Any DIY pedal builders on TB? Strut your stuff!

[mdalamond]

View attachment 4697235 Just built my first pedal this afternoon! Soldering may be shaky at best, but I’m proud of myself for taking it step by step and ending up with a sweet new fuzz pedal! After my first 4 resistors I realized I should be putting them in a certain way to make it easier to read later if problems arise - but somehow it worked the first go! Looking forward to the next build for sure.

It was the Penumbra bass fuzz kit from AionFx, the documentation was perfect for a noob like me.
View attachment 4697248
View attachment 4697249

Very nice and clean job, especially for a first time. I think it looks great. I wish my first project would have looked that good. I made many mistakes on my first kit, Filter Vong HPF / LPF DI.
Ended up learning a lot on that first one and had to buy a second one because I messed the first up so bad.
It is an addicting hobby. I have way more fuzzes , OD and distortion pedals than I could ever need but there just so much fun to build.
Best of luck on your journey, I traded drinking for pedal building. I don't think its cheaper but it a whole lot healthier and my wife is a lot happier.
Matt

 

[RJ]

Very nice and clean job, especially for a first time. I think it looks great. I wish my first project would have looked that good. I made many mistakes on my first kit, Filter Vong HPF / LPF DI.
Ended up learning a lot on that first one and had to buy a second one because I messed the first up so bad.
It is an addicting hobby. I have way more fuzzes , OD and distortion pedals than I could ever need but there just so much fun to build.
Best of luck on your journey, I traded drinking for pedal building. I don't think its cheaper but it a whole lot healthier and my wife is a lot happier.
Matt

Congradulations!

 

[Silver Blues]

I didn't buy it from anyone. I had them made using Eagle and JLCPCB. Full credit on the schematic goes to
M. Chittum from FSB. I cannot take credit for that.

Gotcha, figured as much. I have MC's schematic too, just got a bit excited to not have to translate it myself

Did you use the 2N3707s or did you go for more ubiquitous transistors?

 

[essarache90]

Very nice and clean job, especially for a first time. I think it looks great. I wish my first project would have looked that good. I made many mistakes on my first kit, Filter Vong HPF / LPF DI.
Ended up learning a lot on that first one and had to buy a second one because I messed the first up so bad.
It is an addicting hobby. I have way more fuzzes , OD and distortion pedals than I could ever need but there just so much fun to build.
Best of luck on your journey, I traded drinking for pedal building. I don't think its cheaper but it a whole lot healthier and my wife is a lot happier.
Matt

I appreciate the kind words. And congrats on quitting drinking - sober myself since covid lockdown!
Just ordered a pedalpcb caesar chorus (eqd julia clone) and a bunch of parts from tayda. Fingers crossed I ordered the parts correctly. Seems a big jump from step by step instructions of aionfx kit build to pedalpcb diagrams but should be fun and a great learning experience either way!

 

[mdalamond]

Gotcha, figured as much. I have MC's schematic too, just got a bit excited to not have to translate it myself

Did you use the 2N3707s or did you go for more ubiquitous transistors?

I used the 2N3707. I was going for originality. I wish I knew what the original diodes were.
I have also found putting a 100k resistor in line on the input make a significant difference on how the effect blends with the clean signal.
Also playing with the volume on your bass has the same effect.
I'm curious to know if the original reacts the same way but I dont have an original to compare to.
Matt

 

[cosmicevan]

Mask Audio Electronics and GORVA just put out a kit called the Laran. Looks awesome...I pre-ordered one.

 

[mdalamond]

Mask Audio Electronics and GORVA just put out a kit called the Laran. Looks awesome...I pre-ordered one.

Checked it out, looks like a great project.

 

[G.Bisson]

Finished two Zorg Effects pedals; Glorious Basstar and Love Philter
Glorious Basstar is extremely versatile. Balancing gain and volume for each channel really changes the overdrive/distortion character. Two quick settings that sounded great were maxing bass gain and volume for a sputter fuzz or maxing mids gain and volume for a nice distortion tone. Internal dip switches for si vs led clipping on each channel adds even more possibilities. I set Treb to SI diodes for a more compressed high end and Bass and Mids set to LED clipping. The Basstar pcb had to be filed down to fit into a 1590BB. I painted this with four colors and used paint pens for labels.
Love Philter is sorta similar to a Mutron 3 with different controls. I especially like the speed switch for fast quack or slow bow-wow sweeps. The Love Philter pcb layout had several inconvenient features that made assembly harder than it should've been like; single-sided toggle solder pads, criss-crossing jumpers, electrolytic capacitors incorrectly sized and missing polarity markings. I painted the pink base coat and red labels with kid painted cupid wings and hearts.

