The Sushi Box FX Secret Society

[4Mal]

Hi all! Newbie here and searching for a light overdrive pedal for a little grit and boost. I already have an Oracle preamp, which I love. What would you recommend that would pair well? Would a Space Heater be a good choice? Thanks and all the best!

Ex Oracle guy here. I could easily own another or a Zephyr again. The Oracle is a desktop beast. Really not convenient to gig with - in spite of it's wonderful sound quality and EQ.

The Slampegg X is not an Oracle... but it isn't that far off! I have an HW Slampegg X on order. Really curious to see if it gets closer to the Oracle.

So far the HW Space Heater and the Slampegg X are my two fav SushiBox pedals. I'll replace the HWSH when the HW Finally is available.

I have not tried the SBVT. I probably will at some point.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Some quick news: HW Smoke Signal is good. Like really really good. I'm a little frustrated because the SMD version of Smoke Signal II has the noise issue I haven't been able to get rid of, but the handwired version doesn't, even though they're the exact same circuit. So I'm hoping to figure out the SMD issue soon so I can have both available for the May batch.

I'm planning to open up the May batch this weekend. I was going to do it sooner, but I want a few extra days mostly for Smoke Signal. SMD Lab Rat, HW Underground Accelerator, and HW Finally will be available for ordering in the May batch, but SBVT will be temporarily pulled for a redesign and, depending on how much free time I can find, possibly a handwired version.

I've started work on the April batch, mostly just milling enclosures for now. I'm going to be filling the handwired orders from the January batch that were on hold, so there will be a total of 46 builds this month.

And now, this.

 

[TTPbass1]

Some quick news: HW Smoke Signal is good. Like really really good. I'm a little frustrated because the SMD version of Smoke Signal II has the noise issue I haven't been able to get rid of, but the handwired version doesn't, even though they're the exact same circuit. So I'm hoping to figure out the SMD issue soon so I can have both available for the May batch.

I'm planning to open up the May batch this weekend. I was going to do it sooner, but I want a few extra days mostly for Smoke Signal. SMD Lab Rat, HW Underground Accelerator, and HW Finally will be available for ordering in the May batch, but SBVT will be temporarily pulled for a redesign and, depending on how much free time I can find, possibly a handwired version.

I've started work on the April batch, mostly just milling enclosures for now. I'm going to be filling the handwired orders from the January batch that were on hold, so there will be a total of 46 builds this month.

And now, this.

View attachment 4647437

I will need a bigger pedalboard for June...

 

[bonin in the boneyard]

I'm planning to open up the May batch this weekend. I was going to do it sooner, but I want a few extra days mostly for Smoke Signal. SMD Lab Rat, HW Underground Accelerator, and HW Finally will be available for ordering in the May batch, but SBVT will be temporarily pulled for a redesign and, depending on how much free time I can find, possibly a handwired version.

Any update on a HW Dr. Wattson?

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Any update on a HW Dr. Wattson?

Right, forgot about that one. I'm 87% sure HW Dr. Wattson is good to go, I need to do some more testing with it. I did a redesign of the circuit to "improve" it and successfully made it worse. So sticking with the original design I think it's good to go, but I need to finish thorough testing. I'll see if I can get that done this week to get it in for May as well.

 

[bonin in the boneyard]

Right, forgot about that one. I'm 87% sure HW Dr. Wattson is good to go, I need to do some more testing with it. I did a redesign of the circuit to "improve" it and successfully made it worse. So sticking with the original design I think it's good to go, but I need to finish thorough testing. I'll see if I can get that done this week to get it in for May as well.

Thanks!

 

[NKBassman]

Even though I have an actual Meatsmoke head sitting out in the garage and no gigs and no prospects on the horizon, I'm very tempted to try this new Handwired Smoke Signal.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Even though I have an actual Meatsmoke head sitting out in the garage and no gigs and no prospects on the horizon, I'm very tempted to try this new Handwired Smoke Signal.

It's a good one, but it doesn't sound much like the Meatsmoke anymore. The requests for the UA mod on the clean channel made me look at the design and say "if I were designing a two-channel preamp from scratch, what would it look like?" So some changes were minor (changing component values to tweak gain and voicing) and some were major (getting rid of the MOSFET output buffer, adding a tube output buffer, removing the DC-coupled cathode follower) but the end result is everything I wanted it to be. It's incredibly usable on both bass and "six-string piccolo bass".

 

[NKBassman]

It's a good one, but it doesn't sound much like the Meatsmoke anymore. The requests for the UA mod on the clean channel made me look at the design and say "if I were designing a two-channel preamp from scratch, what would it look like?" So some changes were minor (changing component values to tweak gain and voicing) and some were major (getting rid of the MOSFET output buffer, adding a tube output buffer, removing the DC-coupled cathode follower) but the end result is everything I wanted it to be. It's incredibly usable on both bass and "six-string piccolo bass".

Did you keep the filtered Recording output?

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Did you keep the filtered Recording output?

I did on this version, yes. The eventual goal is to replace that with an IR loader, but I still have some things to work out on that front.

 

[Jim C]

Any schedule for the hand wired Slampegg pedal?

