greypilgrim76
Active member
I should probably post individual build reports as I go along, but when I'm neck-deep in a batch of builds, I tend to get tunnel vision, so here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to for the past couple of months. Full disclosure: I haven't done any artwork yet. I bought a set of acrylic markers with brush tips, so I'm gonna try my hand at, well, hand painting (once I've got the time to focus on it). I've already got name ideas, though, which I've listed after the PCB names. Anyway, here are some brief build reports and pics!
1) Angry Andy Plus (Angry Andrea+)
This one is a great distortion once you figure out what all the knobs do.
I somehow actually forgot to order knobs for this one, so it had to sit around with bare shafts until an emergency order from Stomp Box Parts arrived. I liked the pink sparkle enclosure, which is why Andy became Andrea.
2) 6-Band EQ (E-Queue)
I already posted a report on this one here because I was so excited about my first non-drive/OD/distortion/fuzz build. The only thing I'll add is that the layered PCBs are cool, and the faceplate makes everything MUCH easier! (And yes, I accidentally ordered 1-watt 24k resistors. Oops!)
3) Cepheid Chorus (Coruscator Shimmer Box)
I can't express how much I LOVE this build! It's like every middle school slow dance stuffed into a 125B pedal enclosure! It took a while to find the perfect spot on the trim pot, but man, once it's there it's golden. I've been using a Small Clone Nano on my board, but I very well may switch it out for this. Had to go with the BOSS knobs and powder blue enclosure for this one, of course.
4) Double Muffin Fuzz (Triangle War Fuzz)
I think I'm going to end up making every Muff variant there is. (I've already got the Muffin Factory in my cart for my next round of builds.) As you can probably tell from the name, I loaded this with the Civil War and Triangle components. They're very similar, but the difference is distinct. At some point I'm going to have to figure out which one is which!
5) Notakliché (SORTOFAKLÖN)
I previously built the Kliché pedal and really liked it. I don't know if I've just gotten better at putting pedals together since then, or if some component choices made a difference, or what, but this is maybe the best sounding light drive I've got. I love everything about it. I went with the classic 1n94a diodes, but for all of the components, I did a little experiment where I used the ones that were closest to the exact values called for. I know this probably makes zero difference in most places, but it was a fun exercise, and I do think matching my diodes might've smoothed out the clipping nicely. And yes, much like with my 6-Band EQ's 24K resistors, I also ordered 100v caps for C3 here, which accounts for the GIGANTIC capacitor at the top left corner of the footswitch board. I like this pedal so much that I'm combining it with a Cobalt Drive for a single-enclosure dual drive in my next batch of builds. I have no idea if the Notaklon and a Blues Driver will pair well, but hey, it's fun to just try new things sometimes.
6) Taqueria (Super Taco Drive)
I confess, I ordered this PCB just to round out my JHS clone collection a bit, and I honestly had no idea what the pedal itself even was. Once I finished it up and plugged it in, I was like, "What the crap is this?" Then I remembered it had trim pots and I actually took the time to bias them to the recommended voltages. Then it was awesome. The super side is a solid distortion, but the taco drive is where it's at with this one as far as I can tell. I also accidentally ordered a full-size 3PDT toggle, so the SPDT switch just barely got its nut threads through the enclosure face high enough to latch. Live and learn!
7) Pastel Preamp (Sidewalk Chalk Preamp)
Honestly, this is the only pedal from this round that was a bit of a disappointment when I plugged it in. The two high-frequency switches are pretty extreme, and the preamp knob gets farty fast if you go past 3 o'clock. I suspect there are ways to fine-tune it to get some good sounds out of it, but this one's going to be a bit of a project, I think, to find the good stuff. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
8) Blue Shoe Gai Pan (NC-17 Distortion)
This one actually made me think it wasn't working twice. The first time, I hadn't fully soldered the output wire to the output jack, but even after I got the circuit working correctly, I thought something was wrong because there was no sound without the Push and Drive knobs turned up. A little internet research showed me that this was a feature rather than a bug, and I've already dialed in some cool sounds. I suspect this one's going to take some experimentation to find the best ones, though. I took everyone's advice and set all three trim pots at 11.11, so hopefully that'll unlock some solid toans as I play around with it.
9) Parentheses Fuzz (Ellipses Fuzz)
I absolutely just ordered this PCB because it looked so weird compared to most of the others on the website. I have no experience with the EQD Life Pedal, and I had no idea what to expect. When I plugged this thing in and started playing with knobs and switches, I got all kinds of crazy-sounding shit. But it was COOL crazy-sounding shit. I honestly have no idea what to do with this one, but I kind of love it already. I made a mistake, though, by pre-soldering all three switches to breakout boards before actually looking at the wiring diagram. Fortunately, I had three extras, but the handwiring of each switch was a bit of a challenge. I melted more than one wire's insulation, but everything seems to have worked out. Can't wait to play around more with this one! (And as far as the name goes, I'm an English professor, so I had to stick with a punctuation reference.)
