Fingolfen
Well-known member
- Build Rating
So I got a request for a Reverb pedal. There are a lot of decent boards out there, but I wanted to combine a couple of features from different boards into one, and avoid functional internal trimmers, so I decided to lay out my own board.
There are several designs available using the Belton BTDR-3 reverb module, so I went that route. The final version of the board is seen above. Unfortunately, this was the second version of the PCB. I'd accidentally left out a capacitor on the first time through, and noticed it when I got the board together and the mix control was glitchy. Fortunately I can still use the original board (below) as I can add the capacitor in series with one of the resistors.
This particular board has a lot of Easter eggs added that all call back to the name of the pedal - the Soaring Stegosaurus Reverb. The name is based on an article published by dinosaur enthusiast W.H. Ballou in 1920. He postulated that the plates on stegosaurus’ back were not for heat regulation or armor but were instead mobile and allowed stegosaurus to glide! The article was not taken seriously, even in 1920, but it’s always fun to imagine the absurd from time to time.
For the build, I'm using all new components. The resistors are all 1% metal film. The film caps are all 5% metal film or MLCC. There are also a few electrolytic caps, a regulator, and a TL072 IC which I socketed. I'm using my standard build technique for the rest as well. The jacks are all insulated with heat shrink tubing and connected with aviation grade wire. The 3PDT daughter board is connected using ribbon cable. As I was using a blue LED, I decided to go ahead and enable the brightness control as well.
I'm particularly happy with how the enclosure came out for this particular pedal. The fanciful soaring stegosaurus is an original piece by Ukrainian digital artist Kate (@estelkatrin). I added an anime style background to create the overall effect and kept the text simple so it didn't detract from the overall scene.
The pedal itself works great. I ended up using a 100K dual pot on the decay control that gives you a lot more range, so you can get echos and almost a tremolo effect if you want to go crazy - or you can just dial it way back and get a far more subtle effect. I generally try and keep the volume knob at unity, but I included the control as there can be loops where you'd want to vary it.
Original blog entry: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-fanciful-steggo-reverb-pedal.html
There are several designs available using the Belton BTDR-3 reverb module, so I went that route. The final version of the board is seen above. Unfortunately, this was the second version of the PCB. I'd accidentally left out a capacitor on the first time through, and noticed it when I got the board together and the mix control was glitchy. Fortunately I can still use the original board (below) as I can add the capacitor in series with one of the resistors.
This particular board has a lot of Easter eggs added that all call back to the name of the pedal - the Soaring Stegosaurus Reverb. The name is based on an article published by dinosaur enthusiast W.H. Ballou in 1920. He postulated that the plates on stegosaurus’ back were not for heat regulation or armor but were instead mobile and allowed stegosaurus to glide! The article was not taken seriously, even in 1920, but it’s always fun to imagine the absurd from time to time.
For the build, I'm using all new components. The resistors are all 1% metal film. The film caps are all 5% metal film or MLCC. There are also a few electrolytic caps, a regulator, and a TL072 IC which I socketed. I'm using my standard build technique for the rest as well. The jacks are all insulated with heat shrink tubing and connected with aviation grade wire. The 3PDT daughter board is connected using ribbon cable. As I was using a blue LED, I decided to go ahead and enable the brightness control as well.
I'm particularly happy with how the enclosure came out for this particular pedal. The fanciful soaring stegosaurus is an original piece by Ukrainian digital artist Kate (@estelkatrin). I added an anime style background to create the overall effect and kept the text simple so it didn't detract from the overall scene.
The pedal itself works great. I ended up using a 100K dual pot on the decay control that gives you a lot more range, so you can get echos and almost a tremolo effect if you want to go crazy - or you can just dial it way back and get a far more subtle effect. I generally try and keep the volume knob at unity, but I included the control as there can be loops where you'd want to vary it.
Original blog entry: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-fanciful-steggo-reverb-pedal.html
