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Any DIY pedal builders on TB? Strut your stuff!

#2,281
J Posega said:
I made a thread about this but only got a couple replies; thanks @Feral Feline for chiming in.

I'm wondering if there's anyone in the general Pacific Northwest that would be able to take on a project: rehouse my Southampton Fifth Gear into a smaller enclosure, wired so it is always on and with trimpots instead of full sized pots. I rarely adjust it and never turn it off, so I figure I can save a ton of real estate on my pedalboard.

I've built some pedals from kits, and have a few to put together, but it requires setting up a soldering station every time, so I haven't done it in a long time.
Click to expand...

I was about to suggest posting in this thread. :laugh:

That was just to get someone to do it for you.

Now that I know you're capable of doing it yourself, DO IT!
1590G
 
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#2,282
Feral Feline said:
I was about to suggest posting in this thread. :laugh:

That was just to get someone to do it for you.

Now that I know you're capable of doing it yourself, DO IT!
1590G
Click to expand...
I like the pedal too much to want to risk it myself. It's one thing to follow the instructions from a kit or PCB build. I'd rather someone more skilled handle this task.
 
#2,283
J Posega said:
I made a thread about this but only got a couple replies; thanks @Feral Feline for chiming in.

I'm wondering if there's anyone in the general Pacific Northwest that would be able to take on a project: rehouse my Southampton Fifth Gear into a smaller enclosure, wired so it is always on and with trimpots instead of full sized pots. I rarely adjust it and never turn it off, so I figure I can save a ton of real estate on my pedalboard.

I've built some pedals from kits, and have a few to put together, but it requires setting up a soldering station every time, so I haven't done it in a long time.
Click to expand...
could you not just fit it on the underside?
 
#2,287
J Posega said:
I made a thread about this but only got a couple replies; thanks @Feral Feline for chiming in.

I'm wondering if there's anyone in the general Pacific Northwest that would be able to take on a project: rehouse my Southampton Fifth Gear into a smaller enclosure, wired so it is always on and with trimpots instead of full sized pots. I rarely adjust it and never turn it off, so I figure I can save a ton of real estate on my pedalboard.

I've built some pedals from kits, and have a few to put together, but it requires setting up a soldering station every time, so I haven't done it in a long time.
Click to expand...
Have you looked into the smaller version?
Screenshot_20231123_212037_Google.jpg


Looks like this inside
Screenshot_20231123_212009_Google.jpg


The is what the regular one looks like inside. The board is pretty wide, shrinking it down is doable but is it worth it?
Screenshot_20231123_211929_Google.jpg


*all images stolen from Google
 
#2,288
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#2,289
J Posega said:
I made a thread about this but only got a couple replies; thanks @Feral Feline for chiming in.

I'm wondering if there's anyone in the general Pacific Northwest that would be able to take on a project: rehouse my Southampton Fifth Gear into a smaller enclosure, wired so it is always on and with trimpots instead of full sized pots. I rarely adjust it and never turn it off, so I figure I can save a ton of real estate on my pedalboard.

I've built some pedals from kits, and have a few to put together, but it requires setting up a soldering station every time, so I haven't done it in a long time.
Click to expand...

Try Spencer Davis at Amplifyfun in Portland. If he’s not up for it I’ll bet he can hook you up with someone, and I’m sure he’d be happy to do UV printing and drilling for you at the very least.
 
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#2,292
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#2,293
Deadend FX Brass Monkey. This is one of my favourite bass fuzzes, recreating the Silver Rose V1.

There are two ciruits running in parallel and you can blend them:
- Superfuzz, with mids switch.
- Opamp Muff, with tone bypass switch.
Add a clean blend to that and presence/bass to further tweak the crushing wall of fuzz.
BOOM! :bassist:

The pilot light is blue, in case you were wondering. :smug: I added a trimmer for that.

silver.jpeg

silver-g.jpeg


Here's a short taste to give you an idea, just two notes, first 100% Muff, then 100% Superfuzz, then mixed.

 
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#2,294
J Posega said:
Had the one-knob version for a couple years. The 3 knob is better for dialing in exactly the sound I want.
Click to expand...

Not sure how close the V1 one-knobber is to the 3-knob version, but if it's possibly the same with just a couple resistors swapped out for pots ... even if it's not...


I'd encourage you to get a Cranky Speaker PCB from Effects Layouts and make your own 5th Gear clone of your pedal on that PCB (I think it's smaller than PedalPCB's version). Any questions the folks here could help and PedalPCB's forum is great for resources/people, too. PM me if you like.

Then your Southampton stays clean and true, and if the clone you make isn't close enough to your original, THEN I'd see about rehousing Hamish's build with Spencer as per @Passinwind's excellent suggestion.
 
