/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[EENC No.734910]

Guitar Effect Pedal building thread!
It's been a while since one of these has been up, so let's get talking, build sharing, or otherwise discussing guitar effect pedals and similar audio signal modifying projects!

This recent build of mine has been dubbed the "Fuzzy Caterpillar" because I simply could not think of anything better. It's a personal modification of Zachary Vexter's Fuzz Factory (FF schem will be posted in the next post). I used silicon transistors instead of germanium because I am a poor college student.

What have YOU build /diy/nosaurs?

As usual, if you don't know a whole lot about guitar effect pedal building, or designing, feel free to ask and learn!

[EENC No.734915]

>>734910
Okay, about that schematic I promised!

This is the Fuzz Factory schematic, designed by GFX guru Zachary Vexter. Smart guy, his design looks like someone took the Fuzz Face idea of two transistors wired in sequence (like a Darlington transistor pair) and put potentiometers all over the place to control every resistor you could possibly want to.

Just kidding, it's a pretty well thought out design, when built with silicons, it gives wild gain, and if tweaked enough, it can turn any signal sent into the pedal into completely incoherent noise (which I like).

[EENC No.734925]

>>734915

It's rather late in EST, so before I sign off, I'll dump a list of links that I believe will be rather helpful:
EDIT: Spam filter is being a nuisance, check this pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/Cxf31DFL


I may have forgotten a thing or two, feel free to append this list as you feel fit.

Good night everyone.
Here's a schematic of my own creation that I am currently building. Feel free to build one yourself, it's called the BASSSTAR, more on it tomorrow. I'll send some links to audio samples of it if anyone asks.

[EENC No.735219]

>>734925
Bumping with schematics!

Popular fuzz pedal, BIG MUFF.

[EENC No.735221]

>>735219
Aaaaaaaaaaand another!

A labelled Tube Screamer!
Happy building!

[Anonymous No.735241]

>>734910
building an analog synthesizer, wanted to add a good overdrive to it.. Looked around, all were opamp with clipping diodes.. or big muff ripoffs if discrete (which is very tricky to work with on a synthesizer. Oscillator's bleeding makes the unit sound at -30 dB when not pressing a note)
So i modified a couple of schematics (didn't want to bother with choosing values) and what i came up with is a 2 stage bjt amp and a third stage with tone control.
I tried various trannies, BC108 were the one with the best distortion (though the best clean tone was with 2n3904, believe it or not.)
breadboarded the circuit, tried with two oscillators. At the correct settings it was so damn aggressive, distorted just like an okay tube pre. Needless to say, i was really impressed.
This weekend i will try it with a guitar and drums to see if it sounds as good, though in that case i will have to add a final stage to attenuate the output (modular synths levels are +/- 5 V).
Of course i'll release the schematics once everything is done

[Anonymous No.735242]

>>734925
can i ask you why the 3906 is wired like that? isn't it reverse biased?

[Anonymous No.735248]

>>734925
also the first NPN as common emitter with no emitter resistor...
Can you explain?

[Anonymous No.735251]

I've seen so many threads and so many schematics i don't pay attention anymore unless the user posts a sound demo along the pictures/schematics/explanations.

[Anonymous No.735262]

>>735251
this entirely.

[Anonymous No.735315]

Can someone point me to some decent resources to learn electricity, sautering, etc?

I want to start building/modifying my own pedals and would preferably like to learn the absolute rudiments before i start investing in kits and everything else. Of course the best way to learn is by experience obviously but i'd at least like to know what i'm getting into.

[Anonymous No.735361]

>>735315
freestompboxes

log in and happy build

[EENC No.735637]

>>735242
That was my mistake, I accidentally drew them upside down.
>>735248
Yes, I shamelessly stole that idea from the schematic posted above, at >>734915
it's a tweak on Zachary Vex's input NPN transistor stage.
>>735262
>>735251
www.soundcloud.com/eenc/
My two BASSSTAR uploads are the two most recent, plainly labelled. Give them a listen and decide if it's something you'd like to build.

>>735315
Check the pastebin
http://pastebin.com/Cxf31DFL
Also, check >>735361.

Here's a simple schematic of an easy design, one of my first builds, got it from a blog run by a guy who goes by Dino, cool dude.

[Anonymous No.735642]

>>735637
Dude might be cool, but that design is poop.

