SchlegFace
Active member
In 2022 I hit my personal best of 14 pedals on the year. I ended December with a mad dash to eclipse my goal of 12, one per month. I followed that up with a pretty tame 2023, maybe hitting 8 total builds. Again in December I had another burst of activity, and so far that has carried into 2024. Below are the product of the last month and change of my builds.
Madbean VFE MiniMu
First up, I finally got around to finishing up my MiniMu in December that I had started mid 2023. Between the relay switching and the actual circuit, it felt more like keeping track of a combo build rather than just a single pedal. I believe I was able get get everything I needed between Tayda and Digikey on this one, was lucky to find all the highly specific parts between the two. The build calls for two DPDT On/On/On switches and there has been some confusion as to if they were supposed to be Type 1 or Type 2. I tested things out and wired in some switches as both styles and can state that either will work, but Type 2 is the intended switch for this circuit (just in case any other confused soul may be in search of this info). Other than that question, once I got around to building, this thing turned out pretty fun. I like taking puns TO THE MAXX!!! so obviously I found an AI "artwork" of a cow in the style of TRON and plopped her onto a TRON looking background and made everything blue. If you're looking for funky, this thing delivers!
Lizard Queen
I too got into the Lizard Queen hype of 2023 and built one up when the vero layouts started to be released. It sat in a box waiting to be put in an enclosure, but I didn't know what to call it or how to decorate it. Again, I like to take a joke too far, so I thought for a while about other royal titles and powerful things, and landed on his Noodley-ness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I present to you the Linguine King, complete with homemade FSM epoxy dome sticker and teeny tiny googley eyes! To finish it off I chose the big old brown cupcake style knobs to imitate meatballs. All in all, I think the Lizard Queen is a fun DIY project and sounds pretty decent on bass when accompanied by a clean blend.
Blender
Speaking of clean blend, I have been meaning to make a clean blend box for a while now. I love love love the JMK Panner and will pop that bad boy in anything that comes to mind. So I set out to make a blend box for all those pre-made unblended pedals out there. I decided to add in the pickup simulator from the front end of the AION Penumbra PCB so that it would play well with picky fuzzes. Plans are in the works for eventually adding a phase inverter as well so that this box will be able to tackle any possible scenario. So far it has worked great with everything I have thrown at it, my favorite being the Parasit Studio 8-Bitar. I made another epoxy dome sticker for this pedal. They are kinda fun to make and have given me another tool in my decorating arsenal.
Wooly Mammoth
Did I mention I love the JMK Panner? I built a Snuffy that I was going to give someone last summer, but changed my mind and built them something completely different. The Snuffy sat in a cardboard box for quite a while until a couple weeks ago I decided I just needed to finish it up. I contacted a friend and offered it to them on the condition that they had to tell me what kind of artwork they wanted on the pedal. Her response was tie-dye with yelllow knobs, so I was off to the races. I added the AION pickup simulator and JMK Panner to this bad boy for some clean blend action underneath the fuzzy madness.
Twenty Two Sevenths
Like many, I have been obsessed with finding the perfect Big Muff for me for quite some time. The first time I heard Robert Sledge's tone on the Ben Folds Five song Kate, I just had to figure out what he was using to get that sound. That following Christmas I became the proud owner of a late stage black Russian BMP that I eventually left at a friend's place out of late night drunken laziness
. Anyway, when I find a new flavor of Muff I am always intrigued. I had been building a lot of stuff from Parasit lately and enjoyed how circuits using CD40XX chips sounded. I ran across the ROG site and the 22/7 one day and made a mental note that I would eventually need to build one. Fast forward to PPCB releasing a board and I was sold! I love this thing, it sounds great on bass. It gets me right to Robert's fuzz tone that I have lusted over for so long. The mids switch gives a very nice set of 3 distinct tones that can fit any situation I would need. I may have finally found my main Muff!! (Speaking of the mids switch, if you make your own 22/7, there is not a build document up currently, and the switch placement on this board is not like any other PPCB board I have seen, so be sure to measure carefully when locating holes for your enclosure.) Artwork is a tribute to the official state pie of the sometimes great state of Indiana. The sugar cream pie is pretty divisive, you either love it or think its weird and gross. I love it, and felt there was no better tribute to my favorite accompaniment to my morning coffee than to use it as a theme of my favorite style of pedal. I ripped off the logo of from the Wicks Pie Company, who sets the standard of OK grocery store sugar cream pies. A Wicks sugar cream pie is fine, but if your homemade sugar cream pie is not better than a Wicks, you've done something horribly wrong. Anywho, knobs are cream colored cupcake style to remind me of the delicious pie filling. This thing doesn't even need any extra nutmeg!!!