10) VHS (Betamax)
I feel like every time I've built a run of pedals, there's been a problem child. Some of you may remember the saga of my Butt Head Distortion build, which went so far down the troubleshooting rabbit hole that I had to construct and figure out how to use an audio probe. This time, it was this guy. It was my first time soldering an SMD FV-1, and it didn't go well. I used waaaay too much solder and had big globby solder bridges between pins, which necessitated wicking everything with heat applied longer than I would've liked. I finally got it cleaned up and assembled, but once I plugged it in, no dice. Bypass worked, as did all of the LEDs, but when I turned on any of the effects, all I got was switch pops. I suspected that I'd overheated the FV-1, but based on my Butt Head experience, I decided to sit down with the schematic and work through the audio path with the probe. (It was also my first time using my new Auditorium board, which makes the process SO MUCH easier.) Sure enough, the tone was fine all the way to pins 1 and 2 of the FV-1, with nothing on any of the other pins or coming out the other side on 28. I had no idea how to troubleshoot the FV-1 itself, so I figured I'd need to just order a new one. I decided, though, that it couldn't hurt to go ahead and reflow the solder on all the pins, even though everything looked fine through my magnifier. Apparently, though, it's much easier to have a bad solder joint on an SMD component and not see it, because once I reflowed everything, the signal went through the pedal start-to-finish. And I gotta say, this one was worth the effort! Having a boost, a fun warbly chorus, and a solid hall reverb in one pedal is great, and they all sound great together, too. This is another one that I'll need to play around with to really get dialed in, but unlike some of the others, it's also already really solid out of the gate. Funny story: for some reason, when I set up the Tayda drill template for this one, I made the hole for the DC jack way too big. My solution was to buy a cheap metal flange at Menards, hammer it a bit flatter, and cover the hole on the outside with it while doing the same on the inside with a washer. Not only did it fix the problem, but it gave the back of the pedal a cool industrial look. I guess necessity really is the mother of invention sometimes.
Okay, that's it for these ten builds! Next up:
Red Muffin Fuzz
ElectroVibe
Tommy III
Muffin Factory
Pro-10 Dual Overdrive
Stockade Overdrive
Octagon MultiFX
General Tso’s Compressor
Muffler Noise Gate
Cobalt/Notakliché Combo Drive
I think it's safe to say I'm digging this hobby!
1) Angry Andy Plus (Angry Andrea+)
This one is a great distortion once you figure out what all the knobs do.
I somehow actually forgot to order knobs for this one, so it had to sit around with bare shafts until an emergency order from Stomp Box Parts arrived. I liked the pink sparkle enclosure, which is why Andy became Andrea. 2) 6-Band EQ (E-Queue)
I already posted a report on this one here because I was so excited about my first non-drive/OD/distortion/fuzz build. The only thing I'll add is that the layered PCBs are cool, and the faceplate makes everything MUCH easier! (And yes, I accidentally ordered 1-watt 24k resistors. Oops!)
3) Cepheid Chorus (Coruscator Shimmer Box)
I can't express how much I LOVE this build! It's like every middle school slow dance stuffed into a 125B pedal enclosure!
It took a while to find the perfect spot on the trim pot, but man, once it's there it's golden. I've been using a Small Clone Nano on my board, but I very well may switch it out for this. Had to go with the BOSS knobs and powder blue enclosure for this one, of course.4) Double Muffin Fuzz (Triangle War Fuzz)
I think I'm going to end up making every Muff variant there is. (I've already got the Muffin Factory in my cart for my next round of builds.) As you can probably tell from the name, I loaded this with the Civil War and Triangle components. They're very similar, but the difference is distinct. At some point I'm going to have to figure out which one is which!
5) Notakliché (SORTOFAKLÖN)
I previously built the Kliché pedal and really liked it. I don't know if I've just gotten better at putting pedals together since then, or if some component choices made a difference, or what, but this is maybe the best sounding light drive I've got. I love everything about it. I went with the classic 1n94a diodes, but for all of the components, I did a little experiment where I used the ones that were closest to the exact values called for. I know this probably makes zero difference in most places, but it was a fun exercise, and I do think matching my diodes might've smoothed out the clipping nicely. And yes, much like with my 6-Band EQ's 24K resistors, I also ordered 100v caps for C3 here, which accounts for the GIGANTIC capacitor at the top left corner of the footswitch board.