[EENC No.735650]

>>735315
FYI, the best way to begin is probably to build simple clones. If you really want to get easy with it, go on instructables.com and look at a maker named Randofo, he makes a lot of guitar FX pedals and has some pretty handy tutorials, although he is often lacking in well documented circuits they're bound to please.
In specific, this pedal should be extremely easy to create:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Overdrive-Pedal/

>>735241
I do find that hard to believe, 2N3904s give me unbelievably harsh clipping at times, but circuitry is a magical science all of it's own.
I'm super interested in your design though, I'd love to see the schematics and perhaps a demo track when you finish!
Good luck and happy building!

Speaking of synths, here's a little ditty I snagged a while ago after seeing a Mooer pedal called "Slow Train".

[EENC No.735652]

>>735642
I agree with you, this thing doesn't have much going for it besides simplicity. I much prefer the Australian designed EA Tremolo as far as those go. But for a first build that does something a tad different from your basic fuzz face clone, you can't get much better.

Speaking of the EA Tremolo, you can find the schem here:
http://tonepad.com/project.asp?id=71

Tonepad is an awesome resource for building clones.

To make it a little more complicated, here are some various LFO designs. I like to work with them for the sake of new and interesting effects. I've been meaning to design a pedal that uses an VCO driven by the input signal from a guitar to create a vibey tremolo effect.

Still putzing around with the theory stage.
If anyone has any ideas on that topic I'd love to hear them.

[Anonymous No.735664]

>>735637
>it's a tweak on Zachary Vex's input NPN transistor stage
yeah but with no emitter resistor it may go into thermal runaway

[Anonymous No.735666]

>>735650
i guess it might have to do with the circuit.
in my circuit when keeping it clean the 2n3904s would give the signal a nice bottom touch (expecially on drums) *kinda* like a clean twin. Of course it was not like a twin, but you got the point. but when distorting the result was really cheap

i might have some test recording left on my hdd. I'll look

[Anonymous No.735720]

>>735361
>>735637
>>735650
Thanks guys, tried asking the same question in mu a few times but the fuckers are useless.

Is there anything else i should consider in startup costs other than a sautering iron and whatever is included in some of the beginner's kits?

[EENC No.735758]

>>735664
Hmmm, I had not considered that.
I've never had thermal runaway damage a transistor on a circuit that runs on +9V, but I suppose if someone was playing it for a long time, damage could occur.

I'll play around with some resistor values tonight. Thanks for the tip anon, have you had experience with that problem before?

>>735720
A cheap pencil soldering iron kit that includes your basic necessities (soldering iron, solder, iron holder) will run you anywhere from $15-$20.

After that you'll need parts.
I usually buy them from here:
>taydaelectronics.com
Predrilled board: $3
Various capacitors/resistors/transistors: $1-$5
Aluminum enclosure: $6
Stomp switch: $3
Wire: Usually $0.15-$0.50/ft

You're probably going to need a drill or a dremel tool in addition to a soldering iron, a pair of needlenose pliers, wire strippers, and wire cutters.

[Anonymous No.735944]

>>735758
Thanks a lot man, i got some learnin to do, this should be plenty to get me started.

>tfw asked mu and all i got was 14 replies telling me guitar music is dead

[Anonymous No.735979]

>>735758
no, but whhy risk? Also, that are other "advantages" in using the emitter resistor. DC gain is reduced because it acts like a feedback resistor, so the amp gain will be less dependant on that particular transistor's beta. Adding a feedback path changes the frequency responce and makes it more linear (if you want linearity) And of course if you want the full gain of the transistor for AC... just add a capacitor in shunt with the resistor in the order of the 10-100u

[Anonymous No.736009]

>>735979
Considering the power level, biasing the base from collector makes it more than stable enough.
Nonlinearity is probably welcome, it's a guitar pedal after all.

[Anonymous No.736010]

Here's a few tips on perfboard.

It can be just as fun to put together as vero or PCB.

Its just like point-to-point wiring, except you have a backplane for support.

It can be squeezed into a more efficient space than vero with less work.

When you want to cut perf or vero board, take an exact-o or box cutter, or any other sharp blade, and pull it back straight across the TOP of the board, across any metal pads or metal traces, so that the tip is running through the center of the holes. Just one good drag across, and then set the board with the cut up on the edge of a counter, and hold the side on the counter down, then bang the other side. If you do it right, it should snap cleanly off, produce very little to no fiber dust, and look pretty nice. This is much better than cutting it with scissors or wire cutters or anything like that, which produces a lot of crushed flaking at the compressed edge.

