MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Well it seems like I've been following in the footsteps of @Joben Magooch last few builds. He posts a build post and it's something I'm just getting started on, or in this case, he posted a very unique build of the Clandestine and it inspired me to dig mine out.
I first built my original Clandestine about 18 months ago. It was probably within my first 20-30 pedals or so.
I absolutely loved it and it sat in my signal chain for a long time as a go to pre-dirt pedal boost until the Modus Operandi came along and kicked it off.
Digging it back out after being inspired by @Joben Magooch 's post and playing with it a bit, I remembered why I liked it so much.
I've always been a fan of the EP style pre-amps. Before getting into pedal building I had an Xotic EP Boost pedal that was part of my signal chain.
When I built the Clandestine, it blew the Xotic away, it sounded so much better and more nuanced. Richer harmonics, etc,
So anyway, like some other of my favorite pedals that I've been rebuilding lately, I decided to rebuild this one to my current build standards.
My original one was one of my early attempts at stuffing a 125b project into a 1590B enclosure and I recall it was a difficult build because of the shape and length of the board. Also my wiring was ugly and the soldering was sloppy, etc etc. (It still sounded great though!)
So I ordered another board from @Robert with the last coupon sale and was doing some research on the Chase Tone website (which is where I found the Chase Tone Wah pot I mentioned here.) That's where I learned something I didn't know before. Apparently Kyle Chase designed this pedal to actually sit at the end of the pedal chain at unity gain. Not really a boost per se, as it doesn't have a ton of volume. I think the gain max's out around +3db.
I had always used this as a more traditional boost in front of the dirt pedals, so I decided to put it at the end of my dirt pedal chain and WOW what a lot of cool goodness it can do to an overdriven sound! There's a clip on the website of placing the Secret Preamp after a $40 Boss DS-1 and how it turns it into a boutique sounding overdrive.
There's a lot of superlatives on the website and marketing hype but I've found a lot of the superlatives to be not far from the truth. It DOES add harmonic content to an overdriven signal, it DOES tame fizzy sounding pedals, and it DOES add a "fat-ness" to the sound.
I decided to take it a step further and have been experimenting with placing it in my amp EFX loop, after the delays but before the reverb. I love what it does to the Deluxe Memory Man delays, as in all the repeats are also being conditioned by the Clandestine. It also makes the overdrive on my VHT/Dumble sound a lot richer and cohesive. Now that I have two, I plan to leave one in the amp efx loop and for the time being it's another "always on" pedal, it just sounds so good.
Like my first build, I decided to go with the same mojo parts as the retail pedal. I decided to order some Yageo carbon film resistors for this pedal as well as some Sprague Orange Drop 225P's for the film caps. The hardest part and what took the longest time was getting there top jacks properly drilled.
There's very little margin for error, less than usual for one of my 1590B builds. I mean LITERALLY like 2-3mm margin (see the pics below).
I used a previously borked enclosure and drilled some test holes in it for top jacks to dial it all in before drilling the actual enclosure I was going to be using,
I used a Tayda hammered pewter (or silver? gray?) enclosure and splurged on an aluminum knob.
I used a 7660SEPA charge pump instead of TC1044SCPA's. I bought a bunch from Barry at GuitarPCB.com when he had them on sale. They're a drop in replacement for the TC1044, don't whine, and at a less than $1 ea it's a lot cheaper than buying TC1044's.
I also used an MMBF5457 JFET. Just picked a random one out since I can't test them very easily. Turned out perfect and it biased perfectly at 1/2 Vref.
Oh I also used a Silver Mica cap for the one ceramic in the BOM as well as some tantalums for some of the electrolytics to keep it low profile for the 1590B.
I had to jigger around the location of the top jacks to give the inserted jack the clearance it needed from the charge pump IC as well as the toggle switch legs.
It was a tight squeeze to make it work, but it worked! Without needing the crowbar I used on the last build.....
.
When I say "no margin for error..." I mean...........YIKES!
The top jacks are a little catty campus, aside from use two different kinds of jacks. But that part doesn't bother me, I'm so happy that I got it all to fit!
So I'm not sure yet how to demo this thing in a way that conveys what it does well. But I think tomorrow's going to be set aside for doing demo's. I've got some catching up to do with my last few builds. Oh, and I also need to do a demo of my new Jazzmaster pickups. The new Sunday Handwound pickup set I installed has turned this guitar from a "meh, don't really feel like playing it" to "can't keep my hands off the dang thing!" hahaha.
