Waldo_jeffers
Active member
- Build Rating
Well mates, this has been my white whale. I've been tinkering on and off for over a year, taking many months off after a frustrating 3D printing issue, but this one is finally built.
Indifferent Engine are a punk band from the UK and they've designed this pretty incredible machine. It's a $20 Amazon cassette player hacked up and rewired, with code running on an Arduino, mounted on 3D printed hardware and running real tape. It's entirely open source, from the PCB and STL files down to the Arduino code, and they have written some foolproof instructions for every single step of the way. I was doing a lot of things for the first time with this project and it was all laid out simply and easy to follow.
As far as what it does, it's a janky sounding real tape delay. There's two read heads, Short and Long, one write head and one erase head. Controls are:
Level (from fully dry to fully wet)
Tone
Gain
Jank (controls randomization in the motor speed)
Feedback
Time
I went all in on this. I bought the PCBs in March 2023 and populating them was the easiest part by far. I found a 3D printer on Craigslist. I ordered a bunch of extra tools to do things like make my own JST-XH connectors, and a cheap oscilloscope to make sure the bias was properly set up. I painted the insides with shielding paint, cause this is plastic after all and this thing is pretty noisy at the best of times. I had to redesign the STL files for the knobs because one stupid pot I bought was round shaft instead of D shaft. I bought thick Computape and proper 1/4 inch splicing tape to make the sturdiest, cleanest loops I could after my first few broke quickly and sounded like crap. But it's done. I'm very happy with it.
Here's a link to a video demo. This is also the first time I've made a video demo, so excuse the dodgy camerawork and lo-res text. Not that I didn't respect video demo makers before, but damn, that was harder than it looks. I had a light shining on the pedal because it was kinda hard to see the control labels otherwise. It's still sort of hard to see the knob settings, but you'll get an idea.
And here are some progress pics for those interested:
Gut shot
The modified cassette player mounted into it's holder. Outer shell taken off, some bits ripped off, a bunch of wires re-wired and moved around.
Assembling the hardware
Top shot without the lid. Getting a loop the right tension and spliced cleanly was one of the most difficult parts of the project for me.
It's a big box. Not really pedalboard appropriate but I'm all rig no gig anyway
Proud dad moment with it next to my DIY Jazzblaster
Indifferent Engine are a punk band from the UK and they've designed this pretty incredible machine. It's a $20 Amazon cassette player hacked up and rewired, with code running on an Arduino, mounted on 3D printed hardware and running real tape. It's entirely open source, from the PCB and STL files down to the Arduino code, and they have written some foolproof instructions for every single step of the way. I was doing a lot of things for the first time with this project and it was all laid out simply and easy to follow.
As far as what it does, it's a janky sounding real tape delay. There's two read heads, Short and Long, one write head and one erase head. Controls are:
Level (from fully dry to fully wet)
Tone
Gain
Jank (controls randomization in the motor speed)
Feedback
Time
I went all in on this. I bought the PCBs in March 2023 and populating them was the easiest part by far. I found a 3D printer on Craigslist. I ordered a bunch of extra tools to do things like make my own JST-XH connectors, and a cheap oscilloscope to make sure the bias was properly set up. I painted the insides with shielding paint, cause this is plastic after all and this thing is pretty noisy at the best of times. I had to redesign the STL files for the knobs because one stupid pot I bought was round shaft instead of D shaft. I bought thick Computape and proper 1/4 inch splicing tape to make the sturdiest, cleanest loops I could after my first few broke quickly and sounded like crap. But it's done. I'm very happy with it.
Here's a link to a video demo. This is also the first time I've made a video demo, so excuse the dodgy camerawork and lo-res text. Not that I didn't respect video demo makers before, but damn, that was harder than it looks. I had a light shining on the pedal because it was kinda hard to see the control labels otherwise. It's still sort of hard to see the knob settings, but you'll get an idea.
And here are some progress pics for those interested:
Gut shot
The modified cassette player mounted into it's holder. Outer shell taken off, some bits ripped off, a bunch of wires re-wired and moved around.
Assembling the hardware
Top shot without the lid. Getting a loop the right tension and spliced cleanly was one of the most difficult parts of the project for me.
It's a big box. Not really pedalboard appropriate but I'm all rig no gig anyway
Proud dad moment with it next to my DIY Jazzblaster
