"Silver Bullet" - Madbean Sparkplug

[chromesphere]

Hi guys,
Heres a demo of the Madbean Sparkplug i built recently.  Nice overdrive.  The clipping and overall breakup reminds me a bit of the Hot Cake.  I powdercoated this one myself, a process that seems to be almost as hard as building pedals. Turned out pretty good though.  The knobs are from Mammoth, i like them, they have a very fine groove pattern/grip which makes them easier to manipulate.
Anyway hope you like it and thanks for checking it out!
Paul

[Liustucru]

Hello,
really nice finish of yours (powercoating and graphics ) !!!
Your video is great too with demo of how the controls work.

Thank you for that.

I have a Sparkplug board waiting to be populated so I think you made me want to build it soon.

Can I just ask you what gear you used for the video (amp and guitar) ?

[chromesphere]

Thanks liustucru!

No problem, the guitar is a...get ready for it, fender squire strat, into a bad cat hot cat 30r.  There might be a law against running a $150 guitar into that amp?  Still sounds good though hah?

Paul

[Liustucru]

Thank you for the info.

No judgment at all about your gear 
I just wanted to know if it was a tube amp or transistor because overdrive pedals are highly sensitive to that IMO as well as for single coils and humbuckers pickups.

It's important to know that because some demos uses tube amps and sometimes they also mix the amp breakup with the overdrive (which is a good thing) but it's difficult to get a clear idea about the sound of the pedal itself.

[chromesphere]

Hey,
This is going into the clean channel, no other clipping is added.  Its also a tube amp.
Paul

[G.G.]

Hey Paul,
sounds very good, nice demo! What did you do with the Bass and Mids pots?

[midwayfair]

Cool to see more of this one being built. Thanks for the demo! Might try this and a Silver next time I go on an OD kick.

[chromesphere]

Cheers guys!
The treble / bass dials are trimpots on the PCB.  This is the self etched version, but obviously if you want to have the controls external, you can just run wires to pots instead.  They have a decent effect on the tone, but their effect is as apparent as what you might expect from a treble/bass control (as madbean has stated in the build notes).
Paul

[slimtriggers]

That looks good.  Do you do a clear powder over the decal?  I've had problems with that-small bubbles and crazing.  Any tips to avoid that?

That drive sounds good, but there's some fizz on the decay.  Are you hearing that when you play or is it an artifact of the infamous Youtube compression?

[gordo]

There might be a law against running a $150 guitar into that amp.

No, actually you get bonus points for that!!!

Very nice demo and a classic example of "cut to the chase".  Sweeping the knobs in real time was excellent.  I'm getting a bunch of fizzy "artifacts" at this end, and having had some problems with audio on YouTube I'm assuming that it's not part of the original recording.  Minor problem as I get the idea that I need to either order the board (most probable) or etch it as you've done (least probable)...

[chromesphere]

No those artifacts are part of the sound of the pedal.  I assumed this was normal, reminds me of the sort of clipping you get from a hotcake, but maybe theres an issue with the pedal?   Is it not meant to do this?

I use spraycan clear enamal of the decal.  Inkjet decals burn too easily with powder coating.  I still have yet to by some laserjet decals to test the theory.  No idea how to reduce the amount of those tiny airbubbles under the decal.  Thats a problem i still have not found an answer to.

Paul

[nzCdog]

Sounds sweet man!  Maybe I really do need another overdrive after all

[jtn191]

nice demo! It sounds to me like it's as if a Hotcake and a Rat had a baby.
I bet there's a joke about an IHOP with a low sanitation score somewhere in there...but it's not worth the effort 

[mandrewbot3k]

i am intrigued.... hrmmm... sounds great.

you can never have too many overdrives?