Eternal Burst (Lovepedal Eternity Burst)

[MichaelW]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Another demo-less build report.

Between my Tele-escapades and Strat-o-tom foolery I did manage to get a build in.

This is a pretty neat soundings YATS. It's got some interesting thickness and girth to it. As I understand there are many variants of the Lovepedal Eternity pedals out there and they all sound a little different.

I have a bunch of different YATS builds but I really need to get my LGSM built if nothing else as a reference for comparison.

I like this pedal!

I used a Tayda pearl gray with some cupcake knobs as a nod to the original.

 

[coltonius]

Nice build! I hear girth can be beneficial if you use it properly..

 

[benny_profane]

Nice one! Did you use these jacks?

 

[MichaelW]

Nice one! Did you use these jacks?

Yes, I'm pretty much using them exclusively now on my 1590B builds.

 

[HamishR]

Years ago I was in NYC with my wife and son and my wife asked me if there was anywhere I'd like to go. So I suggested Lark St Music in NJ because it wasn't too far away. We caught a bus there and it was cool to see some of regular NJ - lots of houses done up in Halloween stuff because it was that time of year. Yes it was all suburbia but it is sooo different from the suburbia we live in. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant across the road from the music store. At Lark St I tried out a genuine '59 Les Paul through a '55 tweed Pro. For dirt I used a Lovepedal Eternity Black and I ended up buying it because I had to have some sort of keepsake of that wonderful day. Buzzy (the owner) was so welcoming and easy to deal with. It was one of our "let's see part of the USA that regular tourists don't see" days, and we really enjoyed it.

So I still have that Eternity Black and rarely play it, but when I do I'm kinda surprised that it does sound pretty good, particularly with my Les Paul, oddly enough. So I searched and found a schematic for the Eternity Black and while it's quite similar to the Burst it has something I like better. So I built one with a bass knob (because low end) and it's actually quite a fun pedal.

And all of this is a long preamble to say nice build as usual Michael!

 

[MichaelW]

Years ago I was in NYC with my wife and son and my wife asked me if there was anywhere I'd like to go. So I suggested Lark St Music in NJ because it wasn't too far away. We caught a bus there and it was cool to see some of regular NJ - lots of houses done up in Halloween stuff because it was that time of year. Yes it was all suburbia but it is sooo different from the suburbia we live in. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant across the road from the music store. At Lark St I tried out a genuine '59 Les Paul through a '55 tweed Pro. For dirt I used a Lovepedal Eternity Black and I ended up buying it because I had to have some sort of keepsake of that wonderful day. Buzzy (the owner) was so welcoming and easy to deal with. It was one of our "let's see part of the USA that regular tourists don't see" days, and we really enjoyed it.

So I still have that Eternity Black and rarely play it, but when I do I'm kinda surprised that it does sound pretty good, particularly with my Les Paul, oddly enough. So I searched and found a schematic for the Eternity Black and while it's quite similar to the Burst it has something I like better. So I built one with a bass knob (because low end) and it's actually quite a fun pedal.

And all of this is a long preamble to say nice build as usual Michael!

Any idea what the differences are?

 

[HamishR]

yup

 

[coltonius]

Any idea what the differences are?

Once upon a time I was chummy with Sean of Lovepedal and got a lowdown on some circuit methodology. He said there were over 200 variations of the Eternity alone, and that was 6-7 years ago!

At one time, I had mid-2000s (2004/2005) Burst and Roadhouse Eternities and mid-teen (2014-2015) Burst and Roadhouse Eternities, among others... In my experience, the ones that were closer in age sounded more alike than their designations of Burst or Roadhouse. That makes it nearly unpossible to tell without de-gooping and tracing.

Some common variations that I have seen or picked up over the years are the use of a 1M Gain pot, a 10k Glass/Tone pot, 1N4001 diodes (Kanji, I believe), and asymmetrical clipping. If you start with a 'standard' Burst circuit and tweak anything at all, I'm confident you will land on a variation that Sean has made!

 

[MichaelW]

Once upon a time I was chummy with Sean of Lovepedal and got a lowdown on some circuit methodology. He said there were over 200 variations of the Eternity alone, and that was 6-7 years ago!

At one time, I had mid-2000s (2004/2005) Burst and Roadhouse Eternities and mid-teen (2014-2015) Burst and Roadhouse Eternities, among others... In my experience, the ones that were closer in age sounded more alike than their designations of Burst or Roadhouse. That makes it nearly unpossible to tell without de-gooping and tracing.

Some common variations that I have seen or picked up over the years are the use of a 1M Gain pot, a 10k Glass/Tone pot, 1N4001 diodes (Kanji, I believe), and asymmetrical clipping. If you start with a 'standard' Burst circuit and tweak anything at all, I'm confident you will land on a variation that Sean has made!

I kind of like mine the way it is. It certainly is not as versatile as some of my other drives are. I mean in comparison to some of the other YATS it definitely has more of a mid hump and not very "transparent" but in a good way to my ears. Funny thing is my favorite of the bunch of recent builds is the Virgil. Such a cool overdrive.

 

[coltonius]

I kind of like mine the way it is. It certainly is not as versatile as some of my other drives are. I mean in comparison to some of the other YATS it definitely has more of a mid hump and not very "transparent" but in a good way to my ears. Funny thing is my favorite of the bunch of recent builds is the Virgil. Such a cool overdrive.

Yeah, I dig the Eternity for what it is! It's a really good circuit with Strat pickups, in my opinion.. And now I need to build another one.

 

[HamishR]

I'll dig up the differences for you soon. It was very late when I responded before. But I couldn't resist!

