Band of Dans
Well-known member
Just a quick roundup of some recent builds. I really lost steam for a while there and was focusing more on learning songs and practicing. Thankfully, my priorities are straightened out and I'm back to building again.
First up is a bog-standard squidward. This is my second build, but the first was a gift and I didn't really get a chance to play it before sending it off to its new home. Inspired by @DGWVI's 2022 build report, I was curious if I could fit the squidward into a Gorva m45 with top jacks without any invasive surgery. The secret ingredient turned out to be these low-profile jacks from tubesandmore. I started by fitting the DC jack as close to the top edge as possible, then basically tucked the 1/4" jacks as close to the edges and screw holes as possible. You need to use low-profile patch cables, but most of us probably have plenty of those on hand.
The rest of the build is pretty unremarkable. I even had enough room to use up one of these longer footswitch daughter boards I bought by accident. Sounds great, especially after my PPCB Ungula build (go figure!). These gorva enclosures sure are nice and the silver finish on this one is much fancier than it looked in pictures online. Unlike the other gorva models, this one's dimensions are more convenient than its hammond equivalent instead of less
Next up is one of the recent PPCB darlings, the Kewpie fuzz. Mine is named after a goofy inside joke from the Drawfee YouTube channel. I love this derpy little character and she's become an inside joke between my spouse and I. Anyway, it makes me happy and this pedal makes me happy. No mods and the build was very painless. I think it sounds frickin' awesome and just extremely satisfying to play. Everything sounds huge and epic and rich. I mean, it's a big muff with some extra hot-rodding thrown in. Slam dunk.
Just your standard mix of components and stuff inside. I am a little ashamed of the extra long LED leads but whatever. I was too excited to see it completed. Enclosure is a candy green Tayda with UV print services. The print is a little bit meh if you look closely (visible lines in some of the colors, some of the white text bleeds a little bit), but I looooove the way this one turned out. The green print matches the powder coat better in person, but I'd probably use a cooler green if I did it again.
Finally, here's a mystery machine I built for an old friend. We've been playing and talking about music together for more than 20 years and I wanted to set him up to emulate some of his favorite Beatles sounds. The label is my attempt at a riff on the Mystery Tour album cover. "Thank You, Superbowl!" is a reference to the time Sir Paul awkwardly thanked the Super Bowl itself during his 2005 half time show. One of those odd references that gets quoted between two good friends for so long that you almost forget where it even came from.
The build itself went fine. I struggled to find a good diode pair (opted not to use any expensive Ge transistors after seeing in another thread that they're just used as diodes anyway) and ended up just settling on the ones that seemed to sound close enough. It definitely does that mids-forward thing and I could see it being super useful as both a tone-shaper and boost. It didn't blow my socks off but my pal's eyes lit up as soon as he heard those sweet Beatle-y tones, so that's a big win in my book.
And there ya go!
First up is a bog-standard squidward. This is my second build, but the first was a gift and I didn't really get a chance to play it before sending it off to its new home. Inspired by @DGWVI's 2022 build report, I was curious if I could fit the squidward into a Gorva m45 with top jacks without any invasive surgery. The secret ingredient turned out to be these low-profile jacks from tubesandmore. I started by fitting the DC jack as close to the top edge as possible, then basically tucked the 1/4" jacks as close to the edges and screw holes as possible. You need to use low-profile patch cables, but most of us probably have plenty of those on hand.
The rest of the build is pretty unremarkable. I even had enough room to use up one of these longer footswitch daughter boards I bought by accident. Sounds great, especially after my PPCB Ungula build (go figure!). These gorva enclosures sure are nice and the silver finish on this one is much fancier than it looked in pictures online. Unlike the other gorva models, this one's dimensions are more convenient than its hammond equivalent instead of less
Next up is one of the recent PPCB darlings, the Kewpie fuzz. Mine is named after a goofy inside joke from the Drawfee YouTube channel. I love this derpy little character and she's become an inside joke between my spouse and I. Anyway, it makes me happy and this pedal makes me happy. No mods and the build was very painless. I think it sounds frickin' awesome and just extremely satisfying to play. Everything sounds huge and epic and rich. I mean, it's a big muff with some extra hot-rodding thrown in. Slam dunk.
Just your standard mix of components and stuff inside. I am a little ashamed of the extra long LED leads but whatever. I was too excited to see it completed. Enclosure is a candy green Tayda with UV print services. The print is a little bit meh if you look closely (visible lines in some of the colors, some of the white text bleeds a little bit), but I looooove the way this one turned out. The green print matches the powder coat better in person, but I'd probably use a cooler green if I did it again.
Finally, here's a mystery machine I built for an old friend. We've been playing and talking about music together for more than 20 years and I wanted to set him up to emulate some of his favorite Beatles sounds. The label is my attempt at a riff on the Mystery Tour album cover. "Thank You, Superbowl!" is a reference to the time Sir Paul awkwardly thanked the Super Bowl itself during his 2005 half time show. One of those odd references that gets quoted between two good friends for so long that you almost forget where it even came from.
The build itself went fine. I struggled to find a good diode pair (opted not to use any expensive Ge transistors after seeing in another thread that they're just used as diodes anyway) and ended up just settling on the ones that seemed to sound close enough. It definitely does that mids-forward thing and I could see it being super useful as both a tone-shaper and boost. It didn't blow my socks off but my pal's eyes lit up as soon as he heard those sweet Beatle-y tones, so that's a big win in my book.
And there ya go!
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