Any DIY pedal builders on TB? Strut your stuff!

[JoeDaddio]

I finished another one today - a Greengage from PedalPCB (EQD Plumes).

I am really happy with this one - it sounds fantastic. There is some volume drop in the clipping modes (LED drops a bit, Si drops pretty significantly), but there is a volume control to make up for that. Without any clipping though this thing makes a *very* nice boost.

joe

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I finished another one today - a Greengage from PedalPCB (EQD Plumes).

I am really happy with this one - it sounds fantastic. There is some volume drop in the clipping modes (LED drops a bit, Si drops pretty significantly), but there is a volume control to make up for that. Without any clipping though this thing makes a *very* nice boost.

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joe

That is a super neat build!

 

[mdalamond]

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Very nice. What are they clones of? Love the names. Got any inside pics?

 

[bass-shy]

Very nice. What are they clones of? Love the names. Got any inside pics?

Thanks! The Bastard, Dirty Bastard and Fire Balls are all Rat-based. Fire Balls is the BYOC Mouse Kit. The other two, I used the BYOC Mouse PCB but supplied my own components. The Dirty Bastard has big ass input and output caps (C1 and C9) for better bass response. It really helped with the low end but made it much fuzzier. All of them use the LM308. The Bastard is mostly back to stock, BYOC form. I built that as a test bed for modifications, mostly experimenting with combinations of mismatched diodes for clipping. Some worked out better than others, of course.

The Grey Bush is a BYOC Large Beaver Ram's Head. Stock BYOC spec. That one is currently fighting with a Vick Audio Violet Ram's Head for a spot on my guitar board.

I don't have any gut shots of these but I'll get some and post back.

 

[Feral Feline]

I thought I recognised some BYOC control placement.
Awesome collection!
I liked what you did with the big-ass in/out caps — refutes what was said on another forum, that increasing those caps does jack and the only place a Rat can be tweaked for more bass is in the filter matrix (where the Reutz goes).




Everybody is killing it. Joe's Plumes pedal with the orange and haunting green knobs, for some reason, made me think of Scooby-Doo.

"REEREE?!"

Rat built on GGG pcb into a 1590B.
Purple glitter on high gloss black. First of many coats was painted by my daughter. Finish was inspired by her glitter glue that I had to scrape out of a coach and my jeans.
Socketed the diodes, but their position sandwiched between electro caps makes it tricky to swap them out so I haven't experimented with changing them yet.
Socketed the resistors for Reutz mod. Wired B1K pots clipped to a multimeter and plugged them into the sockets. Here were some settings that stood out:
47 & 560 ohms: stock values, plenty of mids.
100 & 560: similar to stock but tames the highs.
270 & 560: softens highs and mids.
560 & 560: squishy stoner doom. Cool.
560 & 810: mushy and muddy, for sludge dwellers.

View attachment 4186065

View attachment 4186067

Man, you really delivered on your promise.

Thanks very much for the breakdown of the different values with the Reutz mod.



___________________________

I got to play around with the Siberian Hamster some more today, testing it with my upright and with my Jag at greater volume.

Very different to my first test sessions, which was mainly flicking the whiskers around with the YooBazz. This session I played around a lot more with different gain and filter settings in addition to the switches. I'm still liking the Turbo mode, but the other two settings Fat and Stock I'm liking a lot more.

The upright tends to sound very strident. Depending on settings and mode, it can be downright nasal, which would probably cut through in a mix. The doghouse sounded best with LEDs, and lower gain which also helped control feedback as did cranking the amount of filtration; but I also found a great fuzzy setting for the DB with more gain and bass in the Fat mode.

I was afraid that the Tranter Switch might wind up being left permanently on its bassiest setting, but there are usable sounds with the other two settings, too, depending on gain levels, which clipping option is selected and which instrument is plugged into it.

All in all, versatile... but gigging with my upright, I'll probably dial in one tone as switching around things mid-gig would just be an open invitation to the feedback-banshee to wail. Super-excited to unleash this little fury beast on my unsuspecting bandmates this coming week.


