10 recent builds

H

harmaes

Well-known member
I recently build quite some pedals using Robert’s superb PCBs. Here’s 10 of them. ;)

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Left to right:
- Abider
- Fordoble
- Mystery Meat
- Duocast

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Left to right:
- Cattle Driver
- General Tso’s
- Paragon Mini
- Modus Operandi
- Cobbler
- Special overdrive

I will detail some of them below.

I also re-housed some older pedals (non PPCB), left to right:

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- Zendrive with a switch for higher/lower gain (1M gain pot and switching to 500k with 1M resistor across outer lugs and modifying pico caps)
- OCD with led and germanium clipping. Enclosure is not a chromium but a hand polished aluminium one
- Honey Bee
 
I’ve bought a J. Rockett Dude a few years ago and thought it was a cool pedal with lots of gain on tap. I did notice there was some kind of “metallic” character to the sound so I send it back.

When I read the mod @HamishR did to it by changing the soft and hard clipping 1n4148 pairs to 1n4001/1n4148 pairs I wanted to try it out. So the mod I did is to put the 1n4148 pairs on one side and the 1n4001/1n4148 pairs on the other side of the switch. I used a 2PDT on/on switch and wired them from the spots on the PCB where the 1n4148 pairs should be installed.

The 1n4001/1n4148 pairs really open up the pedal, reduces compression, increases output and even reduces some of the metallic character with still enough gain on tap. Love this mod.

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The Dane (Fordoble) is a nice low gain overdrive and boost and the build went smoothly.
I don’t like the germanium diodes on the Arche boost side so I keep the switch on the zeners.

The mod I made is a top mounted on-off-on switch with on one side a 47nf and the other side a 68nf to reduce the brightness of the Arche boost. I did this with a quick and dirty patching with tape. ;)
The mod goes from the 220R resistor to the switch and wires in a 2k resistor and the caps on either side back to the ground side of the 51k resistor.

@HamishR described this mod and we’ve discussed it with @Chuck D. Bones who provided the knowledge to fix the brightness. ;)

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I build the Mystery Meat in a BB enclosure and used the same layout as the PRS Horsemeat.
I used red band germaniums which I got from @MichaelW and these sound really great in this pedal.
It’s a unique sounding pedal with a grainy overdrive that is sounding best for me on a bridge humbucker. ;)

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I’ve build a Simulcast a few months ago and really liked that pedal. I again hand sanded an aluminium enclosure which I now tend to avoid because it’s too much work. :D

I build the Duocast this week and it’s again a great sounding boost to overdrive/fuzz pedal. The two sides make it a little more versatile than the Simulcast but I do like the simpler switch of the Simulcast as well because it’s quick to dial in 3 different gain settings. We really need the Duocast mini @Robert !

I used a 2n4033 silicon transistor in both and used a 1nf between base and collector to reduce the highs.
When run at 27v volt this pedal can really drive the input of an amp and I like the sound of a slap delay and reverb before the amp driven by this pedal a lot.

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@MichaelW was so great to send me the Cattle driver PCB when he send me some Germanium diodes.
The Cattle driver is an easy build and it really delivers some “tube driver” like tones. Nice pedal to have in the stack!

The copper enclosures are from Banzai music which are a little thinner than Hammond enclosures but still great.

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The Paragon Mini was quite some work to source and build. I did the drilling in 2 steps to be able to position the 3PDT switches more to the side. I used the warmer mod and carbon film/comp resistors from @ckaudioeffects documented here.

One one side I used BA282 and 1n914 and on the other side I used MA858 and 1S1588 diodes. I kept it like that but I prefer the BA282 diode side. Overall a great and useable dual boost/light overdrive with only a slight bass reduction which helps it to really sit well in a mix/band context.

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I build the Shin’s Dumbloid Special overdrive outside the enclosure and landed on the jazz setting and thought something was wrong with the pedal. :D In the end I removed the switch because it’s a useless setting with the large cap and sounds like sh*t. The pedal has some amp like tones and with the accent low you get less of the farty decay.

I added an on-off-on switch and prefer to use 2 red leds on one side as soft clipping across the 82pf cap. The other side uses the Landgraff asym 1n4148 diodes which I don’t like. Useable, not great and the price and story of the original is ridiculous.

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The last one of the bunch is the General TSO’s parallel compressor based on the ThorpyFX Fat General. It’s one of the best compressors to build IMO and it’s great as an always on if you like. Quick to dial in and great for boosting other drive pedals. Can provide very light compression and can be used like a boost or provide thicker compression without becoming pumping.
It’s not one of my cleanest builds but is one of the pedals that’s always on the board. ;)

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harmaes said:
I recently build quite some pedals using Robert’s superb PCBs. Here’s 10 of them. ;)

View attachment 42185

Left to right:
- Abider
- Fordoble
- Mystery Meat
- Duocast

View attachment 42186

Left to right:
- Cattle Driver
- General Tso’s
- Paragon Mini
- Modus Operandi
- Cobbler
- Special overdrive

I will detail some of them below.

I also re-housed some older pedals (non PPCB), left to right:

View attachment 42187
- Zendrive with a switch for higher/lower gain (1M gain pot and switching to 500k with 1M resistor across outer lugs and modifying pico caps)
- OCD with led and germanium clipping. Enclosure is not a chromium but a hand polished aluminium one
- Honey Bee
Click to expand...
Really like the finish on those enclosures. Where did you purchase them? Thx!
 
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