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Back when I was total noob, I bought a Brass Master kit and built it up shoddily using solid core wire. It never really sounded great, so like many things, it got thrown in a drawer. Fast forward to today, and seeing as I'm playing bass again (and I'm too broke to build anything new...) I decided to rebuild it into a new enclosure. It really was poorly built, so I reflowed most of the solder on the board and redid all the wiring so it's at least vaguely presentable.
One thing I found was that the site who sells the kit provides 5 or 6 pages of wiring diagrams for this one pedal. WTF? It made my head spin even now, so I ended up working from the schematic.




This pedal now sounds really good, a squelchy, synthy, fuzzy mess of boom-shaka-laka. I might continue to trawl through the ol' drawer o' fail and see what else is in there

For anyone who hasn't seen this, here's an easy, great value tone upgrade for any of your builds.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Bogner9v

I have a fetish for pedals with a big row of toggle switches- they look sci-fi and awesome Because of this, i'm looking to build whatever I can find that has the most switches. Doesn't really matter what it does or what it sounds like, this is purely for fun.
So far, top of my list is a Himmelstrutz Fetto (http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/himmelstrutz-fetto.html) with all external switching. This would give me 10.
Does anyone have any ideas for something that could top this? I guess I could wire up loads of diode clipping options to any OD, but that doesn't seem as much fun...

I'm a total vero noob, so didn't really expect this to work first time (if at all). Luckily for me, the DIY gods were smiling today, and this thing freaking rocks.




Wires, wires, wires, wires, wires, wires.... Jeez, I miss board mounted pots!

It's a Mountainking Megalith clone, and I feel a little bit bad about how much of a direct clone it is. But hell, the real thing will set you back an eye-watering $300 and it's not like I'm making any more (this one is for personal use only, officer...).
Not much more to add really, except anyone into super heavy doomsplosions should look into it  

I have a NYBMP housing into which I'm building a Mudbunny, and was wondering if it's ok to keep the 3.5mm power input jack and power it with my EHX power supply? I'm guessing it's positive tip and the sleeve will ground the enclosure, but I wanted to be sure before I blow something up
Thanks for any advice.

Finally got around to boxing up a Big Cheese board I got a while back in a trade, and decided to pair it up with a Dr Gonzo courtesy of Raulduke. This thing is as heavy as hell.




Lots of gain, lots of volume, lots of unshielded wire!!

Only played with bass so far, but it sounds so damn good I'll probably never get around to plugging in a wimpy ol' six string This thing loves bass chords.

Crushing drone-core all day long. I highly recommend both projects

Nope, it isn't pedal related, but still a little bit of guitar DIY

I have a tele custom that I'm sprucing up, and with the new wiring I'll have a few unnecessary holes left in the black pickguard. Anyone have a good idea on how to fill these? I was thinking of some kind of filler which could then be sanded flat, but I have no idea what kind might be best (the holes are 8 - 10 mm in diameter).
It doesn't need to be an invisible repair as it's a cheap and cheerful stage-axe Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

... because nu metal is still awesome as hell.

I was lucky enough to pick up one of chi-boy's T-Wrex board before they were made extinct. Seeing as no one seemed particularly impressed with the "cream boost" section I decided to leave it off entirely, so here's the one channel version of this pedal-





This is to my ears the best high gain DIY pedal I've built, the EQ is really responsive and covers a wide array of Nu-Metal tones. The gain can take you all the way from Mudvayne to Limp Bizkit, with everything in between. With the mids and treble boosted, I can nail those Coal Chamber toanz I know you're all looking for. Schweet.

I'm sure I'm not alone in having too many populated PCBs laying around, and I'm on a mission to box up as many as possible before starting my Ring Stinger project.
This is a De Profundis delay from Grind Customs with a Smoothie in front-





The Smoothie is very different to the Stage Fright I finished last week- super subtle. That is, until you put some distortion in front of it and then you get a really sweet phasing without any harsh peaks. The De Prof is a really nice delay, just as advertised- dark and thick in a really nice way. Really liking this pedal!