Vero and perf can look pro.

[Anonymous No.736074]

>>736009
There's a shit ton of old "stompbox cookbooks" out there from the 70-80's in .pdf form that can get you the kind of non linera distortions you want. Typically, most distortion that comes from very simple transistor pedal is going to be sharp fuzz distortion because of how little current they draw. They're able to hold true to the input until they hit the voltage limit and then they cap hard.

The reason people like tube distortion is because as the amplification goes beyond the voltage the system is designed for, sag is introduced which allows tubes to continue amplifying but much less linearly.

Any "tube distortion" transistor circuit worth it's salt will be emulating the exponential loss of linearity that creates a nice U curve at the top and bottom of sine waves.

In most cases, when you design a stomp box purely for distortion, it's really all the same and frequency response differentiates two builds.

[Anonymous No.736108]

>>736010
is this just solder wire melted at connections or something else?

[Anonymous No.736126]

>>736108
Yes. you can do that by hand with solder and bent leads from components or bus wire.

[Anonymous No.736134]

>>736074
>because of how little current they draw.

The transistor runs on current. The tube runs on very little current draw, so even when a tube goes into extreme ends of amplification, some of the voltage can be compensated by increased current from the voltage source. The transistor goes into sharp cutoff because it just hits the rails easily.

[Anonymous No.736192]

here's a voltage sag pedal I made, has a bypass and sagged output, it makes a lot of analog pedals and makes them do weird Shit, its the second one I have made. can post schematic if someone is interested.

[EENC No.736204]

>>736192
Looks neat, what do you typically use it with?
Schem would be great!

[Anonymous No.736214]

>>735944

AHAHAHA long live the synth amirite folks

fuckin /mu/

[Anonymous No.736254]

>>736204
well it mostly gets used with my friends big muff,gave it a real nice sustain sound, the tone and volume on my guitar actually did more to the fuzz than before, but I've used it with an mxr compressor pedal. the site I got the idea from (beavisaudioresearch) (has someone with a vibrato pedal using it to change the depth of the vibe. I don't have the schematic on my phone, so I will post it when I get home. for now, have a picture of what it started as, which was the first thing I've ever put together electronics and pedal wise.

[Anonymous No.736411]

Pic related. Here's a fuzz pedal I'm working on. It's sounding pretty good, but it could still be worked on, particularly the fine details. Anyway, it's based around the dead simple bazz fuzz. Is it overkill? Maybe, but I like it. In any case, I'm working on the EQ now.

Seeing as you all want sound clips, let it be (all at full volume):
>https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tj9y87y3istdjye/AAA42AKCfMJJaO59q3OJxmNxa?dl=0

[Anonymous No.736514]

>>736192
>>736254

The question I'd have to ask is does it dynamically starve?

I'd think what you want is an input that is already starved or low on voltage, that has some exponential decaying rise/drop in voltage as the sine wave attempts to reach the peaks +/-. It would be a misnomer to call this a starving pedal, but rather an extra juice pedal, something that'll raise the rail limits from 8v to 9v, say when the amplification wants to go to 10v, and then from 9v to 10v when the amplification wants to go to 12v.

[Anonymous No.736516]

>>736254
Your hands look olddd what are you 80? gross perv get off 4chan old fag.

[Anonymous No.736542]

bump

[Anonymous No.737016]

>>736516
he might just be a guy who works for a living.

[Anonymous No.737137]

>>737016
that's what happens when your hands are covered in hydraulic fluid all day, I'm 22 you cock fag
>>736516
yes, that's exactly right.

I still have not gotten to posting the schematic for my box yet, so have a photo if the board to sate your needs for the time being. I ended up snipping out the regulator because I did my math wrong, so no conditioned power for youuuu

[Anonymous No.737478]

Built a couple of Matsumin ValveCasters a while back. Pic related.

[Anonymous No.737480]

>>737478
finished product

[Anonymous No.737488]

>>736204
Here be that thar schematic you wanted. The pot labeled TRMpot sets the the minimum voltage coming out of the box, just don't exceed 9 volts, i think you will fry the L.E.D.s, but that wouldn't be a concern if you took them out.

[Anonymous No.737618]

>>737480
Hiding that tube is a crime.

[Anonymous No.737628]

>>737618
It certainly isn't, particularly on a fucking stomp box.