 

[HamishR]

Ok: The Black version has asymmetrical clipping - 3 1N4148s instead of four.
It has a 1K to drive 2 instead of 20K.
22µF output cap.
Instead of the 3K3/100nF from pin 2 of the IC to Vref it has 1K/220nF.
150nF on Tone 2 instead of 220nF.
Drive is B100K, Volume A100K.

Otherwise much the same. FWIW I seem to prefer the black one.

 

[MichaelW]

Ok: The Black version has asymmetrical clipping - 3 1N4148s instead of four.
It has a 1K to drive 2 instead of 20K.
22µF output cap.
Instead of the 3K3/100nF from pin 2 of the IC to Vref it has 1K/220nF.
150nF on Tone 2 instead of 220nF.
Drive is B100K, Volume A100K.

Otherwise much the same. FWIW I seem to prefer the black one.

So you can pretty much build the black one from the same board right? I imagine it might sound a bit more "open"?

 

[HamishR]

I guess so. You'd just need to jumper one of the clipping diodes and the rest is simply swapping components. As far as why I prefered the black one I can't remember.

So to use the Pedal PCB part numbers, the changes are as follows:

R2 1K
R4 1K
C2 220nF
C4 150nF
C5 22µF
D1 Jumper
Drive B100K
Volume A100K

And the rest is the same.

 

[e_man_89]

I built a strip board version of this circuit months ago and fell in love with it. I like building scratch build versions of circuits to see if I like them. Just an FYI, I think this circuit stacks very well with the MDMA OD circuit (I paired mine with a stripboad version of the Wampler Ecstacy/Euphoria). I like it a lot!

I recently built a stock version of the Eternal Burst circuit and found it very different from my strip board build. The sound was very compressed and "gainy" (more "screamerish"). The volume and gain pots were considerably higher in value than those on the strip board build. And the clipping was symetrical (4 diodes).

I came across HamishR's post and made the recommended changes. Now this circuit sounds MUCH more like my strip board build!

I know all of this "sounds like" stuff is all subjective, but I would encourage you to try the mods recommended for the "Black" version of this circuit.
It sounds more open, less compressed, and stacks very well with other circuits.

Thank you HamishR for your recommendations. I am very happy with the results!

 

[SillyOctpuss]

I guess so. You'd just need to jumper one of the clipping diodes and the rest is simply swapping components. As far as why I prefered the black one I can't remember.

So to use the Pedal PCB part numbers, the changes are as follows:

R2 1K
R4 1K
C2 220nF
C4 150nF
C5 22µF
D1 Jumper
Drive B100K
Volume A100K

And the rest is the same.

I missed this when you originally posted it. My fav version of the eternity I've built is the this one from tagboard, I think it's a version 3 according to the thread on Freestompboxes.org. It's very similar to the values you've posted above but with a 10k R2.



I find the burst version from tagboard has a bit too much gain and feels too compressed for me.

 

[HamishR]

That sounds about right - I prefer less compression and gain as a rule so it makes sense I would like the black version better.

It's interesting to compare Vero layouts. I think we all have our likes and dislikes - I know Mark hates to stand resistors up, but I can't see the problem. Look inside any old Ibanez pedal and it's full of standing resistors.

I dislike stretching radial electrolytics over more than the two rows they're designed for. Box caps should ideally span 3 rows because that's how they fit, but two rows is ok at a pinch because you can tuck a leg up underneath the cap to make it fit. I prefer to keep all the tone leads together, etc. Yes I am anal as all hell! I don't mind making the board a few rows wider if it mean a neater board.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

That sounds about right - I prefer less compression and gain as a rule so it makes sense I would like the black version better.

It's interesting to compare Vero layouts. I think we all have our likes and dislikes - I know Mark hates to stand resistors up, but I can't see the problem. Look inside any old Ibanez pedal and it's full of standing resistors.

I dislike stretching radial electrolytics over more than the two rows they're designed for. Box caps should ideally span 3 rows because that's how they fit, but two rows is ok at a pinch because you can tuck a leg up underneath the cap to make it fit. I prefer to keep all the tone leads together, etc. Yes I am anal as all hell! I don't mind making the board a few rows wider if it mean a neater board.

View attachment 54110

I'm definitely building this. We'll see if it knocks the tagboard build I posted above off my board.

 

[psb962]

Once upon a time I was chummy with Sean of Lovepedal and got a lowdown on some circuit methodology. He said there were over 200 variations of the Eternity alone, and that was 6-7 years ago!

At one time, I had mid-2000s (2004/2005) Burst and Roadhouse Eternities and mid-teen (2014-2015) Burst and Roadhouse Eternities, among others... In my experience, the ones that were closer in age sounded more alike than their designations of Burst or Roadhouse. That makes it nearly unpossible to tell without de-gooping and tracing.

Some common variations that I have seen or picked up over the years are the use of a 1M Gain pot, a 10k Glass/Tone pot, 1N4001 diodes (Kanji, I believe), and asymmetrical clipping. If you start with a 'standard' Burst circuit and tweak anything at all, I'm confident you will land on a variation that Sean has made!

I'd like build a TS clone without the buffers so this seems ideal. However, as I have a 3 diode asymmetric clipper (Gainster), a 4 diode symettric clipper (Bluesbreaker), I'd like to build a mord compressed clipper ie 2 diodes like a TD808. Was there an Eternity version that did this and if so what changed apart from number and type of diodes?

 

[cdwillis]

I don't know that there was ever an Eternity had only used two clipping diodes, but the Pedalpcb board is set up for four diodes. All you need to do it jumper one diode on each side.