Effect Pedal building

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cruisemates
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by cruisemates »

I am now trying to breadboard this one: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nxOwK7bE-lA/U ... +Stack.png

But it is a little harder than it looks. I guess it is time to just plug it in and see of it works. I swear, in the time it takes to figure out the breadboard for these perfboards you can do the drilling and just build it as you see it. Once again, I would love to see more breadboarded projects. The Beavis Projects site is the only one I know of that has many examples, and breadboarding is a major benefit in customizing these circuits.

Anytime someone makes a working breadboard design, I encourage you to Fritz it and post the picture someplace (maybe here).

[img:894:541]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nxOwK7bE-lA/U ... +Stack.png[/img]
joeboo88
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by joeboo88 »

I am usually in awe of some of the amps you guys create:
I have been coming to this site for a while now, quietly learning from you.
Plus there is so much interesting things here.
I do plan on making and "express" when i save up enough dough. I have built a 5e3 and a Matchless lightning clone, which I love.

Anyways, I have built about a hundred pedals over the last 5 years, although a lot of them just don't sound as good as on the videos (no surprise and not a fault of the layout, just didnt groove it much).
I have a solid 20 pedals i keep and box up. I frequent and help other troubleshoot problems and such @ FSB.com and http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com
Strip board/vero can be a little weird at first- with trace cuts ( I use a 1/8 drill bit) and wired links to connect stages to one another.
Its just like anything, there is always a learning curve. Also you can usually find a schematic if you google , or a lot of the sites have the schematics.
I just built a pork loin overdrive (lots of parts) and an orange amp emulator which are both my favs, i have also built phasers and delay pedals, blah blah blah....
anyways keep soldering, and don't beat up on us vero board builders too much
:D
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M Fowler
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

I have a lot of respect for people that can turn a little box into a work of art.

I prefer amplifiers :lol: I think I'll continue to buy effect pedals rather then build them because I suck at it. :)

Mark
joeboo88
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by joeboo88 »

thanks M Fowler:
I saw some pictures of your builds, awesome stuff and work of art as well

I saw in one of your post you built your kids a couple of train wrecks, are you up to adopting me :D
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M Fowler
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

joeboo88 wrote:thanks M Fowler:
I saw some pictures of your builds, awesome stuff and work of art as well

I saw in one of your post you built your kids a couple of train wrecks, are you up to adopting me :D
Why not :lol:

Got a guy coming over Friday, I'm going to convert his money hungry Fender Blues Jr to an AC15 free of charge to pass it on to struggling musician's especially college students trying to gig at church and other places while studying and having to get his amp repaired all the time, not by me either. This time it took out the tubes and PT.

Thanks to good people on TAG I have had parts donated to me, so I plan to get busy making a bunch of different amps for locals from those donated parts as long as they are simple no channel switching dream machines. :)
cruisemates
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by cruisemates »

Just got the fuzz above built. Turned out to be a bear until I decided to try sockets for the transistors. Now that it is done, I don't think fuzz tones are the right sound for me (I have heard better ones that this one, though).

I have built some really nice boosts from a Klone to a Brian May. I will take the 1 transistor Brian May over the Klone with 3 ICs, three diodes and an LED. The Brian May has maybe ten components but it sounds so clean and crunchy - really drives a tube amp..

I also built a Tom Scholz-style mockman (op-amp. no diodes) - which has a sweet sustain but is a little too dark and lacking in attack for me. Then I just built a fuzz with two silicon NPN transistors. This one is my least favorite, it is fuzzy almost like a synth, but with no attack on the notes.

(wow, these pedals are so loud just pushing my 30 watt amp on the clean channel my ears are ringing right now, I need to be careful).
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deeder
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by deeder »

2203/2204-ish/Deluxe Reverb
cruisemates
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by cruisemates »

That guitar Player article is good, but I tend to find all of the concern over "buffered, true bypass, etc" to be just a little overblown.

Yes, I get some noise when I have all my pedals juiced up, but by using a noise gate, or just remembering to switch to the clean channel when the songs ends I avoid subjecting the audience to a loud continual hum between songs. When the amp is playing you do not hear it.