... or your knobs could come off 

I'm playing in a band and singing these days, and my pedalboard looks a lot more crowded now I'm playing standing up and trying to reach a microphone at the same time. Trying to stomp pedals on and off is hit and miss and I worry about knocking settings or destroying pots with my size 13 feet. So without further ado, I present my new layout prototype- this is a Glitterattii.







The board was originally part of a three-board multi that Haberdasher etched for me, but when that project was cancelled I cut out the three boards for separate pedals- hence the shoddy edges. Rest assured, any boards bought from The Dude arrive looking perfect, and this was a joy to build.
The box is a BB, the protective bar is a cupboard handle (96mm mounting hole spacing), the pots are 12mm but you could fit 16mm into the same layout.
The Glitterattii is built using the bass cap substitutions recommended in the build doc, a JRC4558D and OA126 diodes. Sounds a bit loose on my guitar, and epic on my bass. This thing is a beast, and a pedal I wish I'd had for years- so many of my gigs could have been improved with it when I was playing bass.
Now, however, I play guitar. So this is either a present to the bass player in my new band, or another pedal for the drawer

One question though- the volume control on this is 100KB, and it hits unity at about 9 o'clock and end-of-the-world-loud at 11 o'clock. Would swapping the 100KB for 100KA sort this, or would a value change be in order as well? Any advice much appreciated.

Nope, it won't win the monthly contest but I thought I'd post it here because it's such a good sounding phaser I had to give props to Brian.





and here is that $2000 custom relic-job I'm doing for a TGP member...



Probably the easiest "expert" level build in the range- just plug in the parts and go It seems to phase throughout most of the trimpot travel, so I just left it somewhere it sounds sweet. Highly recommended!

I don't know if I'm just super clumsy, but when playing guitar in a band situation and singing I really struggle to stomp on my pedals without hitting the knobs. I'm not even talking about 1590A teeny tiny pedals, I haven't got anything on my board smaller than a BB, and by most people's standards I leave a fair bit of space between the footswitch and the controls. But I still can't feel comfortable hitting those switches.
I think I'm going to start putting the controls on the sides of pedals and having a big old space to crunch down on. I was wondering if anyone here has tried this and has pics to share? Am I the only one with such wildly out of control feet?
If I really am in such a tiny minority market, it's just another reason to thank Brian for empowering me to build my own music gear- thanks dude

Any point in changing C1 and C6 to 100n on the smoothie to bass it up a bit? Or does anyone have a better idea? "Build a different phaser" is a totally acceptable suggestion

 I had a look using the search function for this but couldn't find much.
I've just bought a hammond enclosure which is powder coated inside and out. I've never come across this before and I was wondering if anyone has any hints/ tips on how to progress. I like to know all the pots etc ground properly to the enclosure, but this stuff looks like it will be incredibly rough to remove.
It's going to be like stripping a Squier poly finish all over again, isn't it  

 I was fortunate enough to snag one of Alan's fabbed doppelganger 1.4 boards, which are a real work of art. It seems like we're due a glut of these as I know there are people with boards waiting to be boxed up, so I'll kick things off with this-

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the CuddleToan DoopleGanja!!





So cute!
Only 4 inches wide, it takes up roughly a quarter of the real estate of the real thing. I managed to get the knobs in the correct order using 12mm and 9mm pots, but I couldn't manage the rotary switches The only feature missing is the spectral/ true bypass switch, other than that it is fully featured. (full disclosure- I haven't checked the exp pedal jacks as I don't have the correct pedal to do so).
Now, I admit it was probably stupid to un-do all of Alan's excellent work making the pots and switches board mounted, but I couldn't resist the look of the originals.
The result is very much in the "unicorn vomit" school of wiring. I call this masterpiece "Rainbow Waterfalls"







