My White Whale

D

Diynot

Well-known member
“….From Hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” This quote brought to you by this popping up in my Facebook feed:
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So they finally admit that there were issues with previous iterations, but I question if they have actually fixed anything. But am I a little tempted?Sadly, yes. It really is the only pedal I could not get working. After a year and a half of trying to troubleshoot, even contacting Diablochris himself for help/insights, I gave up and trashed the board. So tell me your White Whale pedal story.
 
Oh.. my Hydra. Maybe my 3rd or 4th build? Waaay too confident in my abilities.

Got it built, worked. Drilled the enclosure. First time drilling myself, fudged the toggle holes, had to "massage" the board in. Not working.
Troubleshooting and reflowing some joints got it working. Playing for a few days, then stops working. Can't get it going again.

Spent a few weeks (months) in a drawer and then I spent a few hours troubleshooting and got it going again. One day later. No go.
Rinse and repeat once more, now it stays in the drawer for a wiser man.

Definitely user error that one..
 
For me, it's anything with a PLL/Data Corrupter clone.. 3 different boards/designs based on the same IC(s) and best Iget is a little fuzz from all knobs on pedal AND amp cranked 🤬 🤬 🤬
 
I'm still trying to build a king of tone where one side doesn't sound considerably better than the other. I'm OK with one side being a little better, I mean they're not going to be identical but I always have one side that's a lot better.

It makes me sad
 
SillyOctpuss said:
I'm still trying to build a king of tone where one side doesn't sound considerably better than the other. I'm OK with one side being a little better, I mean they're not going to be identical but I always have one side that's a lot better.

It makes me sad
Click to expand...

Are you left or right-handed?…
 
SillyOctpuss said:
I'm still trying to build a king of tone where one side doesn't sound considerably better than the other. I'm OK with one side being a little better, I mean they're not going to be identical but I always have one side that's a lot better.

It makes me sad
Click to expand...
Do you measure the pots? I've found that pots typical 20% tolerance is what has made the most noticeable difference in my builds. I had a pedal that just didn't have as much gain as I expected then I found out my 500k pot read 403k.
 
swyse said:
Do you measure the pots? I've found that pots typical 20% tolerance is what has made the most noticeable difference in my builds. I had a pedal that just didn't have as much gain as I expected then I found out my 500k pot read 403k.
Click to expand...
Yes my last build had pots which were as close as you could realistically expect. The differences are usually in the mids, there's usually one side which is more present and fuller in the mids than the other side. I know it's parts tolerances but it's a pain the ass.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
Yes my last build had pots which were as close as you could realistically expect. The differences are usually in the mids, there's usually one side which is more present and fuller in the mids than the other side. I know it's parts tolerances but it's a pain the ass.
Click to expand...
Time to order 1000 of everything and get to sorting!
 
swyse said:
Time to order 1000 of everything and get to sorting!
Click to expand...

On my last build the left side sounded fantastic and I'm incredibly close to pulling all of the parts in the audio path and measuring them. I'm just not sure that this is a rabbit hole I'm ready to go down yet. I'm not sure my sanity could take it. 😃
 
Diynot said:
So they finally admit that there were issues with previous iterations, but I question if they have actually fixed anything. But am I a little tempted?Sadly, yes. It really is the only pedal I could not get working. After a year and a half of trying to troubleshoot, even contacting Diablochris himself for help/insights, I gave up and trashed the board. So tell me your White Whale pedal story.
Click to expand...
I just noticed the brand name on the lower corner of your PCB, now your post makes a lot more sense.
 
sticky1138 said:
I just noticed the brand name on the lower corner of your PCB, now your post makes a lot more sense.
Click to expand...
Yeah, even when I was ordering the board, not even really knowing the company at that point, I had a bad gut feeling, but they are the only ones to produce a v1 Sagan board and there is a good reason why. Even the creator of the circuit redesigned it for fidelity reasons.
 
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