 

[johnk_10]

cool i built a Glorious Basstar way back in January of 2016. i think it's a pretty versatile fuzz too:

hmmm. my PCB looks like it's an earlier version:

 

[G.Bisson]

cool i built a Glorious Basstar way back in January of 2016. i think it's a pretty versatile fuzz too:

View attachment 4702090

hmmm. my PCB looks like it's an earlier version:

View attachment 4702093

My Basstar pcb is v2. There's a big upgrade in quality from the Love Philter v1 pcb to the Glorious Basstar v2 pcb. Also ordered a Zorgtaver v1 pcb that's of similar quality to other v1's.

 

[Silver Blues]

Nice one, I've got a Love Philter as well:

I made a terrible mistake measuring the holes for the controls and thus the speed switch throw no longer matches the labels and I had to perform some occult rituals to fit everything inside the enclosure, so I'll spare you the eyesore of the gut shot. Regardless, it's a lovely filter and I enjoy it. Fancy paint courtesy of my partner (I don't have the artistic talent )

 

[G.Bisson]

Nice one, I've got a Love Philter as well:

View attachment 4702634

I made a terrible mistake measuring the holes for the controls and thus the speed switch throw no longer matches the labels and I had to perform some occult rituals to fit everything inside the enclosure, so I'll spare you the eyesore of the gut shot. Regardless, it's a lovely filter and I enjoy it. Fancy paint courtesy of my partner (I don't have the artistic talent )

What size enclosure did you use? Zorg doesn't provide drill templates, or recommend enclosure sizes. I fit it into a portrait 1590BB with all of the jacks. Wanted to include the mod for bandpass mode mentioned in the instructions, but couldn't fit an offboard switch. I also made a mistake with the hole layout. If you look closely at my photo, the Sense and Q jacks are slightly higher than the others, like the toggle switches are suppose to be. Had the pcb in the wrong direction while working out my drill template .

Really like that wood grain paint scheme. Very nice. That's better painting talent than I have too.

 

[Silver Blues]

I used a landscape 1590BB. Really wish he offered a drilling template, that would have saved me a lot of pain... my mistake was misunderstanding that I needed one of those plastic six-tab stereo jacks for the expression pedal input, so I laid everything out assuming I was to use an open-frame stereo jack (which take up a little less space) and all the board mounted pots and switches and whatnot. I then realized the plastic jack didn't clear the horizontally-mounted speed switch, which of course meant I couldn't use the board-mounted pots and switches. So I had to take everything offboard and flip the PCB over to make it fit. It's atrocious, truly. Your mistake was less egregious I think

Thank you! I'll tell her you said so, lol. I prepared the enclosure with self-etching automotive primer (from Pro-Form), then she did the woodgrain with acrylic, and then I put labels with Industrial Sharpie and then clear over top. Worked out very well if I do say so myself.

 

[Passinwind]

Latest iteration of my DIY open source preamp, this particular one is tweaked specifically for mandolin and acoustic guitar though. As mentioned upthread, UV printing from Amplifyfun in Portland OR.

 

[disssa]

Peavey F-800 B Preamp v3
The distortion channel is switchable and has its own volume potentiometer for makeup-gain. I used the factory schematics to create a pcb. (THX @johnk_10 )

 

[deepestend]

Has anyone modded a Son of Ben (Benson preamp clone) for bass?

I've never been happy with mine as it loses too much low end. Thinking about working on it a little bit.

Someone on pedalpcb suggested upping the coupling caps:

Maybe go from 22n to 100n-220n? Input cap at 100n seems fine. 2n2 seems low for the output cap, though.

 

[johnk_10]

Has anyone modded a Son of Ben (Benson preamp clone) for bass?

I've never been happy with mine as it loses too much low end. Thinking about working on it a little bit.

Someone on pedalpcb suggested upping the coupling caps:

View attachment 4713288

Maybe go from 22n to 100n-220n? Input cap at 100n seems fine. 2n2 seems low for the output cap, though.

i made one and after experimenting with it i modded it for bass by changing just two caps.

 

[deepestend]

i made one and after experimenting with it i modded it for bass by changing just two caps.

View attachment 4713364

This is very helpful. Do you remember the overall result of the two cap change? Just let more bass through?

On PedalPCB, they also rec removing c5 as a way to get more low-mid gain on the drive knob before breakup ("an extra 30% on the drive knob before it gets dirty"): Mod Benson Preamp for lower gain?

 

[johnk_10]

removing C5 will definitely reduce the gain by quite a bit.

 

[deepestend]

Thanks @johnk_10! Changing out those two caps for 330n (what i had on hand) really opened things up. Sounds great now. I rebiased it as well to spec. Still wish the OD was a little smoother, so I’m going to play around a little with the trimmers to see what I can so about that.

UPDATE: trimmers seem best at the build values. I did omit C5, though and do get more low gain before breakup. Will have to try this out in a band setting but sounds pretty good at home so far.