Band of Dans
Active member
- Build Rating
Quick and dirty report on a few recent builds. I sort-of handled these in assembly line fashion. Populated and tested the boards together, painted and clear coated the enclosures, drilled, off-board wiring’d and assembled. The percolator is just posca pen over a SBP aqua vein enclosure. The other two I sanded, primed with clear primer, and painted with acrylic. All are finished with clear acrylic lacquer.
Antithesis
I LOVE this circuit. It’s nasty and splatty and has, erm, harmonics. Based on one of the HP threads I tried running mine after a buffer and it sounds even better. I believe the transistors are a 2n2222a and a GT402 that measured around 50 hfe with very low leakage. Diodes are per the build docs, the Ge is a 1n34a I believe. No subs except a tented resistor pair and some copulating caps. I won’t apologize.
Knobs are the fancy aluminum brutalist ones from LMS. Didn’t expect to burn so much $ on knobs for this but hey, I like it.
Like the marigold, I’m using low-profile jacks from tubesandmore/antiqueelectronics. If I get the drilling exactly right, they fit without having to move the drill template at all. Just have to 86 the pot covers, which is no big deal so far.
Simulcast
Sounds good! Per advice elsewhere on the forum, I removed the charge pump and it sounds much better, at least if you’re looking for that gated, exploding neve sound. Bonus: with the charge pump it was so damn loud that it was almost unusable. Now I can move the knob! Transistor is another GT402: low leakage and under 50 hfe I believe.
The “art” is supposed to be Sutro Tower, a very visible transmission tower in San Francisco. When I first moved to the Bay Area I dumbly pointed at it and asked a friend, “hey, what’s that thing?” She replied, “oh that? That’s our space claw.” And thus it was the space claw.
Knobs are from Tubes and Antiques (they’re great). The only other notable components are the jacks. Not sure if I’m just late to the party but these are the basic square jobbers from stompboxparts and they’re different from the tayda ones! Plastic seems much nicer (glass filled, I think?), but the biggest selling point is the “teeth” built into the internal side of the jack. SO much easier to tighten it down without rotating. No locknut required.
Bonus #2: the percolator sounds amazing blasting into this thing at full bore. Sounds like glorious destruction but somehow still quite legible. If I ever get through my backlog I’ll build them into a 2-in-1.
Marigold
GOODNESS. This thing is HEAVY. I may have messed up matching my transistors but don’t care. It’s like a muff but with more chaotic overtones and weirdness. I love it.
If anyone wants to know about the transistors, I’m happy to check, but I don’t remember exactly how they tested. I ended up tearing it apart trying to track down an issue before realizing it was the only one of the trio that called for NPN Ge transistors
. The perils of applying mass production techniques incorrectly.
Everything else is pretty normal. Wasted a low profile footswitch for no good reason except I ran out of normal ones. Like the HP this uses low-profile jacks to fit everything into a 1590b. Also uses one of the low-profile pre-wired LEDs from Antique Tube Emporium. I love the way these look on basically anything and am willing to pay the fancy tax for them.
Antithesis
I LOVE this circuit. It’s nasty and splatty and has, erm, harmonics. Based on one of the HP threads I tried running mine after a buffer and it sounds even better. I believe the transistors are a 2n2222a and a GT402 that measured around 50 hfe with very low leakage. Diodes are per the build docs, the Ge is a 1n34a I believe. No subs except a tented resistor pair and some copulating caps. I won’t apologize.
Knobs are the fancy aluminum brutalist ones from LMS. Didn’t expect to burn so much $ on knobs for this but hey, I like it.
Like the marigold, I’m using low-profile jacks from tubesandmore/antiqueelectronics. If I get the drilling exactly right, they fit without having to move the drill template at all. Just have to 86 the pot covers, which is no big deal so far.
Simulcast
Sounds good! Per advice elsewhere on the forum, I removed the charge pump and it sounds much better, at least if you’re looking for that gated, exploding neve sound. Bonus: with the charge pump it was so damn loud that it was almost unusable. Now I can move the knob! Transistor is another GT402: low leakage and under 50 hfe I believe.
The “art” is supposed to be Sutro Tower, a very visible transmission tower in San Francisco. When I first moved to the Bay Area I dumbly pointed at it and asked a friend, “hey, what’s that thing?” She replied, “oh that? That’s our space claw.” And thus it was the space claw.
Knobs are from Tubes and Antiques (they’re great). The only other notable components are the jacks. Not sure if I’m just late to the party but these are the basic square jobbers from stompboxparts and they’re different from the tayda ones! Plastic seems much nicer (glass filled, I think?), but the biggest selling point is the “teeth” built into the internal side of the jack. SO much easier to tighten it down without rotating. No locknut required.
Bonus #2: the percolator sounds amazing blasting into this thing at full bore. Sounds like glorious destruction but somehow still quite legible. If I ever get through my backlog I’ll build them into a 2-in-1.
Marigold
GOODNESS. This thing is HEAVY. I may have messed up matching my transistors but don’t care. It’s like a muff but with more chaotic overtones and weirdness. I love it.
If anyone wants to know about the transistors, I’m happy to check, but I don’t remember exactly how they tested. I ended up tearing it apart trying to track down an issue before realizing it was the only one of the trio that called for NPN Ge transistors
. The perils of applying mass production techniques incorrectly.Everything else is pretty normal. Wasted a low profile footswitch for no good reason except I ran out of normal ones. Like the HP this uses low-profile jacks to fit everything into a 1590b. Also uses one of the low-profile pre-wired LEDs from Antique Tube Emporium. I love the way these look on basically anything and am willing to pay the fancy tax for them.
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