Parentheses - A show of hands
- Thread starter Chuck D. Bones
- Start date
SteveScott
Member
I just made a post asking the same thing, then I found this thread.
I haven't started to build this yet and I'm glad I started reading this first.
K Pedals
Well-known member
DGWVI
Well-known member
Just boxed mine up. Rat sounds great, and the boost is a boost. The Octave circuit isn't nearly as prominent or aggressive as my stand-alone Ringer, so I'm probably going to swap out parts to make it identical to that at some point.
Edit: my diodes in the octave were backward. Flipped them, and it's actually quite a bit more in your face than my Ringer
Edit: my diodes in the octave were backward. Flipped them, and it's actually quite a bit more in your face than my Ringer
Last edited:
Built one today over about 10 hours. Second pedal ever, and my 2nd time picking up a soldering iron in the past 15 years. It wasn't a smart choice, but I had fun. Bit of a novel to follow, but maybe someone will find it interesting or helpful:
Pre-Attempt #1: I drilled in clipping switch hole in the wrong place. Whoops. This resulted in me having to do some long wire runs to swap the pot and switch. This definitely came back to bite me later...
(Lesson learned: Pay more attention when doing things you can't take back!)
Attempt #1: I was overconfident and went straight to boxing it up as I assembled, figuring it would help me keep my wire runs shorter. This turned out to be a mistake, because three things happened - one, one of the wires to the switch broke free, and my stupid self mixed up the positive and negative on my DC jack. The third is the bizarre angles I was working in left me with some not-great soldered joints.
(Lesson learned: Mount stuff inside out so I can still see the length to things but have way more free space. Also keep a reference to positive/negative for unlabeled parts that I can refer to.)
Attempt #2: It turned on, but I was getting so much noise as soon as I plugged in the output, even before plugging in the power, that I could barely tell if it was working at all. At this point, the fuzz and boost seemed to be working, but the octave didn't do anything.
What followed was multiple hours of hell due to not using enough flux, not using a high enough heat on my soldering station, and not being quicker to reach for the IPA. I figured it had to be the ground on the output jack giving me grief, but I failed at desoldering it and got solder and bits of cable strange stuck in one of the through holes. I have a weller solder sucker, but had a hell of a time getting it out. During all of this I managed to break off some cables from pads, which I guess was a good thing - definitely cold solder joints.
(Lessons learned: Go into the 600s, not 500s, on the iron. Use the flux pens I bought instead of letting them sit there! Be more careful when fixing stuff)
Attempt #3: When I resoldered the TRS jacks in the dozen or so times I was dealing with it after #2, I got the output backwards. Easy fix, and worked after that! At least, I think it does - all of the footswitches and pots seem to make the sound change in a way that seems reasonable for their function.
All in all, it was fun. All of my mistakes would be really easily avoidable, and I don't think any were particularly specific to Parentheses itself. I think I'm going to go do a handful of simpler builds for my next few, though...
Pre-Attempt #1: I drilled in clipping switch hole in the wrong place. Whoops. This resulted in me having to do some long wire runs to swap the pot and switch. This definitely came back to bite me later...
(Lesson learned: Pay more attention when doing things you can't take back!)
Attempt #1: I was overconfident and went straight to boxing it up as I assembled, figuring it would help me keep my wire runs shorter. This turned out to be a mistake, because three things happened - one, one of the wires to the switch broke free, and my stupid self mixed up the positive and negative on my DC jack. The third is the bizarre angles I was working in left me with some not-great soldered joints.
(Lesson learned: Mount stuff inside out so I can still see the length to things but have way more free space. Also keep a reference to positive/negative for unlabeled parts that I can refer to.)
Attempt #2: It turned on, but I was getting so much noise as soon as I plugged in the output, even before plugging in the power, that I could barely tell if it was working at all. At this point, the fuzz and boost seemed to be working, but the octave didn't do anything.
What followed was multiple hours of hell due to not using enough flux, not using a high enough heat on my soldering station, and not being quicker to reach for the IPA. I figured it had to be the ground on the output jack giving me grief, but I failed at desoldering it and got solder and bits of cable strange stuck in one of the through holes. I have a weller solder sucker, but had a hell of a time getting it out. During all of this I managed to break off some cables from pads, which I guess was a good thing - definitely cold solder joints.
(Lessons learned: Go into the 600s, not 500s, on the iron. Use the flux pens I bought instead of letting them sit there! Be more careful when fixing stuff)
Attempt #3: When I resoldered the TRS jacks in the dozen or so times I was dealing with it after #2, I got the output backwards. Easy fix, and worked after that! At least, I think it does - all of the footswitches and pots seem to make the sound change in a way that seems reasonable for their function
.All in all, it was fun. All of my mistakes would be really easily avoidable, and I don't think any were particularly specific to Parentheses itself. I think I'm going to go do a handful of simpler builds for my next few, though...
diocide
New member
Hey folks. New forumite here.
I've built a few of these for friends, and I"ve encountered a random problem.
When the octave is turned all the way up, I get oscillation. An instant screech.
It's only happened on two builds out of 4. All parts are high quality, but I'm not sure what causing the instant feedback.
Any thoughts? The pedal works as it should otherwise.
I've built a few of these for friends, and I"ve encountered a random problem.
When the octave is turned all the way up, I get oscillation. An instant screech.
It's only happened on two builds out of 4. All parts are high quality, but I'm not sure what causing the instant feedback.
Any thoughts? The pedal works as it should otherwise.
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
You'll get more attention in the Troubleshooting forum. When you do get it fixed, please come back here and cast a vote.
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