I like this pedal so much that I'm combining it with a Cobalt Drive for a single-enclosure dual drive in my next batch of builds. I have no idea if the Notaklon and a Blues Driver will pair well, but hey, it's fun to just try new things sometimes.6) Taqueria (Super Taco Drive)
I confess, I ordered this PCB just to round out my JHS clone collection a bit, and I honestly had no idea what the pedal itself even was. Once I finished it up and plugged it in, I was like, "What the crap is this?" Then I remembered it had trim pots and I actually took the time to bias them to the recommended voltages. Then it was awesome. The super side is a solid distortion, but the taco drive is where it's at with this one as far as I can tell. I also accidentally ordered a full-size 3PDT toggle, so the SPDT switch just barely got its nut threads through the enclosure face high enough to latch. Live and learn!
7) Pastel Preamp (Sidewalk Chalk Preamp)
Honestly, this is the only pedal from this round that was a bit of a disappointment when I plugged it in. The two high-frequency switches are pretty extreme, and the preamp knob gets farty fast if you go past 3 o'clock. I suspect there are ways to fine-tune it to get some good sounds out of it, but this one's going to be a bit of a project, I think, to find the good stuff. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
8) Blue Shoe Gai Pan (NC-17 Distortion)
This one actually made me think it wasn't working twice. The first time, I hadn't fully soldered the output wire to the output jack, but even after I got the circuit working correctly, I thought something was wrong because there was no sound without the Push and Drive knobs turned up. A little internet research showed me that this was a feature rather than a bug, and I've already dialed in some cool sounds. I suspect this one's going to take some experimentation to find the best ones, though. I took everyone's advice and set all three trim pots at 11.11, so hopefully that'll unlock some solid toans as I play around with it.
9) Parentheses Fuzz (Ellipses Fuzz)
I absolutely just ordered this PCB because it looked so weird compared to most of the others on the website. I have no experience with the EQD Life Pedal, and I had no idea what to expect. When I plugged this thing in and started playing with knobs and switches, I got all kinds of crazy-sounding shit. But it was COOL crazy-sounding shit.
I honestly have no idea what to do with this one, but I kind of love it already. I made a mistake, though, by pre-soldering all three switches to breakout boards before actually looking at the wiring diagram. Fortunately, I had three extras, but the handwiring of each switch was a bit of a challenge. I melted more than one wire's insulation, but everything seems to have worked out. Can't wait to play around more with this one! (And as far as the name goes, I'm an English professor, so I had to stick with a punctuation reference.)10) VHS (Betamax)
I feel like every time I've built a run of pedals, there's been a problem child. Some of you may remember the saga of my Butt Head Distortion build, which went so far down the troubleshooting rabbit hole that I had to construct and figure out how to use an audio probe. This time, it was this guy. It was my first time soldering an SMD FV-1, and it didn't go well. I used waaaay too much solder and had big globby solder bridges between pins, which necessitated wicking everything with heat applied longer than I would've liked. I finally got it cleaned up and assembled, but once I plugged it in, no dice. Bypass worked, as did all of the LEDs, but when I turned on any of the effects, all I got was switch pops. I suspected that I'd overheated the FV-1, but based on my Butt Head experience, I decided to sit down with the schematic and work through the audio path with the probe. (It was also my first time using my new Auditorium board, which makes the process SO MUCH easier.) Sure enough, the tone was fine all the way to pins 1 and 2 of the FV-1, with nothing on any of the other pins or coming out the other side on 28. I had no idea how to troubleshoot the FV-1 itself, so I figured I'd need to just order a new one. I decided, though, that it couldn't hurt to go ahead and reflow the solder on all the pins, even though everything looked fine through my magnifier. Apparently, though, it's much easier to have a bad solder joint on an SMD component and not see it, because once I reflowed everything, the signal went through the pedal start-to-finish. And I gotta say, this one was worth the effort! Having a boost, a fun warbly chorus, and a solid hall reverb in one pedal is great, and they all sound great together, too. This is another one that I'll need to play around with to really get dialed in, but unlike some of the others, it's also already really solid out of the gate. Funny story: for some reason, when I set up the Tayda drill template for this one, I made the hole for the DC jack way too big. My solution was to buy a cheap metal flange at Menards, hammer it a bit flatter, and cover the hole on the outside with it while doing the same on the inside with a washer. Not only did it fix the problem, but it gave the back of the pedal a cool industrial look. I guess necessity really is the mother of invention sometimes.
Okay, that's it for these ten builds! Next up:
Red Muffin Fuzz
ElectroVibe
Tommy III
Muffin Factory
Pro-10 Dual Overdrive
Stockade Overdrive
Octagon MultiFX
General Tso’s Compressor
Muffler Noise Gate
Cobalt/Notakliché Combo Drive
I think it's safe to say I'm digging this hobby!
