Showing posts with label Etching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Etching. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Hoof

...And i'm back! Here is a clone of the EQD Hoof. I did this as a trade to my friend Evan. He gave me all the AWESOME Spawn figures before. His original hoof died and was broke due to COVID-19 and him being out of work. He did find a couple more spawn figures and what can I say...I'm a sucker for spawn stuff! So I built him a new Hoof pedal. This is almost a exact copy. I used some 2n2222 Transistors for this build, I think they sound a bit better. This wasn't my cleanest wiring job but hey, they can't all be perfect! Anyways here are a couple pictures. I didn't shoot a video but we all know what a modified muff sounds like. Enjoy!
-Mike-




Friday, March 23, 2018

Hunter Fuzz

Hello all,
A while ago I did a work a like to the Shoegazer fuzz. This is a Soda Meiser with a Torn's Peaker cascaded into it. Its a VERY cool and Doomy sounding fuzz. Each on their own can get pretty gnarly but together they can conquer galaxies!! I used an etched face plate that I did the art layout for. I'll try to get a demo up soon. Thanks for reading!










Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Utility Pedals

Hey All,
      So this will be a quick one. These are a couple of utility pedals that a past customer had asked me for. He was looking for a signal buffer and an A / B switch. He needed the A / B switch to switch between the volume and wah out put of his expression pedal. He wanted a buffer because...well he needed a buffer in he circuit. That is all. Well here they are there is no demo video only because...its kind of pointless. I acid etched the enclosures. Thanks for reading.







Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Twin Peaks

Hello all,
      Last night I put the finishing touches on a Twin Peaks Tremolo. This was designed by David Rolo. It is a Tap Tempo Tremolo with four different modes, There is a rotary switch to select the desired mode.They are as follows

Normal - Bass and treble are both modulated "in phase"
Harmonic - Bass and treble are modulated "out Phase"
Bass - Bass is modulated with a fixed treble
Treble - Bass is fixed and treble modulates

      There ate also 6 potentiates that help dial in the tone / effect you are looking for. These controls are listed below.

Symmetry - Changes the ratio between the upper and lower wave of the LFO signal. For
example, when using the square wave, you can set whether the “off” or the “on” periods are the
longest.

Rate - This is a manual adjust ment as opposed to the tap. you can also use it to "fine tune" the rate of modulation

Depth This sets the how deep the modulation is

Tone - This adjust how much treble or bass is in the effect.

Shape - This is used to select between one of the 8 modulation wave shapes

Multiplier - This is used to select the multiplier that will be applied to the tapped tempo

      So as you can see there are a TON of controls on this thing. It is a super fun pedal to play around with and the possibilities are endless. I did an etched face plate for this. I did use pretty basic art work but it came out pretty good. I didn't get a chance to do a demo for this be fore i shipped it out. Here are a couple pictures though. Thanks for reading.

-Mike-







Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Eye Ball Delay

Hello Gang,
       Last night I was able to wrap up yet another build. This one is a Madbeans Cave dweller "dub edition". What the dub edition means is that there are 2 of the PT2399 chips incorporated in this design. This (almost) doubles the available delay time.In this version two controls are combined (dwell and echo) and a "Mix" pot is added for extra texture. There are limitations with any PT2399 delay but this one certainly pushes those boundaries. One of the reasons I like this delay is, It's DARK! It almost resembles an older Boss DM2. Yes, I know, "Mike, no PT delay will ever sound as good as a DM2". Calm down, I said resembles. Anyways, This was Boxed in an enclosure that Dan Minner did for me...He likes eye balls. Which is cool with me, cause I like it weird! HAHA!, Well, here are some pictures. I'll get a video of it up soon. Thanks for reading.









Wednesday, April 5, 2017

WTF(uzz)

Hello Readers,
        I did a multi build a while back and realized that I really loved the fuzz that I put into it. It isn't a super complicated build buy any means but this thing is BRUTAL! I love the tone and minimal options on it. There are 2 toggles and 1 knob. The toggle on the right controls the wave and the toggle on the left is an intensity boost. The knob controls the overall output of the fuzz, This is by far one of my favorites. I might just do a Fabbed PCB for it. It is a DBA Harmonic Transformer clone. The enclosure art was done by Dan at A.D.D Effects. Here are some pictures for you. I'll try to get a video up soon. Thanks guys.









Thursday, February 16, 2017

D-Verb rehoused

Hello all,
      Lets start with the easiest. A long time ago I build a mini reverb for my friend Darren (see LINK). He texted me and said that it was acting weird. It turns out that one of the jacks came loose and the threads got stripped. So I grabbed the pedal from him and decided to do a new enclosure for it. The paint was chipping on the old one and it needed a face lift. you'll see all that in the pictures. The circuit is a 1776 Rub-A-Dub reverb. The PCB layout was done by Jon Patton and etched by me. If you are planning to attempt this build BUY MORE THAN ONE ENCLOSURE. I can a;most guarantee you will screw up on the first one (if you're a dummy like me haha!).here are a couple pictures.








Monday, January 23, 2017

Wave Machine #2

Hello All,
      This is the second Wave Machine I have built. Here is the first. The guts on these are the same. The only difference between the two is I used heat shrink tubing on the LED / LDR s that control the Tremolo / Chorus / Vibrato effect. I thought that there wouldn't be a huge difference but there is. There seems to be less bleed of the effect and it seems to be overall prominent. I'll have to open up the other unit and do the same to it, Since it is the same electronically I'll just post some pictures for your eyeball's pleasure!!