Alas, I don't know if my newest project will also be ready by then. Tried to buy LDRs today, but my local brick-&-mortar didn't have the values I need for the new pedal. I've got a few from Tayda, but they're the wrong values, don't think they'll work, not the way it should in this latest circuit I'm working on.






TIP !
There's a thread about soldering, and I dropped this tip there. It may prove useful to some people here, too.
TLDROtherThread: A rim eraser makes a great freshener for PCB/Perf/Vero.

 

[JoeDaddio]

Everybody is killing it. Joe's Plumes pedal with the orange and haunting green knobs, for some reason, made me think of Scooby-Doo.

I ordered those anodized knobs from Tayda a while back and was really unhappy with how pale the color was. I bought some of the Marconi style from LMS I wanted to use but they were *just* too big to fit with the nut from the toggle switch.

I ordered some baby blue knobs from LMS today along with a bunch of other stuff I needed because my original intention was to go for the old Gulf colors, but the more I use this pedal the more that the ugly green is growing on me.


joe

 

[Feral Feline]

A designer friend of mine oft quotes "orange and green should never be seen!"

It wouldn't work with, say, green MXR style knobs (colour-wise, spacing constraints aside).


Gulf colours are a great idea, and now I'm thinking about all the great racing team livery. John Player Special black and gold, Martini, SHELBY STRIPES! Love'm... 6 Degrees Effects does a lot of Shelby & other cool striping (and the gutshots! LOVE the way the P2P is done so artfully). Last time I checked, 6 Degrees doesn't really offer much to the bass player, circuit-wise, at least not to my tastes — very much a guitar pedal company.


How 'bout some of the BMW art cars, for pedal-graphic inspiration?

 

[JoeDaddio]

A designer friend of mine oft quotes "orange and green should never be seen!"

It wouldn't work with, say, green MXR style knobs (colour-wise, spacing constraints aside).


Gulf colours are a great idea, and now I'm thinking about all the great racing team livery. John Player Special black and gold, Martini, SHELBY STRIPES! Love'm... 6 Degrees Effects does a lot of Shelby & other cool striping (and the gutshots! LOVE the way the P2P is done so artfully). Last time I checked, 6 Degrees doesn't really offer much to the bass player, circuit-wise, at least not to my tastes — very much a guitar pedal company.


How 'bout some of the BMW art cars, for pedal-graphic inspiration?

View attachment 4187287
View attachment 4187288

Yeah, there are lots of cool themes that could be played on. Checking out that other thread on soldering I realize that you and I share another hobby: cycling (though it has been a few years since I've ridden I still have my road bike hanging in the garage waiting for a tune-up).

Now I'm thinking of all the old cycling team designs and colors. Mapei, La Vie Claire, Molteni... lots of others I can't think of! Now I've jut gotta actually take some time to actually do some kind of artwork on the enclosures. That's the part I struggle with and seem to have the least interest in doing. I like the way they look, but just haven't found a process I am all that interested in.


joe

 

[Feral Feline]

Yup, we are peas from the same pod.

One of my all time fave vids:


The leg-speed is insane! To a layperson, that might look a little herky jerky, but it's DAMN SMOOTH! No bouncing around nor weaving, just an incredible fast smooth spin going...

To paraphrase Tom Simpson, Joe, put yourself back on your bike!
Bikes need to be used!
Physician heal thyself — I, too, haven't been cycling as much of late. Many reasons why. Back to those other pedals, the ones we build...


Your "least interest" ... I have too much interest in enclosure artwork. I have lots of crazy ideas about how I want to doll up an enclosure.
I come up with grand schemes, full-blown themes and crystal dreams — but lack the photoshop skills, graphic skills, drawing/painting skills etc. I can't even get a simple water-transfer slider decal to print out right. What's in my head is beyond my abilities.


