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!

Been SUPER busy!

Hey All,
     I've been insanely busy as of late. Including staring a new job at Fishman! I've completed a few builds but haven't had too much time in the shop. Here are a few that I've finished since my last post.

This is a "Dummy" box that i did for Darren. It basically simulates a speaker load on a guitar head so you can do "silent" recording. Here is a picture.

This is a 0415 fuzz synth that I did for Chris in Pray For Sound. The Faceplate was etched on black PCB and the art layout was also done by me.

The last is a Mastodon Fuzz. The PCB Layout was done by me for my friend at BLMS. He sells them in his store HERE. The art and enclosure etch we both done by me as well.

I'll try to get a demo of the fuzz up soon. Thanks for reading guys!

-Mike-

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-

Holy MOTHER OF ELECTRONICS!!!

So a while ago a fellow builder (Dan Minner) and I started to collaborate on a multi build that was based heavily on the "post-rock" and "post-punk" genre of music. Specifically for ambient and textural sounds, more or less that "wall of sound" type effect. This was going to be very in depth and complicated for us. The original design of the enclosure/s was scrapped due to a fabrication issue and we ended up using the biggest Hammond Enclosure we could find. This resulted in a pedal that is almost the size of a sheet of paper. It's massively AWESOME. Dan did the layout for the knobs and all the art work on the enclose. I Etched all the PCBs and assembled this monster. Here are the Circuits that the pedal is made up of.

Way Huge - Red Llama Clone - This is controlled by the Level and Gain controls on the pedal. It is a fuzz type effect and also acts as the main on / off of the pedal. None of the other effects will come on with out this engaged. You can how ever turn the other effects on before engaging the RL.

Dead Astronaut - Flying Saucer Reverb - This is a VERY spacey / oscillating reverb. This is controlled but the Reverb Mix, Damp, Tone, OSC switch, and hidden Bright switch (red cap). This is probably the most versatile reverb I have ever had the chance to play with.

Mad Professor - Deep Blue Delay - This is a great clean sounding PT2399 delay. It leaves nothing to be desired in the delay field. This is controlled by the Delay Mix, Feedback, and, Delay pots. Great for those longer, almost oscillating repeats.

Parasit Studios - Sonic Reducer- Your 8 Bit MADNESS! This is controlled buy the 8-Bit toggle switch, Rate, and Resolution pots. This adds that extra weirdness that both Dan and I love. Plus Parasit Studios has some of the coolest original design effects out there.

Now this being my first multi build it was a bit of a challenge. I had to figure out how to wire 4 circuits together. Most people start out with 2, but no...I HAD TO DO 4! I did it though. This thing is awesome. I will try to do a demo of it this weekend, Thanks for reading. for now here are some pictures.

Once again Thanks for reading. Here are some links for you to check out!

Dan's Facebook - ADDPedals

Parasit Studios - 8-bit goodness
Other Layouts we used - effectslayouts

UPDATE!

I Finally did a demo for this. Here it is, Enjoy!

Tone Machine

Hey Guys,
     If you read my WIP post then you are up to date on this, If not here is a short version. Here is a Foxx Tone Machine clone I did for the Madbeans Build of the Year contest. The layout of the PCB was done by Brian at Madbeans and I did the Etched face plate and art work. I love the way this thing sounds! It's very responsive to dynamics and the Octave switch makes it that much funner. Let just be honest here octave fuzzes are the best!!!! Anyways here are some pictures for you to gawk at...haha enjoy.

Hope you guys liked it! I'll post a you tube video soon. Thanks for reading.

-Mike-

BOTY contest build

Hey guys,
     On "the forum" (madbeans) they do a Build of the Year contest. I have 2 projects in the works that I could potentially enter. The first is a collaboration with DMINNER from the forum (see Sonic Nebulizer for reference) and the second is a Foxx Tone Machine that I started working on. The other night before I started populating the board I took pictures of the board and then more throughout the process. So think of this as an Instructional / Work in progress blog post. Here we go.

Step 1:

Here is a picture of the board an build doc. Brian at Madbeans has some of the best most comprehensive build documents that I have ever worked with. I have recently decided to print the build info to use as reference while working n the board. This helps me mark up and make notes on the build during the process. I also grab the enclosure that I plan on using for the build, This gives me an idea for the "art" and size build I am planning.

Doc / Board / Enclosure

Step 2:

Next I read the doc and start to populate the board. There is an order to my madness. I start with the resistors the move on to the Diodes and caps. After I put the parts in place I put a notch on the doc next to the location, rinse and repeat. I do this up until I have the board populated with all the parts. Here are some pictures of that process.

Populated Resistors

Resistors and Diodes

Added Capacitors and Sockets for Transistors

Fully populated with Transistors

Now its time to install the pots and switch. This is an older layout and is not set up for PCB mounted pots so i will have to do some off board wiring, (shudder). I'm not a big fan of off board wiring but i think I have it down to a science at this point. I used to build a lot with strip / vero board when i was first starting out and there is no such thing as PCB mounted pots when it comes to vero. What I do is tin the Lugs of the pots and switch. Then I tin both ends of the wire and solder the wire to the pot or switch. I use a small vice I got from HFT to hold the pot or switch while I solder the wire to it. Here are some pictures to help you understand.

