Guitar/Bass Effects Pedals

[Cerpin Taxt]

Ha! I built a similar pedal board out of wood slats. It's too freakin heavy to move though

This one isn't actually that bad, and it basically comes pre-assembled from Ikea. They sell a two pack like this:

So I just took one of them apart for some extra wood, made a little riser in the rear to give it an angle, and slapped the velcro on it. Piece of cake.

I've had this Tonebender clone fuzz for over a decade. It's my secret sauce:

I have the original purple one though with the hard to find germanium transistors. I think they switched to silicon in the last several years. It's noisy as hell though, so I have to run it with a Boss NS-1 suppressor.

I listened to some demos of that bad boy on YouTube and it sounds great. The Hairy Pussy also uses germanium diodes, and it sounds incredible. I'd never used a fuzz pedal before -- my amp does some pretty great high gain tube distortion to my ears -- so I never really figured I'd want or need one. I guess I didn't know what I was missing, cuz I love me some Hairy Pussy. :awe:

Now I have parts on the way to assemble an analog chorus clone of the Boss CE-2 to replace the CE-5 on my board. The CE-5 isn't terrible, but the CE-2 is much warmer and classic sounding, IMO... and I'm just looking for another DIY pedal project.

 

[nakedfrog]

All I have is an old Korg AX100G. I'm pretty sure I have an old distortion pedal and maybe a flanger around here somewhere, but damned if I can find them.
Given that I'm playing acoustic 97% of the time, good enough for now. I did finally sell my old Cort in favor of an SX Hawk this year, and I'm pretty happy with that when I do plug in. It came with Hot Rails in the bridge position.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Yeah, yeah... this thread is back again...

I finished the build of my Superfuzz clone:

You need this along side your HP

 

[mrrman]

I have the PODHD500....cool unit

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

All I have is an old Korg AX100G. I'm pretty sure I have an old distortion pedal and maybe a flanger around here somewhere, but damned if I can find them.
Given that I'm playing acoustic 97% of the time, good enough for now. I did finally sell my old Cort in favor of an SX Hawk this year, and I'm pretty happy with that when I do plug in. It came with Hot Rails in the bridge position.

I think I mentioned somewhere earlier in the thread that I own a Korg AX30G and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it. It's pretty good at doing its job, and I've had it for approaching 20 years.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

You need this along side your HP

Haha

The Boss GE-7 on my board was modified by a guy who called his mod the "Sniper mod," hence the army green paint job. I use it as a clean boost to give my tone some extra oomph when I need it. I kinda wanted to call it the "Hard On," but the dark paint will probably make any lettering hard to see anyway. I think instead I'll just put a rifle scope reticle on it or something.

 

[slightlyhuman]

Don't have an up close picture for now but I took this last week.

Currently using an m13 with the 4 cable method. Also dabbling with the sampler pinnacle deluxe and hot wire v2 right now. I think I like the pinnacle better for that brown sound.

M13 thus far is the best purchase I've ever made as far as pedals go.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Really dig the Jimi flag strat. I think I remember your thread about that before.

Also in other news, I'm nearly finished with a 2nd DIY pedal project. This time it's a clone of the Boss CE-2. The PCB is populated and the decal design is almost finished. I realized after the fact that I forgot to order the actual footswitch, though. I might be able to source one locally, but work is sending me out of town unexpectedly, so I won't be able to finish it till I return.

 

[slightlyhuman]

Any nano board lovers here? Currently waiting on some new orders to get here so I can start a nano board project.

#GAS

 

[William Gaatjes]

This thread would not be complete without some Morley love. :awe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eHFHU4Knw4

Nice to see the circuit inside. The pedal controls the effect by blocking more or less light to a Light Dependent Resistor. Changing the resistance and thereby the effect. That is a neat idea to prevent cracking potentiometers.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Nice to see the circuit inside. The pedal controls the effect by blocking more or less light to a Light Dependent Resistor. Changing the resistance and thereby the effect. That is a neat idea to prevent cracking potentiometers.

There's another DIY pedal project I'm researching for a tremolo unit that uses an optocoupler.

