Drive>Delay>Reverb recommendations

[Grubb]

Hi folks,

I'm in between projects as I wait for parts to arrive, so I'm thinking through another project on my list.

I'm a teacher at a high school. The students at my school who play guitar are all talented but are also limited by lack of quality effects. They have generic school amps (Fender & Peavey solid state) with generic inbuilt reverb and not much usable drive. I want to build an effect that has a good drive, a delay, and a nice reverb in a single box. Ideally 3/4 buttons. Here are my questions:

1) What drive would you use that could cover a lot of territory from OD to Dist?

2) Delay recommendations? Rhythmic U2 sounds and classic solo delays are the goals. Tap tempo would be good.

3) Reverb? Room to Hall scope preferred.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions

 

[Feral Feline]

Drive: something that gets close to Dr Scientist's "The Elements", I don't know of any trace/schematic of that one though. The Elements started its life based on the classic dual op-amp architecture w/ feedback clipping such as TS-808 (there's a can-o-worms), Timmy (PPCB Tommy III), etc. OD-DIST ... It's such a huge category, I'm sure others here will have more concise suggestions.
VFE Dragon w/ Boneyard mods (The FireDrake) may be forthcoming? One can hope.
Ember (TC Spark) gets a lot of love as a boost-OD, but I don't know if it'll do distortion.
Such a huge scope for OD...

Delay'Verb:
I'll recommend the PPCB Spirit Box — it's a combo of delay and reverb, and it's ripe for delay modifications such as longer delay times, modulation and tap-tempo into Belton's "spring"-reverb brick. Bonus: no having to wait for FV-1 chips...

For a straight-forward good sounding delay that can be modded for tap tempo: Seabed Delay.

Versatile 'verb: Spatialist Reverb (FV-1).

 

[fig]

+1 To the Spirit Box
+1 to Boneyard
Memory Man / Total Recall?

 

[JamieJ]

The Parthenon can be used as a boost and as a OD/distortion with the gain switch but it’s more heavy OD than distortion. There are so many suitable pedals to fill this slot.

If you only want simple reverb sounds how about a threeverb build or radium springs. Or you could build a pythagorus and use the custom EEPROM to chose your three reverb patches

Tap tempo delay is where it gets a bit more challenging. Most likely the pt2399 type circuits are the best option but I don’t have much experience with those. The deep blue delay pedals are always loved. There is this as well - https://www.musikding.de/DigiDelay-Delay-kit

 

[Laundryroom David]

How many are you apt to build, and do you want to keep parts counts down?

 

[Laundryroom David]

Also, good on ya building up the kids.

 

[spi]

1) What drive would you use that could cover a lot of territory from OD to Dist?

I don't want to sound like one of those Rat fanboys, but a Rat does cover a lot of ground. And the Alpha Dog is Rat variant that adds a lot more versatility.

 

[Locrian99]

More of an od but the gang Greene has a lot of versatility with the clipping switch and is a smaller board with 3 straight forward knobs. As both are smaller builds might do something along the tube screamer line like the gang Greene and then do an ocd for more of a distortion or even a muff (everyone needs a muff). I’d imagine you don’t necessarily want to bog them down with too many options at the same time. The seabed delay as was mentioned is great and there are some tap tempo mods out there. I have a dd7 and a seabed I built I like the sea bed for just being straight forward and sounding good. I don’t have a suggestion for the reverb as I haven’t built one yet.

 

[eh là bas ma]

od/dist : boss BD-2 is a classic (you know Rage Against the Machine ?). Aion's Sapphire is the most interesting BD-2 project I could find :

Sapphire Amp Overdrive kit., 44,50

Blues Overdrive

www.musikding.de

A modded DS-1 can go from od to distortion too, and sounds amazing (nothing like the standard version).

Wampler Sovereign is an other good exemple, Contour controls the mids, it's great to have this feature on a gain effect. Available as Monarch Distortion at PedalPCB.

B.Wampler is among the best circuit-designer regarding gain effects. Here is a demo (i really like the part from 2:12 to 3:04, but couldn't find the right tuning in D) :

A simple cheap reverb that doesn't need mods :

The 3Verb - Reverb kit, 35,00

The 3Verb guitar effects pedal is a very analog sounding reverb, although it is bases on the digital BTDR-3 module Controls for Decay and Mix enable to get

www.musikding.de

About delays, I don't think you can find a compact analog delay able to go up to 1 second, with perfectly clean repeats, no background noises... or I 'd be happy to learn about it...

If you want one that sounds good with long delays (i mean more than half a second) I would stay far away from anything with a PT2399 chip, or you'll have a big shhhh sound inside the delayed signal (note that some players don't care about this kind of noise). Impossible to remove, even with modifications. I heard you can buy 100 PT2399, try them all, and maybe one will work a bit better...

I would choose a digital one for longer delays, working on algorythms. Something with the FV-1 surely, or a cheap industrial one from used market. Ibanez DE-7 or vox Time Machine w/ tap tempo for exemple.

Of course if you don't care about longer delay, PT2399 based delays, like the Deep Blue suggested by JamieJ, are fine.

If you want warm, "natural" sounding delay, it's going to be analog, circuits tend to be bigger in size and a bit more expensive.

Although i didn't build them all, I guess this exemple is among the best quality you can achieve in diy right now : https://www.musikding.de/DC-Echo-kit
You can dial amazing sounds with the feedback. Probably a special thing from this circuit. But it doesn't get very long : 0.6 second max.

Your students will get fully addicted with these...but they'll still need a chorus, an A/DA flanger , an octaver, an enveloppe filter, a compressor, a tremolo, a vibrato, a phaser, 4 or 5 fuzzes, etc. Or they will head straight for the wall.

If the next generation can't use a good chorus properly, just give the world to Xi Jin Ping and be done with it....