Fairfield Circuitry inspired Paragon build for brother-in-law

water.town

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Just finalized a build for my little brother-in-law. Went very smoothly, no issues what-so-ever. This is my third Paragon build.

We live in the US and he's in Australia so wanted to do something nice for his 18th birthday (the legal drinking age there). I think it came out nicely so wanted to share some pics.

I went for a very, very heavily inspired Fairfield Circuitry aesthetic. I love how their pedals look so I hammered in the labels as best I could and sourced the right LED lamps from RS. I then smeared the enclosure with black acrylic paint, let it dry, and buffed with automotive polish so the paint is only left in the indentations.

If I were to build again I'd do some more research on the specific caps to use—I used monolithics for the 1uf and 100nfs, which sound great IMO, but I've since read the 1uf electrolytics should really be tantalums. It's high-gain on the left side and the dip switches are set for soft clipping on the right and hard clipping / distortion on the left.

The diodes are NOS from the Netherlands (a friend got these for me when he ordered some for his own project), and they sound killer on the high-gain side.

Anyway, here it is! Shipping it off tomorrow, fingers crossed it makes it.

I also just realized I have a JRC4558D in there by mistake. It sounds fine but will change out before I send off.

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I like having a 4558 on one side and a 4580 in the other. Before shipping it off you should audition some opamps, seems to make a difference in this circuit.
 
I like having a 4558 on one side and a 4580 in the other. Before shipping it off you should audition some opamps, seems to make a difference in this circuit.
I’ll give it a go! Any recommendations? Also do you think it would affect anything replacing the 1uf electrolytics with tantalums?
 
I’ll give it a go! Any recommendations? Also do you think it would affect anything replacing the 1uf electrolytics with tantalums?
Nope, if anything it would be the use of "mojo" carbon comp resistors in the signal path that would give it a bit more lo fi ness.

Check out this thread. @ckaudioeffects came up with some great mods for the Paragon circuit. I did them on my most recent Paragon build here.
 
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