Here is what I did with the enclosure. First I acid etched the enclosure with ferric chloride. Second, I painted it with flat black primer. Last, I sanded the areas where i had acid etched the lettering and graphics. This took a while, primer is A LOT thicker than I thought. My goal was to make it look like waves in the ocean had warn down the paint to reveal the lettering. Eh...kind of a failure but it still looks cool.




















Thanks for looking guys. I'll try to get a video up soon!

-Mike-


Thursday, September 15, 2016

2 in 1

  Not what you think. HAHA! I finished 2 pedals in one night! These have been waiting to be boxed for a while. The first is the Wormhole. This is a deadaustronaut Tremshifter. The layout was done by perfboardlayouts. The enclosure was etched by Dan at ADD effects.. It was an enclosure that he wasn't going to have built so I bought it off him. I etched the board and did all the wiring, and boy was there A LOT of wiring.
     The Effect is an optical tremolo with a envelope filter in front of it. There are two rate and depth knobs, one for the tremolo and one for the envelope filter. The output knob is a "master volume" for the effect. You will also notice the 3 switch. They are Shape, Filter, and Tone. The Tone Switch switches caps to brighten or darken your guitar tone. The Filter switch turns the envelope filter on and off, and the shape filter changes the shape of the optical tremolo.
     Over all, this is a very fun pedal. It will certainly make its way onto my board. Here are some pictures. I'll get a video up soon.
















Next we have my third prototype of the HUNTER FUZZ! This is a Shoegazer clone that I did the PCB layout for. This one I built for my friend Matt. The left side is the "Torn's Peaker" and the right is the "Soda Meizer". Each has it's own stomp switch and Volume and Texture knob. Not much else to say except beware of nightmares...







I will try to get videos for both of these up soon. Thanks for reading.

-Mike-


Thursday, September 1, 2016

Wave Machine

Hello again!
     I finished one of the many projects sitting on my bench. This is a clone of the Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe. This was used most commonly by Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Hendrix. This thing is a BEAST. Tons of options and controls. I'll go through them briefly.

Speed:
This controls the speed of the modulation. There is an internal trim pot that can adjust the max speed and there is also an option to have an external expression pedal jack wired up. I opted to not have this.

Range:
This is a 6 position rotary switch. It goes from "classic" to "pulse". There are 3 positions for each mode. They resemble Soft, Medium, and Hard. They also increase with the turn of the switch.

Effect:
This simply changes from Chorus, Vibrato, and Tremolo

Symmetry:
This changes the sweep of the modulation across the sign waves.

Intensity:
I feel this is a little self explanatory...it sets the intensity of the effect.

Vol:
This sets the output volume of the effect.

Bias:
This alters the center of the sweep frequency and in tremolo mode sets the depth of the sign wave. It almost acts like a blend knob.

Mod:
This is a voicing mod. It is a 3 position rotary switch that changes capacitor sets within the effect. This give you the option to have a multitude of tones for each effect.


The PCB was designed by Brenja on the Madbeans forum. He also designed the Mod board. I acid etched and painted the Enclosure and did the artwork too. This pedal is a modulation monster and I plan on holding onto one of the 2 I have built. This was tons of fun and despite its size it was fairly easy. It fired right up and worked the first time.

Any ways here are some pictures. I'll try and get a video up soon. Thanks for reading!





















Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Let the Madness Ensue...

Hello Again,
     Now let me first say that this was probably the most complicated build that I have ever done. There are 3 effects plus a order switch and an FX / blend option in this. It was very hard to wrap my head around but in the end I nailed it!! Here is the breakdown of the pedal.

**Main Circuit**
The main tone of this is based on the DBA Sound Saw. What this is, is a two channel frequency filter circuit. The bypass switch turns it on and the filter switch switches between the two channels. Channel one high lights the lows and allows more of a bass-y boost. Channel two accents the highs and mids giving the tone a cutting edge. There is a volume and filter knob for each channel.

**Fuzz Tone**
The fuzz section of this is modeled after the DBA Harmonic Transformer. This fuzz is EVIL! I love it. It is controlled by 1 knob and 2 toggle switches. In this built you'll notice that there are 3 toggle switches for the fuzz, the 3rd switch is simply an on / off option. The knob controls the over all fuzz volume. The switch on the left is the on / off, the switch in the middle is the sign wave switch (changes from triangle to square wave), and the switch on the right is an intensity switch. 

**Delay / Reverb Tone**
This is one of my favorite delay / reverb designs, the circuit is a Madbeans Moodring. This reverb is great and the delay is simple and easy to dial in. This has no on / off switch but the "Ring" knob essentially acts like an on / off. all the way to tho the left is off and all the way to the right is "muffin maker"! 

**Extra Options**
-Blend-
You'll notice that there are 2 extra jacks on the side of the enclosure. These allow you to add another effect and blend it into this circuit. The top jack is the send and the bottom is the return. The blend is panned from left to right. Left is no added effect and right is full effect volume (set on external effect) added to this circuit. 

-Order Toggle Switch-
There is also an effect order switch built into this as well. What this does is puts the fuzz in front or behind the reverb. This gives you a multitude of options. putting the fuzz in front of the effect will give you the "wall of sound" type of effect that a lot of guitarists go for.

So needless to say there was a lot to take in to consideration when building this. The enclosure was designed and etch by Dan at ADD Effects. He and I have worked together on several builds now and I don't see us stopping any time soon. Well that's all I have for now. Here are some pictures for you. I will get the videos posted soon. Thanks for reading.











Videos are coming soon!!!

-Mike-

VIDEO TIME!!!