I first built my original Clandestine about 18 months ago. It was probably within my first 20-30 pedals or so.
I absolutely loved it and it sat in my signal chain for a long time as a go to pre-dirt pedal boost until the Modus Operandi came along and kicked it off.
Digging it back out after being inspired by @Joben Magooch 's post and playing with it a bit, I remembered why I liked it so much.
I've always been a fan of the EP style pre-amps. Before getting into pedal building I had an Xotic EP Boost pedal that was part of my signal chain.
When I built the Clandestine, it blew the Xotic away, it sounded so much better and more nuanced. Richer harmonics, etc,
So anyway, like some other of my favorite pedals that I've been rebuilding lately, I decided to rebuild this one to my current build standards.
My original one was one of my early attempts at stuffing a 125b project into a 1590B enclosure and I recall it was a difficult build because of the shape and length of the board. Also my wiring was ugly and the soldering was sloppy, etc etc. (It still sounded great though!)
So I ordered another board from @Robert with the last coupon sale and was doing some research on the Chase Tone website (which is where I found the Chase Tone Wah pot I mentioned here.) That's where I learned something I didn't know before. Apparently Kyle Chase designed this pedal to actually sit at the end of the pedal chain at unity gain. Not really a boost per se, as it doesn't have a ton of volume. I think the gain max's out around +3db.
I had always used this as a more traditional boost in front of the dirt pedals, so I decided to put it at the end of my dirt pedal chain and WOW what a lot of cool goodness it can do to an overdriven sound! There's a clip on the website of placing the Secret Preamp after a $40 Boss DS-1 and how it turns it into a boutique sounding overdrive.
There's a lot of superlatives on the website and marketing hype but I've found a lot of the superlatives to be not far from the truth. It DOES add harmonic content to an overdriven signal, it DOES tame fizzy sounding pedals, and it DOES add a "fat-ness" to the sound.
I decided to take it a step further and have been experimenting with placing it in my amp EFX loop, after the delays but before the reverb. I love what it does to the Deluxe Memory Man delays, as in all the repeats are also being conditioned by the Clandestine. It also makes the overdrive on my VHT/Dumble sound a lot richer and cohesive. Now that I have two, I plan to leave one in the amp efx loop and for the time being it's another "always on" pedal, it just sounds so good.
Like my first build, I decided to go with the same mojo parts as the retail pedal. I decided to order some Yageo carbon film resistors for this pedal as well as some Sprague Orange Drop 225P's for the film caps. The hardest part and what took the longest time was getting there top jacks properly drilled.
There's very little margin for error, less than usual for one of my 1590B builds. I mean LITERALLY like 2-3mm margin (see the pics below).
I used a previously borked enclosure and drilled some test holes in it for top jacks to dial it all in before drilling the actual enclosure I was going to be using,
I used a Tayda hammered pewter (or silver? gray?) enclosure and splurged on an aluminum knob.
I used a 7660SEPA charge pump instead of TC1044SCPA's. I bought a bunch from Barry at GuitarPCB.com when he had them on sale. They're a drop in replacement for the TC1044, don't whine, and at a less than $1 ea it's a lot cheaper than buying TC1044's.
I also used an MMBF5457 JFET. Just picked a random one out since I can't test them very easily. Turned out perfect and it biased perfectly at 1/2 Vref.
Oh I also used a Silver Mica cap for the one ceramic in the BOM as well as some tantalums for some of the electrolytics to keep it low profile for the 1590B.
I had to jigger around the location of the top jacks to give the inserted jack the clearance it needed from the charge pump IC as well as the toggle switch legs.
It was a tight squeeze to make it work, but it worked! Without needing the crowbar I used on the last build.....
.
When I say "no margin for error..." I mean...........YIKES!
The top jacks are a little catty campus, aside from use two different kinds of jacks. But that part doesn't bother me, I'm so happy that I got it all to fit!
So I'm not sure yet how to demo this thing in a way that conveys what it does well. But I think tomorrow's going to be set aside for doing demo's. I've got some catching up to do with my last few builds. Oh, and I also need to do a demo of my new Jazzmaster pickups. The new Sunday Handwound pickup set I installed has turned this guitar from a "meh, don't really feel like playing it" to "can't keep my hands off the dang thing!" hahaha.
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