[Anonymous No.737639]

>>737478
Are there plate characteristics curves for these crazy low voltages?

It's kinda neat that the gain is actually adjusting the bias of the stage.

[Anonymous No.738943]

Bump

[EENC No.739972]

Bumping!

Just finished this semesters's finals, and then the funeral of a friend, and now I'm back to work!

As an attempt to stave off the depression as a result of losing a loved one, I built a clone of Craig Anderson's Red Llama, (see pic).

I also built the earlier mentioned BASSSTAR, >>734925
>>735637
pics soon to come, sounds great, customer loved it.

[EENC No.740074]

>>739972
Something to mention about the schematic I posted there, Craig Anderson, the creator, supposedly said that the input resistor should likely be raised to 220k or 470k depending on the pickups of the instrument the effect is played through.

I am by no means an expert on the topic of instrument pickups, but I have seen that sort of modification being necessary in a few of my own designs.

As for the pedal itself, it sounds excellent, very clean when the fuzz is turned down, very cool sound when the fuzz is turned up, supposedly, like a tube(?). I've never built a tube starve pedal before, but after seeing >>737478 I've decided I will build that schem. Will post pictures as I build it.

[Anonymous No.741311]

Hi /gepb/!

Is there any information regarding what different electrical components do to affect the sound.

I've studied electronics back in high school but I don't understand how they affect sound. I understand that resistors and pots affect the signal strength but apart from that I don't understand much.

I hope to design my own pedals one day.

[Anonymous No.741320]

>>741311
http://www.beavisaudio.com/ is a good site to start with.

http://sound.westhost.com/beginners.htm is great, but more in-depth.

[Anonymous No.741322]

>>741320
Cool. Thanks!

[Anonymous No.742153]

>>740074
I have a few questions I feel you are equipped to answer.
I'm playing around with simple amplifier schematics and trying to understand how sound is amplified, what the problems are, how we circumvent them etc etc

Could you explain to me how you get an overdriven sound from driving up the volume and why people like to use gain pedals to drive their tube amps?

I thought that when a tube amp is getting max plate voltage it would sound slightly overdriven or messier because it's operating on its maximum capacity and that the sound is cleaner when the plate is getting less voltage. However what makes me confused is that people like to put gain pedals before their amp to 'drive the amp', but the guitar signal controls the grid right? Wouldn't a drive pedal then destroy the tube by pushing the voltage going to the grid too far?
Where is the potentiometer wired that connects to the gain knob on an amp?

I'd very much appreciate it if you took the time to answer.

[Anonymous No.742493]

>>737618
or it help reduce hum...

[Anonymous No.742543]

>>742153
Here ya go, bud.
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/NEETS-Modules/NEETS-Module-06-1-1-1-10.htm

[Anonymous No.742755]

>>742543
Not sure if I'll find the answers I need but thanks anyway. I'm more specifically looking for anything documenting the audio properties of a tube.

[EENC No.742854]

>>742153
>>742755

To be honest, I'm as much as a novice as you may be when it comes to tube amplifiers. I'm teaching myself their ways from a book I found called "The Art of Electronics."
From what I know, which is rather cursory, tubes amplify by utilizing increasing voltages from the lower plates to the top plates. When the tube becomes oversaturated with signal (translated to increased power by gain pedals) it causes the tubes to act nonlinearly, making them distort audio.

As for technical documentation regarding the audio distortion properties of tubes, I'm really at a loss anon. I am still breaking into learning about them myself.

But if you find any useful material about them, please do post it here. I'll be doing a pic dump later about my latest build progress, and it'd be nice to get some more information floating around.

[Anonymous No.742872]

>>742854
I found this and it helped me loads.
http://mesaboogie.com/US/Smith/ClassA-WebVersion.htm

Still really confused, being a noob to electronics probably isn't helping. I want to experiment if not make a simple class-A tube amp over the holidays.

[Anonymous No.742955]

>>736074
>In most cases, when you design a stomp box purely for distortion, it's really all the same and frequency response differentiates two builds.

yes as far as I can tell there are only a handful of variables between these 1000s of pedals.

the first is eq, typically a low cut or boost or high cut or boost.

the second is the type of overdrive, basically just hard clipping or soft, exponential

then there's an optional second stage of filtering, with less variation.

it's seems like that's all there is to it. Have you seen the Omnidrive? That's what made me realize this.

