Fingolfen
Well-known member
Before I started etching my own boards, a friend sent me an effects layout Ram's Head big muff board that he'd etched. I figured, since I have an old school board, why not go fairly old school on the components?
So with the board drilled, I set about getting some decent old school components. I used Allen Bradley resistors across the board, older 1N914 diodes from Pedalhacker, and some older 2N5133 transistors as well. Most of the capacitors are Panasonic metal film apart from the electrolytic, which is new. I also used a new 4001 diode. Dealing with a one-sided board taught me the virtues of flux and other more advanced soldering techniques!
As my graphics computer (the one with Photoshop and Illustrator) had been down at this point, I decided to go with a home-drilled and simple text enclosure. It's painted with an Alclad Burnt Metal metallizer and then sealed. I found some fonts that looked very close to the original EHX ones and just printed them out using Word. I'm also using new production EHX knobs.
Since that was a fun build, I figured it was worth testing to see if I could go even more old school with a Big Muff build. This time around I wanted to use an established board to make sure if there were any issues, it was the components, not the board! There's an electronics shop called Surplus Gizmos not too far from where I live, and they have a little bit of everything. Including racks of old ceramic capacitors. Picture kid in a candy store, and that was me! Anyway, an hour or so and a bag of goodies later, I had capacitors and other stuff for a variety of builds.
For build 1 I started with the Aion Halo as I wanted a board I'd used before and I knew worked, but any decent BMP PCB would work. The part load out was very similar to the previous build, but the film capacitors were changed out for ceramics. Of course, I ended up having to put all of the capacitors in one baggie which meant I had to re-sort everything when I got home!
As you can see from the PCB above, this one is almost totally old school. All of the resistors are Allen Bradley carbon resistors - even the RPD (and the LED resistor on the bypass board, not pictured). All but two of the capacitors are ceramic. I forgot to snag a couple of 10n capacitors, but as the store was getting ready to close, I had to cut things short. I'll likely head back next week and pick up a few more things. The diodes are all old school 1N914 as well - sadly my stock of these is starting to dwindle. The transistors are also classic 2N5133. The only truly modern component on the main board is the new electrolytic which is one of the power supply filter capacitors. The resistance / capacitance values match the first version of the Violet Ram's Head BMP.
The juxtaposition of old and new just looks so dang COOL...
Anyway, enclosure for this one is UV printed (because finishing my own takes forever, and I can't do colored text), but it's in the same vein as the other one - only smaller!
Both of these sound great! The noise floor is a little higher than on a 100% modern build, but I can tell some difference in tone with the ceramic capacitor version - it seems to have more "fuzz" character at lower sustain settings before breaking over into distortion. I'm not sure if that is because of the intrinsic properties of the ceramic capacitors - or just that their values are different enough from the tighter Panasonic ones to make a difference in the circuit. I didn't write down every value on each as I tested (though that may be worth doing some day).
A little more on both build one and two at the blog... if you're interested...
So with the board drilled, I set about getting some decent old school components. I used Allen Bradley resistors across the board, older 1N914 diodes from Pedalhacker, and some older 2N5133 transistors as well. Most of the capacitors are Panasonic metal film apart from the electrolytic, which is new. I also used a new 4001 diode. Dealing with a one-sided board taught me the virtues of flux and other more advanced soldering techniques!
As my graphics computer (the one with Photoshop and Illustrator) had been down at this point, I decided to go with a home-drilled and simple text enclosure. It's painted with an Alclad Burnt Metal metallizer and then sealed. I found some fonts that looked very close to the original EHX ones and just printed them out using Word. I'm also using new production EHX knobs.
Since that was a fun build, I figured it was worth testing to see if I could go even more old school with a Big Muff build. This time around I wanted to use an established board to make sure if there were any issues, it was the components, not the board! There's an electronics shop called Surplus Gizmos not too far from where I live, and they have a little bit of everything. Including racks of old ceramic capacitors. Picture kid in a candy store, and that was me! Anyway, an hour or so and a bag of goodies later, I had capacitors and other stuff for a variety of builds.
For build 1 I started with the Aion Halo as I wanted a board I'd used before and I knew worked, but any decent BMP PCB would work. The part load out was very similar to the previous build, but the film capacitors were changed out for ceramics. Of course, I ended up having to put all of the capacitors in one baggie which meant I had to re-sort everything when I got home!
As you can see from the PCB above, this one is almost totally old school. All of the resistors are Allen Bradley carbon resistors - even the RPD (and the LED resistor on the bypass board, not pictured). All but two of the capacitors are ceramic. I forgot to snag a couple of 10n capacitors, but as the store was getting ready to close, I had to cut things short. I'll likely head back next week and pick up a few more things. The diodes are all old school 1N914 as well - sadly my stock of these is starting to dwindle. The transistors are also classic 2N5133. The only truly modern component on the main board is the new electrolytic which is one of the power supply filter capacitors. The resistance / capacitance values match the first version of the Violet Ram's Head BMP.
The juxtaposition of old and new just looks so dang COOL...
Anyway, enclosure for this one is UV printed (because finishing my own takes forever, and I can't do colored text), but it's in the same vein as the other one - only smaller!
Both of these sound great! The noise floor is a little higher than on a 100% modern build, but I can tell some difference in tone with the ceramic capacitor version - it seems to have more "fuzz" character at lower sustain settings before breaking over into distortion. I'm not sure if that is because of the intrinsic properties of the ceramic capacitors - or just that their values are different enough from the tighter Panasonic ones to make a difference in the circuit. I didn't write down every value on each as I tested (though that may be worth doing some day).
A little more on both build one and two at the blog... if you're interested...