I let my desire to have cool artwork over-ride getting things made. I've got about a half-dozen half-done projects due to stilborn half-baked ideas on how to finish the enclosure.

Things like a Muff I want to make with Lenticular-Printed morphing graphic. I've got the two pics on my computer's HD, but know nothing about how to go about getting them lenticularly printed together. It's tough getting over the hurdle of perfectionism and wanting things "just so" without accepting that there has to be the going-through-the-learning-process phase of botching things up and learning from the experience.


Luckily my latest project is based around a blem enclosure that came with already-made graphics.


This thread and the people in it have really been inspiring and got me out of my slump, I owe a lot to this thread and its contributors in rekindling my desire to make pedals — Even if the pedals aren't going to look exactly how I originally envisioned them.

 

[JoeDaddio]

Yup, we are peas from the same pod.

One of my all time fave vids:


The leg-speed is insane! To a layperson, that might look a little herky jerky, but it's DAMN SMOOTH! No bouncing around nor weaving, just an incredible fast smooth spin going...

To paraphrase Tom Simpson, Joe, put yourself back on your bike!
Bikes need to be used!
Physician heal thyself — I, too, haven't been cycling as much of late. Many reasons why. Back to those other pedals, the ones we build...


Your "least interest" ... I have too much interest in enclosure artwork. I have lots of crazy ideas about how I want to doll up an enclosure.
I come up with grand schemes, full-blown themes and crystal dreams — but lack the photoshop skills, graphic skills, drawing/painting skills etc. I can't even get a simple water-transfer slider decal to print out right. What's in my head is beyond my abilities.


I let my desire to have cool artwork over-ride getting things made. I've got about a half-dozen half-done projects due to stilborn half-baked ideas on how to finish the enclosure.

Things like a Muff I want to make with Lenticular-Printed morphing graphic. I've got the two pics on my computer's HD, but know nothing about how to go about getting them lenticularly printed together. It's tough getting over the hurdle of perfectionism and wanting things "just so" without accepting that there has to be the going-through-the-learning-process phase of botching things up and learning from the experience.


Luckily my latest project is based around a blem enclosure that came with already-made graphics.


This thread and the people in it have really been inspiring and got me out of my slump, I owe a lot to this thread and its contributors in rekindling my desire to make pedals — Even if the pedals aren't going to look exactly how I originally envisioned them.

Eddy Merckx is just insane, and no person ought to try to compare themselves to him. Just being able to ride rollers at speed without needing dental surgery afterwards is a feat in and of itself!

I keep threatening to get back on the bike. It hangs on the wall while I'm working on pedals and mocks me and tries to make me feel guilty for it's current state of disrepair. It needs some loving but I could probably get it road worthy in an afternoon. It's my fat butt that needs the real work, lol.

I kind of have the opposite issue as you in regards to artwork: since I am so bad at it I just don't even bother. I knew that if I waited for myself to be inspired to do the artwork I saw in my head it would never get done, so I just build them up. I might get a P touch or something just to print some clear labels as to what the controls do for pedals that I give away. That's about as much effort I feel I can muster right now!

And I know what you mean in terms of inspiration: all of the people in this thread as well as the forum on the PedalPCB site have been huge inspirations for me to keep building and to keep working on my process. The jumpers from the 3PDT to the PCB were an idea I stole from someone on that board. Totally not practical but looks super cool - right up my alley!

Also, just as a bonus, here's a photo of my Gunnar in it's glory days. Steel is real!

joe

 

[bass-shy]

I thought I recognised some BYOC control placement.
Awesome collection!
I liked what you did with the big-ass in/out caps — refutes what was said on another forum, that increasing those caps does jack and the only place a Rat can be tweaked for more bass is in the filter matrix (where the Reutz goes.

You know, I read that too. Then I remembered having really good results in an MXR Distortion + by increasing the size of those caps. Made it a great bass pedal that I never should have sold. Also, Black Arts Toneworks does a similar thing to many of their pedals and IME, they handle big bass signals really well.