 

[johnk_10]

i just received my Sunnday drive. it really sounds great but i'm still trying to get the hang of the bypass & preamp switches and would prefer an extra full bypass stomp on it, and wish that the control knobs weren't so close together.

 

[macmanlou]

Any schedule for the hand wired Slampegg pedal?

The HW Slampegg was available for the April builds orders. I'd assume that you could order one for May builds when they become available (this weekend) if you wish.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Any schedule for the hand wired Slampegg pedal?

The HW Slampegg was available for the April builds orders. I'd assume that you could order one for May builds when they become available (this weekend) if you wish.

Yup, this.

i just received my Sunnday drive. it really sounds great but i'm still trying to get the hang of the bypass & preamp switches and would prefer an extra full bypass stomp on it, and wish that the control knobs weren't so close together.

Agreed, a second footswitch would have been ideal. It has a great sound, but I was trying to force what wanted to be a large two-channel preamp into a small one-channel preamp without giving up features, and it got crowded and not as friendly to use. I could say things like "if I were to redesign it..." but frankly if I redesigned it it would basically just turn into Smoke Signal II. So I'll just fix Smoke Signal II and get it ready for order.

So basically "Preamp" switch is your main bypass, and the footswitch is your clean boost. You can run the clean boost with or without the preamp, and you can run the preamp with or without the boost.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

I got in a mood today, and I decided that I'm not sleeping until I get a damn IR loader working on this chip I chose. Fortunately it didn't take long, and I was finally able to figure out the stupid mistake I had been making for weeks that prevented it from working.

Currently the setup is very limited, I can only load one IR at a time and a standard WAV file needs to be converted into a weird format and loaded in with specialized software and hardware, but I can now pre-load any IR I want into my test setup. Slow progress is still progress!

 

[monsterbonsai]

Got a double tube Sunnday Drive incoming and after reading most of the 570 pages here a few questions.

Sunnday Drive is the Sunn Model T preamp, which uses a Fender-style tone stack. The values are obviously different than typical fender preamps, but the organization of the components is 100% the same.

Any idea what the neutral position of the EQ would be?

Sounds good, answering questions is something I do

Also before I forget, I got some current draw numbers, which is something I know people ask about a lot. These were taken on a 9V supply:

Single tube designs (Particle Accelerator, Slampegg Bee Pre, London Underground, Lab Rat) will pull around 650mA as it's warming up, and about 470mA steady-state when it's done warming up. You MIGHT be able to get them to run on a 500mA supply, but it's safer to go at least 600mA.

Double tube designs (Dr. Wattson, Sunnday Drive, Black Eye) will try to pull around 2000mA during warm-up. This does not mean you need a 2000mA supply, but a lower output supply will take longer to warm up. The pedal should drop down to about 770mA steady-state when it's done warming up. I would recommend at least 1000mA supply.

When in doubt just give it as much power as you can, I recommend a 1Spot which will do 1700mA. I've thought about developing a brick style supply for use with these so you don't need separate supplies for everything, but I haven't really committed to it for sure.

Did not think about that before, but after reading this, it might be a bit of a challenge with my Harley Benton ISO-2 with a only two 500mA ports and total of 2000mA. But even the expensive ones struggle with providing power to dual-tube and two single tube pedals. So far only the Cioks seems to be able to do that, which is a bit pricy, especially after spending all my money on Sushi .

 

[johnk_10]

my Sunnday Drive X pulls almost 700ma at 9 volts for a about a second at startup but settles down to 497ma after about 10-15 seconds.

 

[Sushi Box FX]

Any idea what the neutral position of the EQ would be?

Should still be around 2-10-2.

Did not think about that before, but after reading this, it might be a bit of a challenge with my Harley Benton ISO-2 with a only two 500mA ports and total of 2000mA. But even the expensive ones struggle with providing power to dual-tube and two single tube pedals. So far only the Cioks seems to be able to do that, which is a bit pricy, especially after spending all my money on Sushi .

Those numbers are on the older 6N21B mini-tube versions, which pull a lot more than the newer 12AX7 versions. @johnk_10 's numbers sound right for a dual 12AX7 preamp. Cioks DC7 and OneSpot Pro are the common brick style supplies I hear work well for high current.

 

[4Mal]

The Cioks/Eventide is pretty much as good as it gets for pedal board power delivery. Pricey. Maybe but having been a user for around 10 years I can say that for me they have been worth every penny or centeme or euro'let or whatever they call the smallest monetary denomination in the EU ;-)

I think power supplies also are subject to the buy once, cry once rule...

 

[el murdoque]

Those numbers are on the older 6N21B mini-tube versions, which pull a lot more than the newer 12AX7 versions. @johnk_10 's numbers sound right for a dual 12AX7 preamp. Cioks DC7 and OneSpot Pro are the common brick style supplies I hear work well for high current.

I've put my 6N21B Particle Accelerator on my small test bench board, which is run by a Cioks Adam. The output is labeled 250mA. I bought a Y cable to double that, but messed it up (by fortetting to put it in) and ran the PA from a single outlet, for hours, which worked fine.

What happens when you starve a tube pedal like that?