As you can see I had to mount the PCB onto a square of plastic I JB Weld'd to the enclosure over the jacks. I covered the plastic in copper shielding tape and earthed it to the enclosure in an attempt to reduce noise (it seemed to work..). It was a bit of a test of patience and skill, but well worth it. Actually it was quite fun to play with off board wiring after a period of building those easy-peasy MadBean boards  
I think my next build will be a Big Cheese clone into the same type of enclosure (Hammond 1456CE3WHBU) which should be a cool pairing. Then, onto the Ring Stinger perhaps  

 Is there a best practice for cramming pcbs in an enclosure one on top of the other? I am considering making a little platform to put between the two such as this-



I figured an earthed layer between the two could only be a good thing, but I don't know that I won't be tripping myself up by causing an earth loop or something else I don't really understand. I'd really like to hear from someone who knows more than me (ie; anyone )

My guitar playing buddy is in the process of switching over to a TB looper based pedalboard and wanted some mo' tonez for his hard-rocking licks. This is my attempt at providing maximum dirt options while keeping the footprint smaller than an NY big muff (the knobs are temporary, it will be outfitted with a less random selection soon)-







The flavours are La Vache, Egodriver and Slow Loris from 'bean, and the guitarpcb R2G2. The enclosure is a Hammond 1411PP I think, weird enclosures to work with- a pain to drill and tend to warp a little when you're working on them, but when they're put together all is well, especially as this won't ever be trodden on
It turned out to be a lot more work than I had anticipated cramming everything inside and trying to keep it neat. The input and out wires are a little longer than needed because we may still move the jacks around internally to suit the final pedalboard layout, but they're shielded so it's no bother.
I see a few posts asking about combing x pedal with y pedal and power supply issues. All this dirt is just hooked up to one standard power jack and there's no extraneous noise when powered from a T Rex fuel tank power supply. Take note- cramming a load dirt effects into a box and daisy chaining all the power internally is totally fine!!
All these circuits sound fantastic, endlessly stackable dirt covering pretty much all the bases except metal.  Some real "blowing-up amp" sounds can be had out of this thing. Either that, or the amp we're testing it through is blowing up....

 I'm sure I'm not the only one to look at the ZPSDX board and think "yeah, it's beautiful, but a bit too small..", so I threw some reverb at the situation. I think the result is a really excellent pedal, and a great  use of a 1590XX (which are helpfully in the range of painted Hammond enclosures!).
The finish is Hammond green, over the top of which I laid some vinyl and cut out a pattern. I used this a stencil for blue plasti-cote spray paint. The result is super sharp lines and a kind of screen printed look, the only downside to the method is that it's absolutely horrible peeling off the super sticky vinyl without peeling off either paint surface. I wouldn't recommend it and I wouldn't do it again the same way.
I'm quite proud of the reverb pots wiring, it was tricky to hide it away and keep the wires nice and short. I should have probably used different coloured wires though, as it got a tad confusing. You may also notice the 10m leds at the top of the pedal. Sadly these aren't wired up (though they could be...) and are just there to fill mis-drilled holes 
The pedal is delay into reverb, individually switchable on/off with bi colour LEDs. Really wide range of sounds and totally useable, but it's hard to resist turning everything up and playing lines as ambient as an unobserved super-nova.
Yet another pedal which destroys the big-name pedal it replaces. Thanks again, Brian!




I really recommend this combination, if you prefer straight spring reverb to the tenebrion, you could fit a rub a dub in the same space and have less nightmare wiring for for the pots

 Hey, I was wondering if anyone can advise me-
Just finished my ZPSDX, and I have delay, but the feedback pot goes into runaway feedback at around 9 o'clock   I'm also not convinced that my modulation is working... Apart from that it sounds nice, but there's clearly some problems. Checked all my values and solder work, seems good (I don't have a camera to prove it at the minute I'm afraid.
One point to raise is that I installed r45 by mistake and by the time I realised it was a bit tricky to remove, so I cut the trace on the back of the board connecting it to ground as I figured this removed it from the circuit. Could this foolish action be the cause of my woes? Or the b550c transistors I used?
Any help much appreciated as I suspect this pedal is awesome...