Still it's all fun. It just makes me wonder why more people don't save time and money making an Omnidrive and instead fixate on this or that pedal which has a fixed frequency response. oh well back to my aspie cave now where I know and have all the answers and am not a famous musician.

[Anonymous No.743071]

>>736074
You nailed it! freq response *is* what generally differentiates overdrives, distortions, and fuzzes. That's why you see so much bullshit on the internet about this component or that component. Guitarists are too dumb to see through the marketing, and those that are smart enough to get into building pedals get hung up on "how does this transistor sound" or "where can i get the legit 4558's?"

BTW, jfet's are the way to go if you are looking for a pedal that sounds tubish at more than a few settings.

[Anonymous No.743083]

>>737478
+1 to a Valvecaster build. Also a Pez90..and building those got me hooked on wanting to design one myself, and that got me working on designing a unique pedal from scratch...to run a triode/full-wave rectifier combo tube as a gain and fuzz circuit...but also throwing in a Ge fuzz, Si fuzz and LED fuzz to boot...

Also, Eric Barbour is my hero for bucking conventional wisdom and exploring unheard of designs

[Anonymous No.743124]

>>743083
Use two 35w4s as diode clippers.

[Anonymous No.743125]

>>735637
Sounds like shit.

[Anonymous No.743195]

>>743124
Im not using line voltage, so I don't want to use a 35 volt tube. I want this to run off a same power supply as other pedals. My plan is to use a 12av6 with the plate starved at 9v like a Valvecaster.

[Anonymous No.743327]

>>735944
>>736214
guitar is oversaturated and overrated. for plebs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfjotHLozt4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW2og8_aypM

[Anonymous No.743336]

what if i just code my own pedals into a vst?

[EENC No.743558]

>>743125
Thanks, why don't you build something better and show it off?

>>743327
BRB looking up Electric Clavichord schematics.

[EENC No.743560]

>>743336
Totally doable. I met a guy who does that for a living, he was pretty friendly. He argued that the only thing keeping him from being more successful was the lack of musicians using VSTs on stage instead of physical pedals.

I'm sure if you built a durable enclosure for a VST that a musician could operate, you would be wildly successful.

[EENC No.743562]

>>742955
You sir, are onto something here.
I'll post the schematic so others can also see what's going on here, but it's a pretty freaking modular design! Many options, really boils down a lot of designs into one here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUPJwyQ9LY4

[Anonymous No.743573]

>>743560
You mean an interface with midi knobs? Shouldn't be hard at all, I'm surprised there's no commercially made device like that.

[Anonymous No.743602]

>>743560
>>743573
the idea of taking a footpedal pc on stage gives me the screaming heebies

[Anonymous No.743697]

>>743558
>Thanks, why don't you build something better and show it off?

That doesn't make it not sounds shit.

[Anonymous No.743876]

>>743697
His point is that he's trying and you're just criticizing without bringing anything to the table yourself.

>>743602
Should take up an IBM 5120, that's what I call heavy metal.

[Anonymous No.744056]

i posted this on another thread similar to this but i realized this one is exactly what can aid me
i do not come here ever. curious thought to propose to you guys who know what youre doing. is it possible to separate built in amp effects and turn them into pedals? i understand this would most likely dismantle the amp inactive after doing this, however I have many great built in effects i really enjoy on my amp and want to turn them into pedals for my larger cab and other uses. Is this possible? i did a ton of googling and i didnt find anything im looking for to help

[EENC No.744066]

>>744056
Yeah, you could definitely do that. It certainly be a challenge, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility.

I would argue that you could achieve the same effect by finding a schematic for your amplifier, and then recreating the effects on a separate board.

However, if you studied your amp (and hopefully a schematic) you could disassemble it, which would require you to cut traces on the circuit board built into the amp, drilling new holes to wire the voltage supply, input, output, and ground, and then mounting that in a box.

It's theoretically possible, here's a big schematics vault that will hopefully contain a helpful documentation of your amplifier.
>http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/tom/schematics.htm


Good luck!

I'm also looking for help, I've been suffering failure after failure creating (seemingly) simple circuitboards for my pedals on perfboards.
I've decided I need a rotary tool drill press so I can start making my own etched circuit boards again.