So I thought "What the hell? If it doesn't work out, I'm out about $0.60 and maybe 30 minutes of my time."

I can say for certain that changing those caps makes for a fuller, bassier tone, at least when compared directly against the BYOC Mouse set to the same settings. Having a stock Mouse and the modified version side by side made for a great comparison.

However, I should mention that the tone changed with the bigger caps. It is definitely a fuzzier distortion than the stock one. I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone who uses a Rat for low gain, OD tones as it affected the subtlety that makes the Rat so good at that.

 

[cosmicevan]

I didn't make any pedals, but I bought a few

Love the thread...keep it coming. So inspiring for those of us who've only taken the plunge on making patch cables.

 

[Feral Feline]

@JoeDaddio You must be about 6'3"/6'4"


@bass-shy Yeah, the in/out caps are usually the first things to increase to open up a pedal to more bass, and couplers. I increased both on my Siberian Hamster. I'm too quick to mod stuff right away. I should build it to spec first, then mod things one bit at a time to truly hear, appreciate and understand the differences made.

Jack Orman's MOSFET Boost has a 1n input cap, but because of the way the circuit's designed he says it's good for guitar or bass: "NOTE: The frequency response of the AMZ Mosfet Booster is flat and extends down low enough for both bass and guitar use. There is no need to mod the design to add more bass; it will not make any audible change."

Yet that's exactly what the Catalinbread guy did with the Segrado Poblano Picoso, basically an Orman Boost with input cap bumped to 10n and output cap to 220n from Orman's 100n. Indeed, the circuit I'm currently working on has a 1n input cap with increasing-value couplers throughout: 1n/10n/100n/1u.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the better Muffs for bass, basically any of the Russians, have 100n in/out/couplers, while other Muffs with absolutely HUGE 1u caps for in/out/couplers can be ... not quite as bass friendly. From what I can understand, it partially comes down to how the signal is clipped. If you increase the clipping feedback caps to the diodes C6 & C7, you clip more of the full range of signal, but by decreasing the those caps and narrowing down the range of distorted signal while increasing the clean feedback caps C12/C11, you get perceived better low end. At least, that's my understanding of it. This Version 3 analysed by Electrosmash has a huge input cap and clipping caps. The Russians have teensy-by-comparison clipping caps at 47n, with only 100n input... yet Russians are better for bass.

The other thing I'm still struggling with is how the input/output impedance is affected by cap size; mind, I haven't tried understanding it, haven't sat down to seriously study that yet. Can't learn everything all at once, after all, the Colossus wasn't designed and built in a day.

Orman's Booster input at 1n, Hemmo's BazzFuss input at 10u, yet both are "bass-friendly"... [*head explodes*]
When it comes to size of caps and how they affect how bass-friendly a circuit is, definitely "The sum of the whole is greater than its parts."








@cosmicevan Dunwich DIY — just a few more home-made patch cables away...

 

[JoeDaddio]

@JoeDaddio You must be about 6'3"/6'4"

Im6'3". You've definitely worked at a bike shop!


joe

 

[jw23mind]

@JoeDaddio You must be about 6'3"/6'4"


@bass-shy Yeah, the in/out caps are usually the first things to increase to open up a pedal to more bass, and couplers. I increased both on my Siberian Hamster. I'm too quick to mod stuff right away. I should build it to spec first, then mod things one bit at a time to truly hear, appreciate and understand the differences made.

Jack Orman's MOSFET Boost has a 1n input cap, but because of the way the circuit's designed he says it's good for guitar or bass: "NOTE: The frequency response of the AMZ Mosfet Booster is flat and extends down low enough for both bass and guitar use. There is no need to mod the design to add more bass; it will not make any audible change."