 

[William Gaatjes]

If you want low noise, a good old NE5534 is a good opamp.
De NE5532 is a dual version. This opamp works best with a split powersupply, but will function with a single powersupply with a half rail bias. But the latter solution requires more capacitors and can cause phase variance when chosen badly.

http://www.ti.com/product/ne5532

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Had a fun little adventure in Walla Walla, WA yesterday that started unexpectedly when I went to Radio Shack to pick up a charger for my phone. I'm also in need of a 3PDT foot switch because I forgot to order it with the rest of the stuff for my chorus pedal build. Asked the guy, but of course they didn't have it. He recommended an eclectic music store in town called "Hot Poop."

Weird place, all jumbled with stacks and bins of old vinyl records filling one half of the store, and then rows and rows of guitars hanging in the other side. Asked the owner there, but he didn't have the foot switch either. "Try Blazing Guitars," he says.

So, I run over to Blazing Guitars, meet the owner -- a cool old rocker with tattooed arms and spiked hair. He's really trying to help me out and even took apart a Fender amp foot switch to sell it to me, but it wasn't 3-pole.

He and I were sifting through a small glass case with other effects pedals looking for another disassembly candidate and just generally rapping about gear when I spotted in the back corner a Danelectro Cool Cat tremolo pedal, and he's only asking $35 for it.

I get him to pull it out and hook it up, and sure enough it sounds pretty great. It's the newer style Danelectro pedal -- metal enclosure, not plastic, and true bypass switching. For $35 I couldn't walk out of there without it.

Unfortunately I'm stuck here till Friday afternoon so I can't hook it up to my rig till Saturday. I may decide to transplant the guts of this thing into another enclosure, though. It's kinda got a hokey look to it, but that's about the only complaint I have.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

The Dano Cool Cat Chorus pedal (18v) is a killer Chorus pedal (imho)

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Oh yeah, from what I've read, a lot of the Dano pedals do some great tones at great prices. I was pleased to see they're delivering a more sturdy build but still kinda put off by the aesthetic.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Still going... :awe:

Finished my build of the Boss CE-2 Chorus clone.

No guts-shot picture because everything is kinda in there just perfectly right now. I had some problems with the LFO inducing a clicking noise in the signal, even in bypass. Usually, some shielded wire will do the trick, but after installing it, the clicking remained. I kinda toyed with the routing of the wires and got everything set in there just so and now I don't wanna open it up again.

Sounds great now, though -- a real warm analog chorus tone. I'm going out of town for the week this week, but I should be able to record some sound clips of my two DIY pedals after I get back.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Took a guts shot this morning so I could show it off on a DIY pedals forum. Totally not bumping it for the morning crew, I swear. :awe:

 

[Fritzo]

Ordered a box full of fun for my Les Paul over the weekend. Can't wait:

This guy is going to have a whole new look and sound

 

[Rubycon]

Nice to see the circuit inside. The pedal controls the effect by blocking more or less light to a Light Dependent Resistor. Changing the resistance and thereby the effect. That is a neat idea to prevent cracking potentiometers.

Old school optoisolation! :awe:

 

[KillerBee]

What the hell - how have I missed this thread?

 

[Fritzo]

What the hell - how have I missed this thread?

Crap! He's on to us fellas! Grab what you can and meet at the safehouse!

 

[KillerBee]

This guy is going to have a whole new look and sound

Now I need to go check that my case isn't empty and someone stole my guitar

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Built a few new clone pedals. Only one of them has a finished enclosure, though. Still working on designs for the others (a ProCo Rat clone, and a Tubescreamer clone).

This is a Fuzz Face clone, featuring legit AC128 PNP germanium transistors:

 

[KillerBee]

Just got my original 70's Cry-baby sounding brand new again.

Had to open up the pot (no holes to spray it out ) but ended up using sand paper to get all the crud off the ring.

Hopefully it won't rust out :$ but sounds good for now though.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I guess I never posted pics of another clone pedal I finished -- or should I say, "Klone."

This is a clone of the legendary Klon Centaur.

Using a transparent decal was a bit of a mistake here. The paint on the enclosure becomes the background to the image and skews all the colors accordingly (which were printed assuming white paper background).

I may sand it off and get some decal paper with a white background, and then just color-match the enclosure paint, but it's serviceable as-is for now.

Naturally, for a pedal otherwise held in such high esteem, I had to get a little ridiculous with the theme.