Good Grief, this build made me a hot mess. It's for someone I'm a fan of, so I wanted to make a good impression. I decided to go with a seabed because he wanted simple controls.
I wanted to use black & gold, because that goes with his band's art. Until this point I have been hand-labeling pedals. I learned how to do a Tayda UV print specifically for this build. With a little help from the the forum, the end result turned out well. The color of the text wasn't quite what I was going for, but it still works.
I picked up one of those gold footswitches from LMS, but I couldn't find any specs on the reliability. So then I tried putting the gold actuator on a switch that I had the specs for. But they were just different enough that the fit wasn't right. So then, I mounted the actuator on the enclosure, and put a SPST underneath it. This almost worked. But it was ridiculous. After thorough testing, the switch would stick once in a while. Not acceptable. I tried grinding down the end of the SPST for a better fit inside the gold actuator. But I don't have the right gear for that and it was taking forever. The process of grinding the SPST actually made it look better with the gold, and it has a cool texture.
I tested out 10 different PT2399s and couldn't find one quiet enough. So then I switched gears and built a Schumaker DM-3. After putting it together, I realized my LEVEL and DELAY pots were swapped compared to the Seabed. I decided to run leads to switch the positions. Since the board wasn't holding the pots in place anymore, I drilled alignment holes for the tab on the pots.
I was having an awful time getting rid of the clock noise on the DM-3. I tried all sorts of silly things after I couldn't get it by ear, like using an oscilloscope plugin via Max4Live. Later I realized it might not help to have the leads for the delay pot and the level pot to be overlapping each other. I set it to the side to mess with another day. I had some time to figure it out, he was out for the month on a leg of a world tour.
Eventually I flip-flopped and took out the DM-3 for a friend who specifically wants a BBD delay. I'll write that build report later. For this build it didn't matter if was analog or not.
I went through my 10 PT2399s again. Still not satisfied. Also, the level of the dry signal was louder than unity. Replacing R3 with a 500K trim pot worked great for that. I took a probe and started checking the audio path. Nothing stood out. Finally, I had the bright idea of pulling out my only other PT2399 delay, a Dart Rift. I set them up for an A/B comparison. Holy shit my Dark Rift was noisy. The difference was huge. This brought me back down to earth and I realized the Seabed was just fine.
It goes in the mail Monday. I hope he likes it!
I wanted to use black & gold, because that goes with his band's art. Until this point I have been hand-labeling pedals. I learned how to do a Tayda UV print specifically for this build. With a little help from the the forum, the end result turned out well. The color of the text wasn't quite what I was going for, but it still works.
I picked up one of those gold footswitches from LMS, but I couldn't find any specs on the reliability. So then I tried putting the gold actuator on a switch that I had the specs for. But they were just different enough that the fit wasn't right. So then, I mounted the actuator on the enclosure, and put a SPST underneath it. This almost worked. But it was ridiculous. After thorough testing, the switch would stick once in a while. Not acceptable. I tried grinding down the end of the SPST for a better fit inside the gold actuator. But I don't have the right gear for that and it was taking forever. The process of grinding the SPST actually made it look better with the gold, and it has a cool texture.


I tested out 10 different PT2399s and couldn't find one quiet enough. So then I switched gears and built a Schumaker DM-3. After putting it together, I realized my LEVEL and DELAY pots were swapped compared to the Seabed. I decided to run leads to switch the positions. Since the board wasn't holding the pots in place anymore, I drilled alignment holes for the tab on the pots.



I was having an awful time getting rid of the clock noise on the DM-3. I tried all sorts of silly things after I couldn't get it by ear, like using an oscilloscope plugin via Max4Live. Later I realized it might not help to have the leads for the delay pot and the level pot to be overlapping each other. I set it to the side to mess with another day. I had some time to figure it out, he was out for the month on a leg of a world tour.
Eventually I flip-flopped and took out the DM-3 for a friend who specifically wants a BBD delay. I'll write that build report later. For this build it didn't matter if was analog or not.
I went through my 10 PT2399s again. Still not satisfied. Also, the level of the dry signal was louder than unity. Replacing R3 with a 500K trim pot worked great for that. I took a probe and started checking the audio path. Nothing stood out. Finally, I had the bright idea of pulling out my only other PT2399 delay, a Dart Rift. I set them up for an A/B comparison. Holy shit my Dark Rift was noisy. The difference was huge. This brought me back down to earth and I realized the Seabed was just fine.


It goes in the mail Monday. I hope he likes it!
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