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#2,295
I've built one, two and three knob versions of the Fifth Gear on EffectsLayouts pcb's. Two knobber with gain & heat controls is my favorite.
Reposted from earlier in this thread:
G.Bisson said:
Two Cranky Speaker pcb's from EffectsLayouts (Storyboardist). Both are modded to Fifth Gear specs; D1 is 1N4004 and R2 is different on each pedal. R2 is socketed with a 16K Ohm resistor on the one-knobber. R2 is off board wired with a 10K resistor and 10K pot on the two-knobber.
Reused MadBean's 1590A drill template. The 3PDT PCB was flipped and filed down to fit. Both are painted lemon yellow base coat with sparse coats of vermillion red.
View attachment 4495014

View attachment 4495016
Click to expand...
 
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#2,296
Finished building these two pedals yesterday while recovering from turkey coma.
MadBean Sludge Hammer bass drive. Used a TLC2264 in IC2 for Sansamp overdrive sounds. Swapped IC3 into TLC2262 removed noise at high volume.
MadBean Polytrog envelope phaser. Lovely sounding phaser and rewarding project with a large parts count and pricey optocouplers to gather.

20231125_095902.jpg


20231125_095933.jpg
 
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#2,297
Feral Feline said:
@deepestend

My brain was percolating on your diodes-dilemma; in addition to the good advice jw23mind has given, here's another idea:

Offboard wire your clipping diodes.

With an on-off-on switch you could wire up a couple of LEDs>resistor for the middle position lugs 2&5, stock diodes on one side of the switch and a third combo (asymmetrical or whatever) on the other side of the switch. That way you'd have the resistor only on the LEDs and not on the other clipping diodes.

Just make sure the FV of the LEDs+resistor are still a bit above the forward voltage of the other options on the switch, or the idea won't work. Should balance out the volume spike of the LEDs, too.



@jw23mind — some neat ideas of yours to experiment with. I've thought about playing with smaller clipping caps than the Russian 47n but have yet to do so. I'll try your suggested 33n and 39n.
Also, to try to keep the bass flowing I've been keeping the feedback caps large (your "hi-cut", btw — largest ever used by EHX was in the White Can Ram's Head at 680p, according to Kit Rei), but will also experiment with trying smaller here in conjunction with the smaller clipping caps.
It's all about getting the balance right, right!? Right!
Click to expand...

@Feral Feline this was a good idea on how to work in that resistor idea that @jw23mind had. Not sure why I didn't think of it. I have not tried it out yet, but did have another idea. I was playing around last night and noticed that I had changed almost all of the caps to 180n. I was just playing around with changing some of the caps and realized that I had also changed out the clipping caps as well. With 180n in that value, the clipping was predictably full spectrum and there wasn't a ton open low end. Changing it back to 47n and I had the russian sound (and a/b'd it to a russian to confirm). I had some 18n on hand (less than half of the 47n value) and that's where things started to get interesting. With no clipping caps you get a big thick sound and can get some clipping when you really crank that knob-- but that's not totally what I was looking for. With the 18n, you have a very full bottom with just enough clipping on top to give it an overdrivey feel. I'll have to see what other cap values I have on hand, but the 18n feels pretty good right now.

And, it kind of makes me not feel like I need to do the resistor mod. The point of that is to lessen the amount of signal going in to be clipped to create a sort of clean blend effect. I think that lowering the value of the clipping cap kind of achieves the same thing.
 
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#2,298
deepestend said:
@Feral Feline this was a good idea on how to work in that resistor idea that @jw23mind had. Not sure why I didn't think of it. I have not tried it out yet, but did have another idea. I was playing around last night and noticed that I had changed almost all of the caps to 180n. I was just playing around with changing some of the caps and realized that I had also changed out the clipping caps as well. With 180n in that value, the clipping was predictably full spectrum and there wasn't a ton open low end. Changing it back to 47n and I had the russian sound (and a/b'd it to a russian to confirm). I had some 18n on hand (less than half of the 47n value) and that's where things started to get interesting. With no clipping caps you get a big thick sound and can get some clipping when you really crank that knob-- but that's not totally what I was looking for. With the 18n, you have a very full bottom with just enough clipping on top to give it an overdrivey feel. I'll have to see what other cap values I have on hand, but the 18n feels pretty good right now.

And, it kind of makes me not feel like I need to do the resistor mod. The point of that is to lessen the amount of signal going in to be clipped to create a sort of clean blend effect. I think that lowering the value of the clipping cap kind of achieves the same thing.
Click to expand...

I've been looking around at various schematics and nobody goes below 47n on the clipping caps. I feel like I'm onto something by halving that value... but is there something I'm missing as to why others aren't doing it?
 
#2,300
deepestend said:
I've been looking around at various schematics and nobody goes below 47n on the clipping caps. I feel like I'm onto something by halving that value... but is there something I'm missing as to why others aren't doing it?
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong except I guess people tend to prefer orthodoxy over innovation. I've been surprised at the apparent lack of diy mods/experimentation.
 

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