- Build Rating
I was working on some nice enclosure art for this, but it's been a while since my last pedal and I just wanted to build and play something new. So I sanded down a bare aluminum 125B by hand real quick (it wasn't quick at all...) for a brushed aluminum finish. Turned out okay-ish. I like this style of finish better for vintage inspired builds, which this is not.
I'm using a white LED because I like my pedals to blind me while looking at them. No, seriously. It's a little bright even with an 18K CLR and the surface scuffed up a little to diffuse the light better.
The build was easy and quick. While eyeballing where I wanted to put the knob, LED, footswitch and jacks I discovered that it wouldn't quite have fit if I mounted the pot the normal way around. So I hacked together a quick fix by snipping off the pins and off-board wiring the pot upside down.
Is it beautiful? No, but it works. I used 20 AWG solid core which supports the PCB well enough on its own. Fun fact: after putting it all together, I wished I had moved the knob up and the LED down a little. Would have been a better look I think. I also wouldn't have had to off-board wire the pot that way. Oh well...
Tone wise there's not much to say really. It's a clean boost with up to 24 dB of gain. It's not meant to color the sound of the guitar or pedal before it and it doesn't really. The +/- 18V power supply gives it a good amount of clean headroom but the op amp will still clip with humbuckers at higher gain settings. The OPA2134 clips rather gracefully in this circuit though, at least compared to the LF442 in my trusty old MXR MC-401, which is my baseline for clean boosts and what I've been using almost exclusively for that purpose since basically forever. I want to say the two don't sound quite identical but it might just be my imagination. They're both very transparent, the MXR is just a tad noisier though. I'll have to record some loops and do a little shootout some time.
I'm using a white LED because I like my pedals to blind me while looking at them. No, seriously. It's a little bright even with an 18K CLR and the surface scuffed up a little to diffuse the light better.
The build was easy and quick. While eyeballing where I wanted to put the knob, LED, footswitch and jacks I discovered that it wouldn't quite have fit if I mounted the pot the normal way around. So I hacked together a quick fix by snipping off the pins and off-board wiring the pot upside down.
Is it beautiful? No, but it works. I used 20 AWG solid core which supports the PCB well enough on its own. Fun fact: after putting it all together, I wished I had moved the knob up and the LED down a little. Would have been a better look I think. I also wouldn't have had to off-board wire the pot that way. Oh well...
Tone wise there's not much to say really. It's a clean boost with up to 24 dB of gain. It's not meant to color the sound of the guitar or pedal before it and it doesn't really. The +/- 18V power supply gives it a good amount of clean headroom but the op amp will still clip with humbuckers at higher gain settings. The OPA2134 clips rather gracefully in this circuit though, at least compared to the LF442 in my trusty old MXR MC-401, which is my baseline for clean boosts and what I've been using almost exclusively for that purpose since basically forever. I want to say the two don't sound quite identical but it might just be my imagination. They're both very transparent, the MXR is just a tad noisier though. I'll have to record some loops and do a little shootout some time.
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