giovanni
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This was my first build after my long building hiatus (I swear this is the last time I mention it). I waited to post because I was working on the faceplate and I finally laser cut it today.
I had definitely lost my building rhythm and I made a few rookie mistakes on this one. But it gave me an opportunity to remind myself to take things slowly and be methodical on all phases of the build. Lesson re-learned!
Now to the mistakes. First, I didn’t put masking tape on the enclosure before drilling so you may notice some scratches (the worst ones are underneath the faceplate thankfully). Second, I didn’t punch the locations of the holes well enough so the holes ended up slipping a bit and had to adjust the location as I was drilling them out. That was frustrating and it turned out the whole template ended up a bit offset to the left (the faceplate is almost flush with the edge of the enclosure on the left). Third, when I biased the transistors I made the silly mistake of not using an alligator clip to connect my DMM to the pedal ground. So I was holding both test leads and I accidentally shorted Vcc to one of leads of the LED and it got irreparably damaged (my tester said “unknown part” after I pulled it out). That was also frustrating and the worst part was that I had already boxed it and was ready to test it, so I did, and it was dead quiet. I had an epiphany, removed the busted LED and it fired right up (I’m still not entirely sure why that caused the pedal to be just dead quiet, maybe the dead LED was absorbing ALL the current?). Fourth, I forgot to remove the dust covers from the top pots which made it a lot harder to fit them in the 1590B enclosure (had to pull the LED bezel out to put the faceplate on so I had to take it apart again tonight ugh). Finally, I forgot to clean the board so now it’s grimy. Maybe I’ll just get in there with a bit of IPA and a toothbrush some day. Many many lessons learned as you can see.
Now to the build: besides my mistakes, the build went smoothly. It gave me a chance to really get acquainted with my new iron tip (I had to really lower the temperature, per other thread) and to do some SMD soldering, which made me nervous but turned out fine. I also don’t have a jig to test SMD transistors so I was wary of not measuring them. But since I got them from Mouser I thought the chances of them being borked were low. 1590B enclosures are definitely challenging and I will definitely go much slower and plan better in the future.
Now to the graphics. I took some time picking fonts and reproducing the style and font of the Benson’s logo for the work “preamp” and I thought it turned out pretty nice. I’m also happy with the indicator notches on the pots, I’m probably going to do more of that. Since the drilling is a bit offset, the in/out arrow don’t line up perfectly with the jacks but oh well…
Finally the tone: this is a great low to medium gain preamp-y overdrive. The character of the JFETs is really nice and it pairs very well with my tube amp and all my guitars. It just gives you a little “more”, without coloring the tone dramatically. I have been using it as an always on clean tone pedal by rolling back my guitar volume, and then it can get overdriven just by rolling it up. I find that not all pedals do that very well (I tried the same trick with the Paragon and it was good but not as good as this).
I had definitely lost my building rhythm and I made a few rookie mistakes on this one. But it gave me an opportunity to remind myself to take things slowly and be methodical on all phases of the build. Lesson re-learned!
Now to the mistakes. First, I didn’t put masking tape on the enclosure before drilling so you may notice some scratches (the worst ones are underneath the faceplate thankfully). Second, I didn’t punch the locations of the holes well enough so the holes ended up slipping a bit and had to adjust the location as I was drilling them out. That was frustrating and it turned out the whole template ended up a bit offset to the left (the faceplate is almost flush with the edge of the enclosure on the left). Third, when I biased the transistors I made the silly mistake of not using an alligator clip to connect my DMM to the pedal ground. So I was holding both test leads and I accidentally shorted Vcc to one of leads of the LED and it got irreparably damaged (my tester said “unknown part” after I pulled it out). That was also frustrating and the worst part was that I had already boxed it and was ready to test it, so I did, and it was dead quiet. I had an epiphany, removed the busted LED and it fired right up (I’m still not entirely sure why that caused the pedal to be just dead quiet, maybe the dead LED was absorbing ALL the current?). Fourth, I forgot to remove the dust covers from the top pots which made it a lot harder to fit them in the 1590B enclosure (had to pull the LED bezel out to put the faceplate on so I had to take it apart again tonight ugh). Finally, I forgot to clean the board so now it’s grimy. Maybe I’ll just get in there with a bit of IPA and a toothbrush some day. Many many lessons learned as you can see.
Now to the build: besides my mistakes, the build went smoothly. It gave me a chance to really get acquainted with my new iron tip (I had to really lower the temperature, per other thread) and to do some SMD soldering, which made me nervous but turned out fine. I also don’t have a jig to test SMD transistors so I was wary of not measuring them. But since I got them from Mouser I thought the chances of them being borked were low. 1590B enclosures are definitely challenging and I will definitely go much slower and plan better in the future.
Now to the graphics. I took some time picking fonts and reproducing the style and font of the Benson’s logo for the work “preamp” and I thought it turned out pretty nice. I’m also happy with the indicator notches on the pots, I’m probably going to do more of that. Since the drilling is a bit offset, the in/out arrow don’t line up perfectly with the jacks but oh well…
Finally the tone: this is a great low to medium gain preamp-y overdrive. The character of the JFETs is really nice and it pairs very well with my tube amp and all my guitars. It just gives you a little “more”, without coloring the tone dramatically. I have been using it as an always on clean tone pedal by rolling back my guitar volume, and then it can get overdriven just by rolling it up. I find that not all pedals do that very well (I tried the same trick with the Paragon and it was good but not as good as this).
