Dirty_Boogie
Well-known member
There was a question recently about getting a rockabilly tone, and the suggestion came up for the Roland Space Echo (BS-301) preamp (Brain Seltzer "Noctune" pedal). I was intrigued by this, so looked up the schematic and breadboarded it. It sounded surprisingly good, even though 1) I'm not running it into a Bassman; 2) I'm not playing a Gretch; and 3) I'm no Brian Setzer! Hard to describe what it does to the base tone, other than it gives it more character and feels more "present" or 3-dimensional.
Anyway, decided to build the Vero, and figured I could fit it into a 1590A enclosure (yes, I'm a sucker for punishment!) One thing I found when I breadboarded it (and confirmed by the stompbox forums) is that the tone control has very little effect - mainly a narrow band where it lightly cuts the low end, giving some additional "sparkle". This got me thinking - what if I found the "sweet spot" on the 100K tone pot for this, measured it, and then soldered a fixed resistor of that value right on the the vero? The 100K pot works in conjunction with a 100nF cap for the tone control. To give some level of tone control, I decided to remove the 100nF from the board, and wire in a super-mini SPDT switch (much smaller footprint than a pot) with two caps connected to it - to be able to switch between the 100nF, and a 22nF (for a low cut).
As usual, the Vero build was quick and painless, but I knew the wiring and fitting everything into the 1590A would be a challenge. Fortunately, I was able to stand the board on its side, so with careful wiring, and very careful placement of small Lumberg jacks and a compact footswitch, I got everything to fit. Also, someone here recently recommended silicon hookup wire, so I gave that a try - man that stuff was like working with overcooked spaghetti!
I didn't test it before boxing - I was fully committed! And you know what, the thing fired up first time! Actually, before I fired it up, I realized I had forgotten to insert the IC, so had to pull everything out to get to the IC socket.
Anyway, thanks for reading (if you got this far...) Here's a few pics, and quick reverb-laden sound sample - unfortunately, the cell phone video really doesn't capture the full tonal effect from the clean tone, but it is there. Enjoy!
Anyway, decided to build the Vero, and figured I could fit it into a 1590A enclosure (yes, I'm a sucker for punishment!) One thing I found when I breadboarded it (and confirmed by the stompbox forums) is that the tone control has very little effect - mainly a narrow band where it lightly cuts the low end, giving some additional "sparkle". This got me thinking - what if I found the "sweet spot" on the 100K tone pot for this, measured it, and then soldered a fixed resistor of that value right on the the vero? The 100K pot works in conjunction with a 100nF cap for the tone control. To give some level of tone control, I decided to remove the 100nF from the board, and wire in a super-mini SPDT switch (much smaller footprint than a pot) with two caps connected to it - to be able to switch between the 100nF, and a 22nF (for a low cut).
As usual, the Vero build was quick and painless, but I knew the wiring and fitting everything into the 1590A would be a challenge. Fortunately, I was able to stand the board on its side, so with careful wiring, and very careful placement of small Lumberg jacks and a compact footswitch, I got everything to fit. Also, someone here recently recommended silicon hookup wire, so I gave that a try - man that stuff was like working with overcooked spaghetti!
I didn't test it before boxing - I was fully committed! And you know what, the thing fired up first time! Actually, before I fired it up, I realized I had forgotten to insert the IC, so had to pull everything out to get to the IC socket.Anyway, thanks for reading (if you got this far...) Here's a few pics, and quick reverb-laden sound sample - unfortunately, the cell phone video really doesn't capture the full tonal effect from the clean tone, but it is there. Enjoy!
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