- Build Rating
So I built a Brown Betty and since I hate commitment I added a switch to toggle between Brown Betty, Dirty Sanchez and Thermionic Deluxe specs. I had some concerns that the wiring to the switch would add significant noise but it turned out fine.
Two resistors (or trimpots if I can fit them) are still missing on the vero. The way it's wired up these will go in parallel with the trimpot on the PCB. So by adjusting the resistors/trimmers on the vero I can get two additional switchable gain settings. I haven't decided on values yet so I left those unpopulated.
The build was pretty smooth, even the switch wiring. Of course I had to trip at the finish line and bungled the DC jack wiring. Woopsie... Fortunately no harm done though. Reversed the wiring and everything worked perfectly.
The Dirty Sanchez has a tight switch instead of a pot but I did not bother including that. My DMM says tight pot at 10 o' clock = DS tight switch off and tight pot at 12 o' clock = DS tight switch on. Other than that there's only one cap difference between the Dirty Sanchez and the Brown Betty and they do sound very similar, the latter being just a tad darker/smoother. I still think having the two on a switch will eventually be useful once I put the resistors on the vero for switchable gain trimpot settings.
The Thermionic is a different beast of course. So much more gain on tap, very aggressive hard clipping. It's a little too much for me to be honest. No sound clips yet but I will be doing a full demo video in a couple of days.
I'm not totally happy with the enclosure design. The corner radii are off and the print turned out way more yellow than anticipated - was supposed to be that beige/gold color of the Friedman pedals. It still looks decent but it could have been better. Oh well. I still got another Brown Betty board so I guess I'll fix it in round two
Two resistors (or trimpots if I can fit them) are still missing on the vero. The way it's wired up these will go in parallel with the trimpot on the PCB. So by adjusting the resistors/trimmers on the vero I can get two additional switchable gain settings. I haven't decided on values yet so I left those unpopulated.
The build was pretty smooth, even the switch wiring. Of course I had to trip at the finish line and bungled the DC jack wiring. Woopsie... Fortunately no harm done though. Reversed the wiring and everything worked perfectly.
The Dirty Sanchez has a tight switch instead of a pot but I did not bother including that. My DMM says tight pot at 10 o' clock = DS tight switch off and tight pot at 12 o' clock = DS tight switch on. Other than that there's only one cap difference between the Dirty Sanchez and the Brown Betty and they do sound very similar, the latter being just a tad darker/smoother. I still think having the two on a switch will eventually be useful once I put the resistors on the vero for switchable gain trimpot settings.
The Thermionic is a different beast of course. So much more gain on tap, very aggressive hard clipping. It's a little too much for me to be honest. No sound clips yet but I will be doing a full demo video in a couple of days.
I'm not totally happy with the enclosure design. The corner radii are off and the print turned out way more yellow than anticipated - was supposed to be that beige/gold color of the Friedman pedals. It still looks decent but it could have been better. Oh well. I still got another Brown Betty board so I guess I'll fix it in round two