Well that's all I have for now. I'll be updating this probably every weekend until the build is done. Thanks for reading

-Mike-

Update #1

So after getting the board together and ready to test it was about 1:30 am. Needless to say I let it wait until the next time i was in the workshop. I recently went down (last night) and was able to test the board...It didn't work. This is the case more than I would like to admit. I tried the usual check the transistors and diodes, then re-flow the solder and check for solder bridges. Nothing is really sticking out at me either, I tried all the tricks up my sleeve and still couldn't get it to work properly. SO i did what any other Tech would do in my shoes, I ordered a production board lolz. I'm up against a clock here and don't want to miss out on the contest.

So instead of working on the board I decided to finish up the art and hammer out a final layout. Usually with this contest  I try to incorporate a "First" for me. This year its an Etched face plate. These when done right can look VERY professional. I think I nailed it too. I did a 2 tone etched face plate. this means there are 2 colors aside from the color of the PCB there are 2 other colors (so 3 total). I did it on black PCB and used liquid tin to get the silver color on there. I had to tape the PCB after it was etched to paint the liquid tin on but in the end it came out awesome. Here is a picture of what the art looked like in the software before I transferred it to the pcb.

I do use a fairly common program for my art work. Believe it or not I use Power Point. The Image scaling and alignment tools are wonderful. I also don't have the time or patience to learn such an in depth program like Photoshop or Gimp. What I use it for Power point works just fine. Below is a picture of the just about finished face plate. You can see where i painted the liquid tin (the silver letters an boxes) and where the copper was etched away reveling the black PCB material.

Hope you enjoyed the update. I will check back again soon with either the working board i etched or the working fabbed board. Thanks for reading guys!

-Mike-

UPDATE # 2

Hello again,

I've made a ton of progress on this. At first i couldn't get the circuit to work correctly so I ordered a PCB from Madbeans. Then the Madbeans fabricated one didn't work. So I started testing and replacing parts. After a while I figured out that instead of the 100K resistors that the circuit calls for there were 100 ohm resistors in there. One of my parts suppliers must have sent them in error. Oh well lesson learned.

Now that the board was squared away it was time to finally start working on the enclosure. This is the first faceplate I have done so I was still trying to figure out how to affix it to the enclosure. I needed to do this in order to clear coat the whole thing together. So in the meantime I'll drill. What I do every time I build a pedal it print the artwork and use it as a drill template. This method leaves very little confusion. Then as I drill I test fit each component with the corresponding hole. With this one I used an irregular drill patter for the pots and knobs. So this means i had to measure and mark the enclose where the in and out jacks were going to go. It's a bit of a process but in the end, if you take your time then it will come out looking good.

I also decided that while i was drilling I would throw a couple layers of clear coat on the face plate. I use just the Ace Hardware quick drying Lacquer. This stuff works great and I always a nice even finish. Here are a bunch pictures for you.

First I print the artwork again and sized it to the face plate.Then I tapped it onto the enclosure with 3M blue painters tape.

Then I use a center punch to mark the holes i need to drill. There are 7 holes in the face of the pedal, 2 holes in the top for the Input and Output jacks, and one in the right side for the DC jack. The weird looking drill bit below is called a "stepper bit". I works amazingly well for cutting nice smooth holes in aluminium. I use this one for bigger components (like stomp switches and larger DC jacks) and a smaller one for pilot holes and smaller components ( such as LEDs and toggle switches).

This is a picture of a "Test fit". So this is what it will look like with all the components installed. Non of these are actually connected inside, I just put extra parts in there to get a feel of how it will look. once it is all together.

 Here is a picture showing you what I use for clear coat. I have a pretty ghetto set up. It is a Webber grease try tin on a box with a plastic cake lid to protect the stuff I paint / clear coat from dust. It works pretty well so I have no need for a fancy painting system.

This is what the face plate looks like after 2 layers of clear coat. NICE!!!

More to come soon guys. Thanks for reading.

-Mike-

FINAL UPDATE


More progress made!!! YAY! I affixed the face plate to the enclosure with a very thin layer of epoxy. they applied one final layer of clear coat and let it dry. Once it was dry I started to box it up here is some of the process.

I decided to use an optical bypass board on this build. It eliminates any popping that might happen with a 3pdt bypass switch. The optical bypass uses a DPDT switch and an optocoupler to shunt the pop.

Here is the face plate on the enclosure. There are 2 LED bezels on there but other than that nothing else is in place yet

This is how I start the wiring process (which I hate). I leave the switch board unattached and wire the DC and audio jacks to it then I mount it to the enclosure. It makes it a little easierer but not much.

This is a final gut shot. I will post the face once I get the knobs for it. They are on their way to me now. I hope I get them in time....

Thanks for reading again. I'll do a final build report once it is done.

-Mike-