mkstewartesq
Well-known member
So it’s been close to a year since I built my last pedal (although I still check in on this forum daily). The reasons for taking time off or multiple. First, I had built about 45 pedals in the span of two years, many of them just different flavors of the same effect, and felt that I had pretty much filled out the bench as far as my pedalboard - there were no gaping sonic holes that needed to be filled urgently and I just really didn’t see anything but I absolutely felt I had to build right away. Second, I decided I really should focus on actually playing the guitar that I used with the pedals rather than constantly jumping to my next pedal build (ha, that didn’t happen so much – life gets in the way).
ANYWAY - I’ve never had a true vibe pedal (spoiler alert: still don’t). Both my Karaoke Chorus and Circulator have “vibe mode” but I don’t love either of them, and my very last build before taking a break was GuitarPCB’s The Vibe which was really much more a phaser and rather disappointing. So to ease back into things, I wanted a project where I already had all of the components on hand. I ran across the Tagboardeffects stripboard layout of the Runoffgroove Tri-Vibe and decided to give it a shot. I was really rusty with building (and was never particularly great with stripboard) but I think it turned out reasonably well.
The build: boy was I out of practice and had forgotten almost everything, from technique to wiring. The board is really almost too big for a 125B; I should’ve used a 1590BB but I am a glutton for punishment. The thing is just absolutely jam-packed with wires and the board runs all the way from the 3PDT up past the jacks – it took me forever just to get the jacks arranged where the cable wasn’t shorting out on the board when I plugged it in. I know it is a super-messy build but let’s be kind and chalk that up to me being out of the game for a while and not just being sloppy AF.
It’s built stock except for
Enclosure: bare aluminum, polished with sandpaper and then a film-free decal applied. For the record “Revolver” is a pun on the rotary speaker and other swirly effects this thing puts out, not a reference to a gun. (It’s also the only word I could find that looked symmetrical when curving the font to fit the design.) Just wanted to make that clear since everyone I showed the pedal to “in real life“ saw the word “revolver“ and asked me if I was having suicidal thoughts or something.
Mike
ANYWAY - I’ve never had a true vibe pedal (spoiler alert: still don’t). Both my Karaoke Chorus and Circulator have “vibe mode” but I don’t love either of them, and my very last build before taking a break was GuitarPCB’s The Vibe which was really much more a phaser and rather disappointing. So to ease back into things, I wanted a project where I already had all of the components on hand. I ran across the Tagboardeffects stripboard layout of the Runoffgroove Tri-Vibe and decided to give it a shot. I was really rusty with building (and was never particularly great with stripboard) but I think it turned out reasonably well.
The build: boy was I out of practice and had forgotten almost everything, from technique to wiring. The board is really almost too big for a 125B; I should’ve used a 1590BB but I am a glutton for punishment. The thing is just absolutely jam-packed with wires and the board runs all the way from the 3PDT up past the jacks – it took me forever just to get the jacks arranged where the cable wasn’t shorting out on the board when I plugged it in. I know it is a super-messy build but let’s be kind and chalk that up to me being out of the game for a while and not just being sloppy AF.
It’s built stock except for
- Two changes to make the layout more closely follow the original Runoffgroove schematic (changed the 1u cap on pin 9 of the LM13700 to 220nf, and changed one of the film caps to electrolytic);
- Took a feed from pin 8 of the TL064 to create a rate LED; and
- Added a switch to choose between a red LED and three 1N4148s in series (the original schematic calls for a 3 mm red LED but suggests that you can replace with the three 1N4148s - I couldn’t tell a difference between those two in my build but I did notice a difference on certain settings when I used a 5 mm LED, so my switch switches between the 5 mm LED and the three 1N4148s just for when the mood strikes).
Enclosure: bare aluminum, polished with sandpaper and then a film-free decal applied. For the record “Revolver” is a pun on the rotary speaker and other swirly effects this thing puts out, not a reference to a gun. (It’s also the only word I could find that looked symmetrical when curving the font to fit the design.) Just wanted to make that clear since everyone I showed the pedal to “in real life“ saw the word “revolver“ and asked me if I was having suicidal thoughts or something.
Mike
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