What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

Work, work, work! Earlier this year I had the chance to meet the guy who runs the John Mayer Gear insta at Colombia. A REALLY cool guy. I gave him a Continuum and a few weeks ago he made a post covering a JM solo using it and the international sales took off. More than 20 units sold at Reverb in 10 days. I’m tired? For sure! But I’m really happy, the timing was really great, because a few days before I just discovered that my partner is pregnant, so with the baby on the way I need money for a ton of diapers.

Happy times!View attachment 102402
Many congratulations, Guilherme.
 
What kind of preamp is it? Or did that get forgotten too?
It's "inspired by" the Booya! Amplifiers Filament preamp. It's basically a very slightly tweaked Alembic F-2B preamp with a cathodyne phase inverter providing the balanced output, so you get a transformerless tube D.I. output on the XLR. Ironically the part values I had on hand made it better suited for guitar as it shaved some low end, but also it already uses 12AX7 so it can get a nice bit of hair on it as well.
 
It's "inspired by" the Booya! Amplifiers Filament preamp. It's basically a very slightly tweaked Alembic F-2B preamp with a cathodyne phase inverter providing the balanced output, so you get a transformerless tube D.I. output on the XLR. Ironically the part values I had on hand made it better suited for guitar as it shaved some low end, but also it already uses 12AX7 so it can get a nice bit of hair on it as well.
So it’s more or less a Particle Accelerator with a tube DI output?
 
Finished an Aion Karkadann with the borrowed I/O PCB design from @Audandash. Worked out pretty well!

The sound is quite a bit brighter than my Way Huge Green Rhino MkV when compared side-by-side.

Edit: later found out that C6 was an incorrect value in the original documentation and Aion published an update to change it to 220n. After doing the swap, the pedal sounds a lot better and the noise was reduced significantly.

Karkadann IMG_1148.jpeg Karkadann IMG_1149.jpeg
 
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not a comment on your I/o boards as they are lovely but general musing... ,

It's a wee bit crazy we take the signal from one end of the enclosure and back again twice - I guess the solution would be an I/o board with a latching relay and then going straight into the effect board at the top end, and then just the wires for a momentary footswitch go to the other end...
 
not a comment on your I/o boards as they are lovely but general musing... ,

It's a wee bit crazy we take the signal from one end of the enclosure and back again twice - I guess the solution would be an I/o board with a latching relay and then going straight into the effect board at the top end, and then just the wires for a momentary footswitch go to the other end...
My preferred solution is as unfashionable as it gets: side jacks and no bypass switch, or at most a well placed toggle and not a footswitch … ;)

I’ll show myself out now!
 
Work, work, work! Earlier this year I had the chance to meet the guy who runs the John Mayer Gear insta at Colombia. A REALLY cool guy. I gave him a Continuum and a few weeks ago he made a post covering a JM solo using it and the international sales took off. More than 20 units sold at Reverb in 10 days. I’m tired? For sure! But I’m really happy, the timing was really great, because a few days before I just discovered that my partner is pregnant, so with the baby on the way I need money for a ton of diapers.

Happy times!View attachment 102402
Congratulations on all fronts to you and your partner, my dude!
 
not a comment on your I/o boards as they are lovely but general musing... ,

It's a wee bit crazy we take the signal from one end of the enclosure and back again twice - I guess the solution would be an I/o board with a latching relay and then going straight into the effect board at the top end, and then just the wires for a momentary footswitch go to the other end...
Yep. Relays at the top makes the most sense. Right between the jacks. Then, when bypassed the signal is only traveling a short amount of trace, far away from the rest of the pedal circuit. Take the switch to the IO board(via 2 traces on the main PCB for tidiness. Attach IO board to main PCB via pin headers. The only wires in the entire pedal would be from the footswitch.
This is the IO board that's in my head that I'm unable to turn into a physical reality, yet.
 
My preferred solution is as unfashionable as it gets: side jacks and no bypass switch, or at most a well placed toggle and not a footswitch … ;)

I’ll show myself out now!
I sometimes question whether I can call my "sans bypass" builds pedals at all. My feet have never come in contact with my nobelium.

You're definitely on your own with the side jacks tho...
 
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