DEMO PedalPCB.com UniCab featuring 12 other DIY pedals.

[jjjimi84]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Does anyone love boring utility pedals as much as I do? This pedal is legitimately my most played pedal, I absolutely love this thing, especially when paired with all of the really cool amp in a box offerings that are available.

This is an older build of mine and I have tried to film a video one other time and could never get it quite right, hopefully this presentation shows some of the cool sounds to be made with it. I think it is a super easy build and highly recommend anyone who does any recording to add it to the collection.

Now this pedal really came alive to me when I paired it with this bad boy, the PedalPCB.com Mammal;

I believe the mammal is supposed to be some sort of Marshall in a box thing but I like the clean sound it has especially when driven by a personal favorite the VFE Dark Horse with the pcb from Madbean.

I used a 1776 effects Multiplex Jr. which is sadly not available anymore as it sounds really great.

With the reverb coming from the Madbean pedals Moodring, also no longer available......Hate the painting but love the sound.

I did use a fuzz for the solo in the intro, the PedalPCB.com Repro Fuzz. This thing didn't really blow my skirt up and then after a painting snafu I really didn't like it but it gave me the buzzy bee sound I was looking for.

After that intro tone I went for the Black Sabbath tone using the Sabbath Distortion, I call this one "flores de los muertos"

 

[jjjimi84]

With new distortion comes new reverb and delay, the effectslayouts.com Sonorus Reverb, with glow in the dark paint and knobs!

and the delay from the wonderful hydra delay with a mod from @JamieJ This is the dry mix mod which always keeps your dry signal in the mix. It sounds delightful and once I decide what to paint on it I will shoot a video for it. It is a really special delay and it is housed in a tayda army green enclosure.

After that is some face melting distortion and chugga chugga from the Crunch Captain Deluxe. I used krylon sparkle paint for this and although it looks cool and was seal coated the sparkles are slowly coming off. Painted the obligatory skull on there!

Also used my trusty flanger the Madbean Current Lover with the Crimson Chin painted on it and speed holes drilled into it.

And last but by no means least. The great Schu-Tone Hologram Delay, an analog masterpiece in a 1590a. @dan.schumaker is a sadist and a genius and I am working on a demo video for this little guy. It is really outstanding!!!

This might be my longest post ever but this UniCab pedal has been such a game changer for me and I use it not only for writing and recording but also for calibrating pedals and testing them. I hope you all dig the video and seeing some of my old builds and newer builds and everything in between.

Next video is Destiny Behemoth Part One!!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!

Alright back to filming.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Well that’s new…

 

[Harry Klippton]

Seems like the ring mod protection extension finally started working @Robert

 

[jjjimi84]

 

[jjjimi84]

I think i fixed it. Maybe.

 

[benny_profane]

Killer video and demo of the unicab versatility!

///

I think that the youtube issue is google flagging access from hidden/obscured IP addresses (i.e., apple private relay enabled).

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

I think i fixed it. Maybe.

Yup! Killer vid. Now I feel compelled to build one…

 

[steviejr92]

Awesome video! Im glad to say i watched this before you had a chance to write up the post!

 

[jjjimi84]

Yup! Killer vid. Now I feel compelled to build one…

You need to and then pair it with the golden falk, its epic!

Awesome video! Im glad to say i watched this before you had a chance to write up the post!

Well dang killer, you are on top of it! More prepared than I am.

 

[jjjimi84]

Also anyone have suggestions for the hydra? Tight space to work with and am struggling for ideas.

And!!!!!!

I have a mod for the unicab, change c11 and c12 to 3.3nf and 8.2 nf. This comes from the resident pedal genius @Chuck D. Bones

This corrects the frequency of the punch control.

 

[jimilee]

With new distortion comes new reverb and delay, the effectslayouts.com Sonorus Reverb, with glow in the dark paint and knobs!

and the delay from the wonderful hydra delay with a mod from @JamieJ This is the dry mix mod which always keeps your dry signal in the mix. It sounds delightful and once I decide what to paint on it I will shoot a video for it. It is a really special delay and it is housed in a tayda army green enclosure.

After that is some face melting distortion and chugga chugga from the Crunch Captain Deluxe. I used krylon sparkle paint for this and although it looks cool and was seal coated the sparkles are slowly coming off. Painted the obligatory skull on there!