Does anyone use a drill press to drill holes for their etched boards?
What temperatures do you usually run your soldering irons at? (360 degrees Celsius here)

[EENC No.744068]

>>743602
>>743573

Yeah, that'd be basically it. An in/out device that could load virtual pedal software, all controllable by midi knobs. I mean, as a startup, it's a risk, but as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Anonymous No.744069]

>>743602
why not midi foot pedals? just sell one foot pedal that people can color code or whatever and then a simple DSP can add all the magic twangderp to the sound that you want? I've never understood why people pay so much for that faggotry.

[Anonymous No.744187]

>>744066
thanks dude. cool site too, hopefully it can be some huge use once i learn some more

[EENC No.744289]

>>744069
You raise a great point, with the recent advancements in DSPs, it would be theoretically possible to create a DSP pedal with all of the popular effects, and recreate them all with programming. But I believe the reason why musicians are still reliant on the antiquated design of footpedals despite their obvious limitations and draw backs is due to the unique novelty of them, also, the limitations allow for the musician to feel unfettered by too much freedom.

I'm serious, having less freedom sometimes makes things easier for people. Too many options and choices can be intimidating, and a footpedal with a few knobs and settings can provide just enough freedom for a musician as well as a unique range without restricting them too much.

But that's just my two cents, I'd gladly humor someone else's opinion too.

>>744187
Hey that's great anon, I'm really glad it helped. Good luck!

[Anonymous No.744674]

>>743562
>>744066

thanks man.

The arms race of programmable guitar DSP pedals has been growing. ToneCore from Lien6 was great, but only worked on WinXP (srsly). I made a cool design based on the 72 MHz Leaflabs's Maple and Open Hardware Labs Audio Codec Shield, but then the kickstarter Hoxton Owl made the same thing with an STM32F4 and 24 or 16-bit codec so I abandoned mine. But the Owl is a pain in the ass to program. Still it's easy to put effects into it via USB without programming.

A more recent kickstarter I supported is Mod Duo:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modduo/mod-duo-the-limitless-multi-effects-pedal

Although it was successful, I'm surprised it only has 271 takers. It should really have about 2,000,000.

I have pondered for years why reconfigurable pedals aren't as popular as they could/should be.

I think the intangibility of the software changing simply doesn't comply with player's expectations. Players don't have time or desire to fiddle with things like studio engineers or developers. I think they'd rather get to know something stable over months than tweak parameters.

I've also found that in experimental pedals, part of the challenge/difficulty of the design is getting the knobs into the correct region. We take it for granted that traditional, classic guitar pedals all have reasonable knobs settings, but with newer FX, it's hard to know where to put the most range for a parameter, e.g. log or linear, 1/x, etc?

With many of the DSP fx I've designed, it's very easy to turn knobs and get them into states that sound bad or don't even make any noise at all. it takes a whole second layer of design refinement to herd the knob ranges into useful zones.

Those kinds of things just get in the way and drive musicians crazy.

Finally, the fact that traditional guitar pedals all look different helps musicians figure out what is doing what. When programmables all look the same, you can't know what software is inside!

[Anonymous No.744710]

>>743876
It sounds like shit.

[Anonymous No.746394]

Hey guys.

I'm wanting to get into building effects pedals and maybe some kind of homemade syth at a later stage.
Can someone please point me in the right direction for a nice easy starter pedal, maybe include a schematic and any tips for total beginner?
I have done a few bits of simple soldering so I'm hoping I will be competent enough for that although I have a breadboard so I could make it up on that first.

[Anonymous No.746454]

>>746394
Here's a great site of you want to build a guitar pedal using an already made PCB. He also includes the schematics to all the projects (just click on the names): http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/index.html

Build Guide: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/downloads/BabyBoardGuide.pdf

[Anonymous No.746561]

>>746454
Thanks that looks like it might be a good place to start along with what others have posted above. The pedal breakdowns are really informative so I guess I can just copy a part of a circuit say the gain and work out how to put the inputs and outputs on the circuit along with a 9v supply and I have a simple gain pedal, that'd be a good start right? Could I build each part independently from the next and then link them all together using 1/4 jacks?
My first kit was a printed board sound generator which I managed to make easy enough first time. Everything since then has been on stripboard and not worked, I think maybe my soldering isn't very good yet and has bridged the strips. Is the tip on my soldering iron too big?

