Mercurial Boost in a tiny enclosure

[CA138]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Hi, I've built a number of circuits designed to fit underneath my mini pedalboard as part of a modular loop setup. This one is the Mercurial Boost which I use as a late-chain EQ.

I have a micro loop switcher on top of the board that activates the loops mounted beneath. As I only have about 32mm clearance, I have used a 1550Q enclosure for this one with a toggle switch to disable/enable within the loop. I've used an internal trimpot in place of the gain pot which I wouldn't need to adjust once dialed in. The only slightly tricky part was soldering the dual-gang 9mm pot to the board.

The other effects are in either 1590LB for standalone circuits or 1590B for dual circuits. So far I have a Tentacle (1590LB), Tremelo/reverb combo (1590B) and a Klon buffer (1590LB). I'm building a few more modules to swap in and out so looking for any other great compact PCBs to use.

 

[Alan W]

One of my favorite boards, configured in a package I’ve never considered. I’d love to see photos of the mini board too!

 

[CA138]

One of my favorite boards, configured in a package I’ve never considered. I’d love to see photos of the mini board too!

I'm still working on the cabling for under the board so it's a bit of a mess at the moment, but here is the space I am working with for these low-profile modules:

The aim is to have a bunch of set-and-forget effects dialed in and able to be swapped in and out as needed. The larger boxes contain dual circuits (i.e. tremelo / reverb).

 

[cris_mas]

i admire the patience you had putting this one together. Nice one!
And the pedalboard, mm mm. Looks sleek and very pro.

 

[LukeFRC]

That’s awesome!

I’ve often wondered why the diy pedal building communities haven’t rethought through the form of a pedal and separated the switching from the effect - either always on with loops like you’ve done, or keeping the signal chain shorter and using relays or something to switch triggered from someplace else.

 

[CA138]

That’s awesome!

I’ve often wondered why the diy pedal building communities haven’t rethought through the form of a pedal and separated the switching from the effect - either always on with loops like you’ve done, or keeping the signal chain shorter and using relays or something to switch triggered from someplace else.

I've kind of done the relay method in another project which is a pedal-rack. All my favourite analog pedals tucked away in a 2RU rack-drawer unit mounted beneath my studio desk. They are switchable wirelessly through midi or software and you can use them as inserts in the DAW in any order or configuration. Running them in different parallel routings opens up a new world.

You can also dump the rack in the backline and just switch effects with any bluetooth MIDI footswitch like the Boss FS-1-WL - although it kind of takes the fun out of having pedals, hence I am building up this mini board at the moment.

The one thing I haven't gotten to yet is working out how to build digital potentiometers into analog pedals - so being able to change the settings remotely, not just on/off and normal MIDI stuff. I could build relays that swap between pre-set resistance settings in place of pots, but I know it is theoretically possible to use digital pots.. got some more research to do on that.