Another thing - I am surprised this system receives so little attention. I have been using it now for over a year and I love it. I only have one cable between my amp and pedal board, the Fuchs P3 Power Station. It has a DC power unit that sends 9v down the cable connecting your pedals to your amp. It is a TRS cable which fully isolates the DC power from the audio path. So, I do not need to hook up any AC power to my pedal board. The power goes out the cable to a distribution unit under my pedal board which then uses Boss 2.1mm barrel connectors to power all my pedals. It also returns the audio from my last pedal back to the same P3 unit sitting on top of my amp, which I then connect direct to my amp with a short cable. It sounds complicated - but it just works - and is super reliable.

http://www.fuchsaudiotechnology.com/pro ... tion&cat=1

Also - I use my series loop a LOT - I have a gain boost in their to get my solos over the mix (I use a TIM pedal, which has its own loop, so I put a delay in there so that only comes on during solos; automatically), I then have an MXR 10band GEQ and last a noise gate.

I never hear about people putting a BOOST in their loops, but it works fantastically and I know a lot of us do it. In fact, do you think the KlonE is over-rated? Try putting one in your loop on a high gain amp. You will love what it does for pushing your solos over the top of the mix, and adding just a a little gain and tone control as well. In fact, I want to build a loop for my delay into my next the KlonE, and use it instead of my Tim.
cruisemates
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by cruisemates »

M Fowler wrote:I want a sloped box for mine and longer so I can loop 6 or 7.

Anyone seen a long sloped metal box?

Mark
Fry's Electronix has lots of sloped boxes - note that they are thinner aluminum, but they are made for projects - as long as you go easy on them I think they would work.

[img:100:120]http://images.frys.com/art/product/box_ ... 43.box.GIF[/img]

http://www.frys.com/category/Outpost/El ... cessories/[/img]
cruisemates
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by cruisemates »

Vendor recommendations - pedal parts:

Three places for what I see as comparatively cheap parts:

http://www.bitcheslovemyswitches.com/ - for enclosures & footswitches

http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabbl ... p6496.html

For PCBs for 3pdt FOOT SWITCHES. $30 for 50 boards shipped. They are said to work great - only lacking space for LED from what I have read - but at $.75 compared to $6 apiece in other places. Note. the top link also has similar PCBs with LED for just $2 apiece.

This Ebay store: http://stores.ebay.com/gcsupermarkethkcoltd/ - very low prices on Transistors, ICs, etc. Surprisingly fast on shipping as well for a Chinese vendor.
eniam rognab
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by eniam rognab »

hey cruisemates, thanks for the switch bitches link, very reasonable prices

my go-to supplier is www.taydaelectronics.com overseas company, but i believe most of their stuff ships from good old 'merica. or its SUPER fast airmail.... just a throwing it out there if you havent heard of them

pedals are fun but, when you gonna build an amp? :lol: :lol: :lol: i keed
cruisemates
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by cruisemates »

I just got a huge shipment from tayda, too. I had it sitting in my shopping cart for a week waiting for them to post a new coupon code.

Yeah - an amp. I do want to build one. I would like to build a good one-channel amp that takes pedals really well. I like a Marshall sound, so I am thinking a 2204 maybe.

I also like to have an effects loop.

One thing I would like is being able to customize the tone stack, so building an amp would be a great way for me to tune it in just the way I like it.

The truth is that I am pretty ham dappy with amps I have for what I do - a Marshall DSL100 and an EVH 5150iii. Great gigging amps. Ironically, for all the pedal building I have been doing, I don't use overdrive or high gain pedals much. I use my tube pre-amp for gain. But I do put a Tim in the loop for solos.

But with some of the pedal tones I have been getting lately, I could see myself switching over to a one-channel amp I can easily push into overdrive territory - maybe a Suhr style.

I have never been much of a D-style kind of guy. I like a lot more grit than that.
davent
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by davent »

Ge Darlington Rangemaster circuit from Small Bear.

Mac Walker wedge enclosure.

https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/Br ... tonRMs.htm

ExpressPCB for layout,then took some liberties tweaking it with Inkscape, photoresist pcb.
PNP's- GT308b so positive ground version of circuit.


[IMG:800:600]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... aaa287.jpg[/img]
[IMG:800:600]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... d27583.jpg[/img]
[IMG:800:600]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... 83c737.jpg[/img]
[IMG:800:600]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... 920444.jpg[/img]
[IMG:800:600]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... 889476.jpg[/img]
[IMG:800:600]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... 0509c3.jpg[/img]
[IMG:600:800]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc30 ... 5b7b66.jpg[/img]
cheers, dave
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xtian
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by xtian »

Beautiful! Wowzer.
I build and repair tube amps. http://amps.monkeymatic.com
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M Fowler
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

Nice work I only wish I had those skills to build pedals. :)
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