Fama
Well-known member
- Build Rating
History
The Coda Effects Black Hole (Sunn Model T preamp with JFET's instead of tubes, plus a LPB-1 in front, either footswitchable or a toggle switch) was supposed to be my first non-kit pedal. I had to learn where to buy parts and how, and so much more.
The only issue was that the PCB I ordered was never shipped, and he didn't answer emails. After two months I realized it's not coming, and canceled the order. Thankfully Fuzzdog had a Model T Mini, although the PPCB Mofeta probably would have worked as well. I might eventually build a Mofeta too.
The Build
But back to this build. I ordered the Mini and a LPB-1 board, but didn't realize that I needed 9mm pots for this. Back to waiting on a Tayda order, but the days has finally come when I got to build it.
I vastly prefer PPCB over Fuzzdog because of the better pads for offboard wiring, and especially here it did cause me some issues since I had two separate boards. The guts are a horrorshow, but that's how it goes sometimes.
The pre-drilled enclosure also didn't quite fit perfectly, and while my tendonitis is much better now, I don't want to risk a bunch of manual filing in case it would get much worse - so the knobs are a bit crooked. Thankfully you can't really tell unless you know it.
Disregarding some connection issues when I tried to first test the board without soldering everything (it all worked once I soldered it all down), there was an issue where there was a high pitched whine the first time I was testing both circuits. I ended up rebiasing the JFET's more closely to 4.5V instead of 4.5-5V, and turned the LPB-1 down a bit (I jury-rigged a 100k trimmer to serve as volume pot) and now it's actually very quiet considering the gain level - and no more whining.
I left the channel switch out and just soldered it permanently in the both channels mode. I also had issues with wiring the common cathode dual color LED, but shoutout to the Audio Electronics DIY subreddit which had a very handy diagram which helped me pull it off rather easily in the end. I did end up drawing an ugly diagram about it though, to make sure I didn't mess anything up.
I posted about the enclosure before - it was an acrylic pour, which looked amazing when wet, but when it dried the pruple color faded to a very dark blue-ish color. It still looks cool though, and fits the stoner theme.
How It Sounds
The pedal itself was about what I expected, I was after that gnarly doom rhythm tone which would be different from a normal high gain tone - and that's what I got. It also works pretty nicely with lower gain - and what surprised me the most is that it actually clears up very well with the guitar volume knob.
The LPB-1 is not set very hot right now, but I find it works quite well like this. I can get a mid gain-ish tone and boost it to high gain with the second footswitch, and get a clean tone by rolling down the guitar volume.
The only small disappointment has been that I don't think it stacks with my other pedals very well. It doesn't have too much headroom, so I would need to tweak the volume on all the pedals so they work with this pedal. I also don't have a TS/mid hump style pedal which might stack nicely, I'll have to look into getting one of those next.
Would running at 12 or 18V help with the headroom? I think I've read J201's might get more gain, but then I could just turn the controls down in response.
In any case, here's a short demo I recorded:
Some small EQ on the (dual tracked) guitars and master bus processing, I ripped the MIDI off Ultimate-Guitar shamelessly, virtual instruments for bass and drums.
The Coda Effects Black Hole (Sunn Model T preamp with JFET's instead of tubes, plus a LPB-1 in front, either footswitchable or a toggle switch) was supposed to be my first non-kit pedal. I had to learn where to buy parts and how, and so much more.
The only issue was that the PCB I ordered was never shipped, and he didn't answer emails. After two months I realized it's not coming, and canceled the order. Thankfully Fuzzdog had a Model T Mini, although the PPCB Mofeta probably would have worked as well. I might eventually build a Mofeta too.
The Build
But back to this build. I ordered the Mini and a LPB-1 board, but didn't realize that I needed 9mm pots for this. Back to waiting on a Tayda order, but the days has finally come when I got to build it.
I vastly prefer PPCB over Fuzzdog because of the better pads for offboard wiring, and especially here it did cause me some issues since I had two separate boards. The guts are a horrorshow, but that's how it goes sometimes.
The pre-drilled enclosure also didn't quite fit perfectly, and while my tendonitis is much better now, I don't want to risk a bunch of manual filing in case it would get much worse - so the knobs are a bit crooked. Thankfully you can't really tell unless you know it.
Disregarding some connection issues when I tried to first test the board without soldering everything (it all worked once I soldered it all down), there was an issue where there was a high pitched whine the first time I was testing both circuits. I ended up rebiasing the JFET's more closely to 4.5V instead of 4.5-5V, and turned the LPB-1 down a bit (I jury-rigged a 100k trimmer to serve as volume pot) and now it's actually very quiet considering the gain level - and no more whining.
I left the channel switch out and just soldered it permanently in the both channels mode. I also had issues with wiring the common cathode dual color LED, but shoutout to the Audio Electronics DIY subreddit which had a very handy diagram which helped me pull it off rather easily in the end. I did end up drawing an ugly diagram about it though, to make sure I didn't mess anything up.
I posted about the enclosure before - it was an acrylic pour, which looked amazing when wet, but when it dried the pruple color faded to a very dark blue-ish color. It still looks cool though, and fits the stoner theme.
How It Sounds
The pedal itself was about what I expected, I was after that gnarly doom rhythm tone which would be different from a normal high gain tone - and that's what I got. It also works pretty nicely with lower gain - and what surprised me the most is that it actually clears up very well with the guitar volume knob.
The LPB-1 is not set very hot right now, but I find it works quite well like this. I can get a mid gain-ish tone and boost it to high gain with the second footswitch, and get a clean tone by rolling down the guitar volume.
The only small disappointment has been that I don't think it stacks with my other pedals very well. It doesn't have too much headroom, so I would need to tweak the volume on all the pedals so they work with this pedal. I also don't have a TS/mid hump style pedal which might stack nicely, I'll have to look into getting one of those next.
Would running at 12 or 18V help with the headroom? I think I've read J201's might get more gain, but then I could just turn the controls down in response.
In any case, here's a short demo I recorded:
Some small EQ on the (dual tracked) guitars and master bus processing, I ripped the MIDI off Ultimate-Guitar shamelessly, virtual instruments for bass and drums.