Madbean VFE MiniMu
First up, I finally got around to finishing up my MiniMu in December that I had started mid 2023. Between the relay switching and the actual circuit, it felt more like keeping track of a combo build rather than just a single pedal. I believe I was able get get everything I needed between Tayda and Digikey on this one, was lucky to find all the highly specific parts between the two. The build calls for two DPDT On/On/On switches and there has been some confusion as to if they were supposed to be Type 1 or Type 2. I tested things out and wired in some switches as both styles and can state that either will work, but Type 2 is the intended switch for this circuit (just in case any other confused soul may be in search of this info). Other than that question, once I got around to building, this thing turned out pretty fun. I like taking puns TO THE MAXX!!! so obviously I found an AI "artwork" of a cow in the style of TRON and plopped her onto a TRON looking background and made everything blue. If you're looking for funky, this thing delivers!
Lizard Queen
I too got into the Lizard Queen hype of 2023 and built one up when the vero layouts started to be released. It sat in a box waiting to be put in an enclosure, but I didn't know what to call it or how to decorate it. Again, I like to take a joke too far, so I thought for a while about other royal titles and powerful things, and landed on his Noodley-ness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I present to you the Linguine King, complete with homemade FSM epoxy dome sticker and teeny tiny googley eyes! To finish it off I chose the big old brown cupcake style knobs to imitate meatballs. All in all, I think the Lizard Queen is a fun DIY project and sounds pretty decent on bass when accompanied by a clean blend.
Blender
Speaking of clean blend, I have been meaning to make a clean blend box for a while now. I love love love the JMK Panner and will pop that bad boy in anything that comes to mind. So I set out to make a blend box for all those pre-made unblended pedals out there. I decided to add in the pickup simulator from the front end of the AION Penumbra PCB so that it would play well with picky fuzzes. Plans are in the works for eventually adding a phase inverter as well so that this box will be able to tackle any possible scenario. So far it has worked great with everything I have thrown at it, my favorite being the Parasit Studio 8-Bitar. I made another epoxy dome sticker for this pedal. They are kinda fun to make and have given me another tool in my decorating arsenal.
Wooly Mammoth
Did I mention I love the JMK Panner? I built a Snuffy that I was going to give someone last summer, but changed my mind and built them something completely different. The Snuffy sat in a cardboard box for quite a while until a couple weeks ago I decided I just needed to finish it up. I contacted a friend and offered it to them on the condition that they had to tell me what kind of artwork they wanted on the pedal. Her response was tie-dye with yelllow knobs, so I was off to the races. I added the AION pickup simulator and JMK Panner to this bad boy for some clean blend action underneath the fuzzy madness.
Twenty Two Sevenths
Like many, I have been obsessed with finding the perfect Big Muff for me for quite some time. The first time I heard Robert Sledge's tone on the Ben Folds Five song Kate, I just had to figure out what he was using to get that sound. That following Christmas I became the proud owner of a late stage black Russian BMP that I eventually left at a friend's place out of late night drunken laziness
. Anyway, when I find a new flavor of Muff I am always intrigued. I had been building a lot of stuff from Parasit lately and enjoyed how circuits using CD40XX chips sounded. I ran across the ROG site and the 22/7 one day and made a mental note that I would eventually need to build one. Fast forward to PPCB releasing a board and I was sold! I love this thing, it sounds great on bass. It gets me right to Robert's fuzz tone that I have lusted over for so long. The mids switch gives a very nice set of 3 distinct tones that can fit any situation I would need. I may have finally found my main Muff!! (Speaking of the mids switch, if you make your own 22/7, there is not a build document up currently, and the switch placement on this board is not like any other PPCB board I have seen, so be sure to measure carefully when locating holes for your enclosure.) Artwork is a tribute to the official state pie of the sometimes great state of Indiana. The sugar cream pie is pretty divisive, you either love it or think its weird and gross. I love it, and felt there was no better tribute to my favorite accompaniment to my morning coffee than to use it as a theme of my favorite style of pedal. I ripped off the logo of from the Wicks Pie Company, who sets the standard of OK grocery store sugar cream pies. A Wicks sugar cream pie is fine, but if your homemade sugar cream pie is not better than a Wicks, you've done something horribly wrong. Anywho, knobs are cream colored cupcake style to remind me of the delicious pie filling. This thing doesn't even need any extra nutmeg!!!