[Anonymous No.746562]

>>746561
Underside for reference on soldering

[Anonymous No.746564]

>>746562
Soldering tip size and solder

[Anonymous No.746722]

>>746561
>I can just copy a part of a circuit say the gain and work out how to put the inputs and outputs on the circuit along with a 9v supply and I have a simple gain pedal, that'd be a good start right?
Unless you really know how the circuit works, I'd recommending breadboarding to test it first, but in short, yes, it's possible. To quote my electronics instructor, "It looked so good on paper!"

>Could I build each part independently from the next and then link them all together using 1/4 jacks?
Yes, but do you mean from the same pedal? Unless I'm missing something, I don't see why you'd do that.

>Is the tip on my soldering iron too big?
I think the size is fine, but the tip itself looks pretty shoddy. Do you clean it?

[Anonymous No.746855]

>>746564
Eccch! Look at all those long leads sticking out and just waiting for the first opportunity to short. Get yourself some snips and clean up that mess.

[Anonymous No.746998]

>>743071
We can't forget the importance of aesthetics when it comes to designing pedals. That tricks people's ears too

[Anonymous No.747048]

>>746722
Well the idea of just building say the gain part of a pedal was to build a part and understand how that works on its own, but also to understand how to wire in the inputs, outputs, pots, led etc. I realise I could just breadboard all the parts and then put them together in a box, but just thought as a begginer maybe building a gain pedal, and a filter pedal might be something I could acheave and build.

>>746855
They've all been trimmed back now, that's as short as I could get them with the wire snips I ordered...have some new ones now that get in close

Thanks for the replies chaps

[Anonymous No.747062]

>>747048
Damn what was you using to cut before, pic related?

[Anonymous No.747081]

>>747062

These (pic related) I obviously ordered the wrong cutters

[Anonymous No.747203]

>>747081
Get a pair of dikes.

A toenail clipper will work in a pinch. Also round tip needle nose pliers fit into small areas and can cut wire.

Your vero board looks to not have enough traces cut. Any components connected to a strip will be continuous. I cut the traces with a couple passes of a utility knife, but there may be better methods mentioned. It looks ike you have simply drilled two holes.

I double check my work with a schematic, layout, and multimeter testing continuity. There cannot be inconsistencies with your schematic. Make sure nothing there's nothing continuous isn't supposed to be, double check polarized component/transistor/ic facing, check voltages and cross reference that they are reaching only the correct areas.

[Anonymous No.747206]

So do any of you actually have any builds done + any videos/demos?

[Anonymous No.747210]

I do tech work for Dan Auerbach, if any of you have custom made in the USA builds you could demo for us we'd be interested in picking up a few for our new album.

[Anonymous No.747243]

>>747203
I have a pair of these now that seem to work pic related

I understood that drilling a hole was how to cut traces I made sure that when drilling the hole it's right across the strip. Is this not right then?

[Anonymous No.747253]

>>747243
It's acceptable. Which ever works best. Your board may weaken on some of the builds with numerous holes.

[Anonymous No.747328]

What'd be a good pedal for a begginer to start building? I want to build my own pedals to make noisy noise.

[Anonymous No.747338]

>>747203
There are tools designed specially for cutting stripboard tracks, but they're essentially a drill bit with a handle.

[Anonymous No.747340]

>>747203
>>747243
>>747338
I should add that you're supposed to just scrape off the copper, not drill through the whole board.

[Anonymous No.747364]

>>747338
avoid just using a drill bit.
you don't get much grip on just the shank if its oily, trying to grip the flutes of a sharp bit is a very bad idea.

I got through a good 10-15 holes before i noticed the blood dripping.

[Anonymous No.748977]

bump for potentially cool pedal project

[Anonymous No.749029]

>>747364
Put it on a handle or use a pin vice (I think that's the correct term).

[Anonymous No.749102]

>>747338
>>747340
>>747364
stuff like this is what the flex shaft for rotary tools is for, you have precision control and just set it on a low speed with a small bit or burr and it takes like a second per hole, I use it to widen small holes on some perf boards for shit like bridge rectifiers and stuff with fat legs

[EENC No.749934]

>>748977
I've got a lot on my plate now, but I really like that design, especially considering how dirty the LM386 sounds, I think it's interesting that the 386 doesn't have the gain capacitor in between pins 1 and 8, but instead is jumpered, also, optoisolator, hilarious. I ought to build one sometime. I'm building a drill press:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Mini-Drill-Press/

I figured in the true DIY spirit I would make my own instead of buying one. I also came to this decision because the difference between nice drill presses and cheap ones is too large for me to settle for a cheap model.