my 'rock it before I box it tester pedal holder thingy device contraption'.



I had a contraption of sorts before but I wanted to do a 10 minute improvement on it  so I whacked a few pieces of acrylic together, footswitch even with LED for actual stompbox feel, old input output jack and all the ingredients of a pedal.
Made some pcb holders that slot into the top to temporarily hold the "DUT" (device under test... ) and let it rip.











It is quite handy and the quickly interchangable pcb holders with different spacings to hold pots make it easy to test and rock a night shift worth of boards.
Having the footswitch is great as it allows to compare to bypass signal, LED gives me indication to remind me to plug in power... (ask me how many times I thought it's not working only to notice later that I didn't plug in 9V...).
Power input connection etc are made with the alligator clips, quick to set up.

I might add some hot rod flame graphics at some later stage...

Ya can never have too many delays, right? Right.
Here's a work a like compare to clone or whatever you wanna call it to the Keeley Magnetic Echo which is a PT2399 based competitor to the MXR Carbon Copy, at least that's how Keeley markets it.

For me it's just a Time Machine. Nice sounding delay with added modulation to dial in, on a pedalpcb board.
Relay bypass courtesy of 1776 fx.

Smoke and Mirrors, pedalpcb.com FV-1 take of double tracker, somewhat comparable to Keeley 30ms I spose.
Came together well and great sounds in there. You can also dial in some pretty whacky stuff when the detune is set far apart and out of sync kinda thing.
For me the more traditional settings do it more, and it does with some more careful and conservative settings nice faux chorus and flangey kind of fattening of sound. That works best for me with the detune just slightly apart and not too high, otherwise it sounds a bit over the top for my taste.
Modulation setting is also nice, while slapback isn't quite my thing personally but the pedal does it well too if you're into it.

Nice analog sounding delay, just what the doctor ordered. Came together well on a pedalpcb.com board.
Not sure if I will change the knobs at some point, at the moment those were the ones I had at hand, will check about alternatives when I do order some more bits in.

Clone of Shin Music Dumbloid.
One of those pedals that chases the unicorn and stardust tone of a Dumble amp and it does sound good, me like it.
Obviously in a similar ballpark to the Zendrive, has a unique feel and vocal quality to it though.





Built on a pedalpcb.com board, came together just peachy. BuGG does some nice pcbs there, enormous output on his site, kudos. My paypal account hates it though...



Relay bypass from 1776 effects, working great for me.
Acrylic faceplate over laser decal.

Any of you guys have recommendations for 2N2484 transistor equivalents that I could use in a Way Huge Pork Loin build?
The originals seem expensive and hard to come by...
Cheers

Here's a pedal that can rip your ball sack and you just keep playing.



So hence the name.
I'm not a real Rugby head, however this story deserves commemorating with an in yer face kinda pedal like the Ultrastoner (thanks Grindcustom and crew, shame the site is down!).
From Wikipedia:
"Wayne 'Buck' Shellford made his Test debut for the All Blacks later that year against France in a 19–7 victory in Toulouse, and then was a notable victim of the infamous "Battle of Nantes" in the second Test. Roughly 20 minutes into the match, he was caught at the bottom of a rather aggressive ruck, and an errant French boot found its way into Shelford's groin, somehow ripping his scrotum and leaving one testicle hanging free. He also lost four teeth in the process. Incredibly, after discovering the injury to his scrotum, he calmly asked the physio to stitch up the tear and returned to the field before a blow to his head left him concussed. He was substituted and watched the remainder of the game from the grandstand where he witnessed the All Blacks lose 16–3. To this day Shelford has no memory of the game."
And:
"In 1990, the All Black selectors decided that Shelford was not up to the standard for the team and was controversially dropped after the test series against Scotland. The general public were unhappy with this decision, especially when the All Blacks lost the third test of their next series against Australia, ending a 17-test winning streak (and 49 game streak including non-tests) [1]. After this fans started appearing at games with signs saying "Bring Back Buck", which continues even to this day at sporting events throughout the world. "

So far then for a bit of New Zealand folklore...

Back to the pedal: grunt provided by 4 noice old school Telefunken BC109C trannies, I did off board wire the pots as I was stubborn enough to want Vol top left Gain top right.



A fun uncompromising pedal with lotsa tweak ability. I like the Shape pot and clipping options.
Acrylic faceplate over laser printed water slide decal.

New Old School Oscilloscope Day!



Scored this relatively cheapy from the NZ ebay version site (Trade Me) with the intention of using it to check and trouble shoot tube amps after seeing all those clever youtube guys like d-lab and Uncle Doug et al probing around with these in amps etc.
Seems to all work fine and screen looks good on first initial test with internal calibration signal.





And it might come in handy at debugging and checking signal flow signal on pcbs.

Now I need a signal generator... any recommendations?

Incidentally Uncle Doug has been posting recently good very slow paced and gentle 'take you by the hand' kinda videos on how to find your way around on those. Nice.

Superb. What a wonderful beast of technology.
And the sound (go to 43 min for guitar sound check).

I need one. Sigh...

Gotcha.






Yes I had some fun doing the artwork for this.



The 'BigNoise knows what women want' is a P take of a old Miele (yes the white ware company...) add from the 60 or 70ties or so that was as iconic as the "Fender. You wouldn't part with yours either." Only that the white ware companies slogan was "Miele knows what women want". Probably the first feeble or accidental try of "sex sells"...

Classic old school Univibe on Harbinger board, with a few extras thrown in:
Foot switchable Vibe to Chorus (labelled 'mild' or 'wild').
Also added a booster based on Bacon Bits schematic onto Chorus channel as I sometimes feel that when switching between Vibe to Chorus the later can do with just a little more kick to just feel right. So with the booster added on Chorus only I set the Vol to be right for Vibe and then adjust that a smidgen more to Chorus setting to give it all the ladies and me want, if you know what I mean...
The boost knob is labelled 'extra mild' on side and is usually set and forget.

Also added the three position cap switch mod (labelled 'voice' on top side of enclosure).
To stay with the theme I labelled the buffer 'soft' and 'hard'. The usual 'Speed' and 'Intensity' labels fitted just fine...

And true bypass relay switching is called 'not tonite'.





I added a light shield after taking the photos however I think it won't make much difference with the LDRs pointing directly at lamp.
Sorry about slightly blurry shots, it was getting late and daylight left me, it was a long day, so maybe not tonite, honey....