Yet that's exactly what the Catalinbread guy did with the Segrado Poblano Picoso, basically an Orman Boost with input cap bumped to 10n and output cap to 220n from Orman's 100n. Indeed, the circuit I'm currently working on has a 1n input cap with increasing-value couplers throughout: 1n/10n/100n/1u.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the better Muffs for bass, basically any of the Russians, have 100n in/out/couplers, while other Muffs with absolutely HUGE 1u caps for in/out/couplers can be ... not quite as bass friendly. From what I can understand, it partially comes down to how the signal is clipped. If you increase the clipping feedback caps to the diodes C6 & C7, you clip more of the full range of signal, but by decreasing the those caps and narrowing down the range of distorted signal while increasing the clean feedback caps C12/C11, you get perceived better low end. At least, that's my understanding of it. This Version 3 analysed by Electrosmash has a huge input cap and clipping caps. The Russians have teensy-by-comparison clipping caps at 47n, with only 100n input... yet Russians are better for bass.

View attachment 4187751

The other thing I'm still struggling with is how the input/output impedance is affected by cap size; mind, I haven't tried understanding it, haven't sat down to seriously study that yet. Can't learn everything all at once, after all, the Colossus wasn't designed and built in a day.

Orman's Booster input at 1n, Hemmo's BazzFuss input at 10u, yet both are "bass-friendly"... [*head explodes*]
When it comes to size of caps and how they affect how bass-friendly a circuit is, definitely "The sum of the whole is greater than its parts."








@cosmicevan Dunwich DIY — just a few more home-made patch cables away...

I think of it as, smaller caps preserve the bass from being clipped, whereas larger ones would allow too much to be clipped, destroying bass. I've modelled muff circuits in circuit simulations, and found that the clipping feedback caps (C6, C7) heavily interact with and load the input caps (C5, C13). The smaller the input caps the higher their impedance at low frequencies and the lows get "compressed" or attenuated being loaded by the clipping caps as soon as the diode thresholds are overcome, which has the effect of "restoring" bass (by lowering the Fc) that would appear to be lost from the small input caps.

 

[jw23mind]

The ratio of the caps determines compression: smaller input caps with larger clipping caps = more loading/compression; larger input caps with smaller clipping caps = less loading/compression.

 

[Feral Feline]

THANKS @jw23mind

That's going straight into my Master Muff doc.

Im6'3". You've definitely worked at a bike shop!


joe

'Tis a beautiful steed, your Gunnar, if I raised the saddle a little and back a hair, I'd be pretty comfy on it.
Yup, your bike makes me want to go for a ride.

Off to solder in the last 3 components of my current project, then some careful measuring. Think I'll wait until I have access to a drill press for this one, it's a 1590B, but the tolerances are almost as tight as the Sibian Hamster.

 

[cosmicevan]

@JoeDaddio

@cosmicevan Dunwich DIY — just a few more home-made patch cables away...

 

[JoeDaddio]

THANKS @jw23mind

That's going straight into my Master Muff doc.



'Tis a beautiful steed, your Gunnar, if I raised the saddle a little and back a hair, I'd be pretty comfy on it.
Yup, your bike makes me want to go for a ride.

Off to solder in the last 3 components of my current project, then some careful measuring. Think I'll wait until I have access to a drill press for this one, it's a 1590B, but the tolerances are almost as tight as the Sibian Hamster.

It's pretty rare that I meet a cyclist who is taller than I am, let alone on a bass forum! Nice.

I'm thinking of picking up the $70 drill press from Harbor Freight. I have a few people who I gave pedals to who are now asking for specific things and it seems like a good opportunity to fund a little bit of my hobby through the hobby itself (the majority of pedals I've made have been given to friends who play guitar). I roughly figure that any of the pedals I've made so far have cost me anywhere between $50-$60 in parts (guesstimate) and if I can get that back and get myself an upgrade or two I might go for it.

I feel a little strange having people pay me to do something that I am doing for fun, but I figure that since they are approaching me and I don't plan on charging any more than it costs for parts that I can feel good about it. And it'll also allow me to make more/better pedals I can give away as well.


joe

 

[disssa]

All my clones on one pic: