This got ridiculous a long time ago ... now I'm peeved off

[fenderhutz]

You need a dealer membership for this.

 

[rustynuts]

So, you buy GGG kits, assemble them and sell them as your own product?

And fenderhutz is correct, I think. Seems you'd need a dealer membership to be blatantly advertising like that.

 

[mikeboth]

So, you buy GGG kits, assemble them and sell them as your own product?

Except for one or two kits, that's fine from the GGG point of view (as far as I can remember from the licensing conditions on their site), but - really - does the world actually NEED someone else making the same thing?

 

[Mingus Addict]

We will find out soon. KarateKid25 has both. If he just takes pictures of the insides of both, I'll figure out every damn difference.

The only thing that's going to make that tough is that GGG seems to be using a different layout for the bluebeard than for the GGG tuned muff. You could still probably work it out though with detailed enough pictures.

 

[rratajski]

So, you buy GGG kits, assemble them and sell them as your own product?

I just want to clear the air on this (I hope this doesn't sound like Internet fighting b/c it's not meant to be)...

My wife and I don't make any profit on the kits. The cost covers the shipping to us, the kit, the paint (which is not cheap!), and the shipping to the person/band we're building for.
We build for people who 1. don't know how to build, 2. don't have the time to build tedious projects, or 3. want handpainted, custom work...We also donate up for charity events as well.
So, if anything, we are in the hole, money-wise, but do this because we enjoy doing it in our free time.
JD knows that we build for people. We also make it known on the site that the parts come right from GGG. The myspace just makes us looks a lot more professional than it is haha.

I just wanted to throw this out there...We don't wanna feel like a big con or cheat!

Does this sound any more legit?
Hope there's no hard feelings, fellas!

 

[rratajski]

The only thing that's going to make that tough is that GGG seems to be using a different layout for the bluebeard than for the GGG tuned muff. You could still probably work it out though with detailed enough pictures.

bassfuzz.com has guts pictures up! Sonny's team did a nice job with the wiring! There's definitely less caps and resistors. You can't see the circuit path in their pics, so unless someone else has an underside shot on the interwebs somewhere, you'll just have to look for yourself if you or a friend gets one.

 

[mikeboth]

bassfuzz.com has guts pictures up! Sonny's team did a nice job with the wiring! There's definitely less caps and resistors.

Nice find. 4 transistors + 2 pairs of diodes strongly suggests a BMP circuit to me.

Here's the schematic:
Invalid Link Removed

Look at these pictures:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

If someone was extra keen they could work out the resistance values, trace some of it out, I guess... looks like a very 'RG Keen' PCB-style layout, very neat, and the pedal appears to be well built.

 

[KarateKid25]

My GGG kit should be arriving today, but im away with work at the moment, so I probably won't get my mits on it for another couple of days.

I'll take pics etc once I get it together. If I get really keen, i'll remove the circuit from the Blue beard and trace it out to see where it differs from the GGG version.

 

[Mingus Addict]

Didn't think about counting parts before...

The BB has 25 resistors while the GGG has 24. The BB also has 16 caps while the GGG only has 15. I would guess that these two components are just an extra RF or power filter added to the BB.

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[Mingus Addict]

Okay so I just tried to really carefully compare the resistance values with that BB picture and the GGG bill of materials. They almost completely matched up. There were two differences. The GGG circuit has two 1k resistors and the BB only has one. The other problem is those two resistors that are standing up in the picture. I'm pretty sure they are both 4k7 but it's really hard to tell. The GGG circuit has zero 4k7 resistors.

KarateKid25, if you could clue me in on the colors on those two resistors and the cap values that would be huge...

 

[B.C.]

Okay so I just tried to really carefully compare the resistance values with that BB picture and the GGG bill of materials. They almost completely matched up. There were two differences. The GGG circuit has two 1k resistors and the BB only has one. The other problem is those two resistors that are standing up in the picture. I'm pretty sure they are both 4k7 but it's really hard to tell. The GGG circuit has zero 4k7 resistors.

KarateKid25, if you could clue me in on the colors on those two resistors and the cap values that would be huge...

Here ya go.

http://www.dannyg.com/examples/res2/resistor.htm

 

[mikeboth]

Okay so I just tried to really carefully compare the resistance values with that BB picture and the GGG bill of materials. They almost completely matched up. There were two differences. The GGG circuit has two 1k resistors and the BB only has one. The other problem is those two resistors that are standing up in the picture. I'm pretty sure they are both 4k7 but it's really hard to tell. The GGG circuit has zero 4k7 resistors.

I wouldn't worry about those resistors, looks like at least one of them is hooked up to the on/off LED to provide power switching (look at the innards 1 pic and trace the path of the purple wire on the left), and given the proximity of the other one to the big electro cap that one is likely used for p/s filtering of some sort.

If those are the only differences, then looks like two actually match exactly. Nice detective work.

edit: should note I have no commercial interest involved here, just like doing reverse engineering and solving such mysteries

 

[fenderhutz]

I wouldn't worry about those resistors, looks like at least one of them is hooked up to the on/off LED to provide power switching (look at the innards 1 pic and trace the path of the purple wire on the left), and given the proximity of the other one to the big electro cap that one is likely used for p/s filtering of some sort.

If those are the only differences, then looks like two actually match exactly. Nice detective work.

I told you I would not steer my TalkBass brethren in the wrong direction

 

[KarateKid25]

Now I just want to get home and build the thing!!

At the end of the day, Im mainly interested to compare how they sound, then i'll start to work out the technicalities.

 

[rratajski]

Whatever resistor's running before the LED will be probably be a 1k or 2.2k, more likely a 1k...
Confirmations, anyone?

 

[OptimusPrime]

Whatever resistor's running before the LED will be probably be a 1k or 2.2k, more likely a 1k...
Confirmations, anyone?

I've always used 1k resistors for LEDs when I build a pedal.

 

[mikeboth]

If the LED is one of those new-fangled super-bright ones, a current limiting resistor of 4.7k, 10k or even 22k might work fine - and it saves battery juice.

 

[KarateKid25]

I got home this afternoon and put the GGG kit together. I was rushing a bit to get it done, so its a bit sloppy here and there, but it's good enough to A/B with anyway

Here are some pics:

I've literally only just come home from a week away, soldered this up, had a quick test run and took some photos. At a glance the only difference is the bigger 220 µF cap and an extra resistor. I can't see the colour clearly at the moment, so i'll check it again in more light tomorrow.

The big question... Do they sound the same? No. Not exactly. Its too late for me to get clips done tonight, but i'll get some done over the weekend so you can listen and make up your own minds.