Band of Dans
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Baby's first tube project and first bass project! I've recently started learning bass and of course that means bass-specific pedals. After perusing the bass DI pedalboard thread's recommendations, it seemed like something in the DI/preamp universe would be a great first project. I'd planned on starting with Madbean's sludgehammer (and will probably still build it), but it's been out of stock for a long time and everybody's C2C/sushibox builds just look so cool that I YOLO'd it and dove in to what would become my most expensive DIY pedal to date.
I mostly stuck with @vigilante398's default BOM, including the very pretty Unagi transformer. Really, my only personal touches were a winked silver pre-drilled enclosure from Tayda, waterclear pink LEDs, and brutalist knobs. Because of both the expense and risk associated with high voltage parts, I took my time, tested every component, and double-checked every step before moving on to the next. All in all, it was a really enjoyable and satisfying project.
I made a few screwups. I didn't have any 51R resistors and had to run a couple of resistors in series for the XLR board. The only suitable self-tapping screws I had in silver were just a little too big and ended up cracking one side of the XLR housing. And I stupidly scuffed up the faceplate by trying to use a tabbed switch washer. I did have to take everything apart once after realizing the 9mm pots have itsy bitsy little tabs that need to be snipped. I even checked first, but the tabs are so small I missed them
. Thankfully, @vigilante398 designed the circuit to discharge its caps quickly, which made me only slightly less scared to open the thing back up very carefully.
As others have said, the faceplate really is much nicer in person and I think it looks really nice with the winked silver enclosure. How does it sound? Well, I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to bass and can't comment with any authority, but it certainly works well and sounds nicer than plugging directly into my audio interface. And using it makes me feel both very cool and completely out of my depth at the same time. What more could you possibly ask for?
I mostly stuck with @vigilante398's default BOM, including the very pretty Unagi transformer. Really, my only personal touches were a winked silver pre-drilled enclosure from Tayda, waterclear pink LEDs, and brutalist knobs. Because of both the expense and risk associated with high voltage parts, I took my time, tested every component, and double-checked every step before moving on to the next. All in all, it was a really enjoyable and satisfying project.
I made a few screwups. I didn't have any 51R resistors and had to run a couple of resistors in series for the XLR board. The only suitable self-tapping screws I had in silver were just a little too big and ended up cracking one side of the XLR housing. And I stupidly scuffed up the faceplate by trying to use a tabbed switch washer. I did have to take everything apart once after realizing the 9mm pots have itsy bitsy little tabs that need to be snipped. I even checked first, but the tabs are so small I missed them
. Thankfully, @vigilante398 designed the circuit to discharge its caps quickly, which made me only slightly less scared to open the thing back up very carefully.
As others have said, the faceplate really is much nicer in person and I think it looks really nice with the winked silver enclosure. How does it sound? Well, I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to bass and can't comment with any authority, but it certainly works well and sounds nicer than plugging directly into my audio interface. And using it makes me feel both very cool and completely out of my depth at the same time. What more could you possibly ask for?