Also used my trusty flanger the Madbean Current Lover with the Crimson Chin painted on it and speed holes drilled into it.

And last but by no means least. The great Schu-Tone Hologram Delay, an analog masterpiece in a 1590a. @dan.schumaker is a sadist and a genius and I am working on a demo video for this little guy. It is really outstanding!!!

This might be my longest post ever but this UniCab pedal has been such a game changer for me and I use it not only for writing and recording but also for calibrating pedals and testing them. I hope you all dig the video and seeing some of my old builds and newer builds and everything in between.

Next video is Destiny Behemoth Part One!!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!

Alright back to filming.

I love everything about them, nicely executed!

 

[jjjimi84]

I love everything about them, nicely executed!

That means a lot coming from you! Thank you!

 

[benny_profane]

Also anyone have suggestions for the hydra? Tight space to work with and am struggling for ideas.

And!!!!!!

I have a mod for the unicab, change c11 and c12 to 3.3nf and 8.2 nf. This comes from the resident pedal genius @Chuck D. Bones

This corrects the frequency of the punch control.

Any more details here? I have a board coming up soon in the queue.

 

[jjjimi84]

From @Chuck D. Bones

I noticed that the MIDS and PUNCH knobs do basically the same thing. When I ran a SPICE sim, I saw that the PUNCH control is centered at 400Hz, right on top of the MIDS's 350Hz. According to the DSM OmniCabSim manual, PUNCH is supposed to be centered at 800Hz. The plot below shows the freq response of the last stage of the UniCabSim (IC2.4) with PUNCH dimed. Green trace: what we get when we follow the Build Docs. Blue trace: what we should have. To get to the blue trace, I changed C11 & C12 to 3.3nF and 8.2nF, respectively.

The image never loaded for me but when your electronics idol speaks you listen.

 

[MichaelW]

Love the multi cam video and what a great jam!!
What cameras are you using?

Man, I need to get that "top secret" project you sent me built. I lost all heart when I spilled all the components over the garage floor, I STILL haven't sorted through the bazillion components yet hahaha......

 

[Route14]

I utilize a lot of speed holes in my builds. Definitely makes the pedals sound better.

 

[jjjimi84]

Love the multi cam video and what a great jam!!
What cameras are you using?

Man, I need to get that "top secret" project you sent me built. I lost all heart when I spilled all the components over the garage floor, I STILL haven't sorted through the bazillion components yet hahaha......

For this video I used my iPad Air 4th Gen and that was the more yellowish looking shots. My main camera is a Canon Rebel SL3 and I love it! The overhead pedal cam is my new iPhone 14 and I also have a gopro hero 9 that i use here and there. I really struggle with the camera technology, I really need to take about a month off from filming and learn how to properly use all of it.

But that will never happen..

My brother is a professional photographer and I am hoping to get him over one day to help me with all of this because ideally I would love to have two camera set ups at all time. One for the normal pedal demos and then one over my desk for builds, painting and everything else.

One day at a time. It's hard for me to justify buying camera stuff to my wife when this is just a hobby and I have a room bursting at the seams with gear.

I utilize a lot of speed holes in my builds. Definitely makes the pedals sound better.

Its not my first and certainly won't be my last.

 

[Route14]

Do you use an instrument or line level input on your interface with the cab sim pedal?

 

[jjjimi84]

Do you use an instrument or line level input on your interface with the cab sim pedal?

GREAT QUESTION!!!!

Instrument level, gives me a bit more flexibility in terms of gain staging.

One thing I did not talk about is how important that is to get a good sound. You will have to adjust the amp in the box pedal to not overload the cab sim and then adjust the cab sim to not overload the interface. You want to adjust things until your playing style and pick attack are coming through but not overloading the interface.

It may seem a little complicated but it really isn't just avoid harsh shitty overload distortion and get that sweet singing distortion.

Also play bass through it, it sounds really great.

If you want to get really weird, run your instrument into a splitter, run one signal to your pedal board and the other signal straight in or into a DI box then straight in. You can get really good takes and then when you are feeling spicy, you can reamp the DI signal and play around with it.

I built a reamp box from DIYRE and I really really like it.