TH Black Eye (Soldano GTO) prototype build

vigilante398 said:
It can run on 9V or 12V, there shouldn't be any tonal difference...
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Ah, perfect! I'm quite happy as I was looking for an excuse to upgrade my pedalboard's power supply. Haha.

Thank you for the information and for all your hard work putting this project together. I'm looking forward to assembling it and hopefully I won't have to bug you with any more questions. :)
 
@vigilante398 is the drill template in the build doc the same vent layout as the milled enclosures? Ordered the PCB and enclosure last night; in the meantime I figured I might get started on the artwork design, and I plan on having the vent holes incorporated in the artwork. If not, I’ll just wait until it arrives and take a 100% scale scan of the face to get the graphics started.
 
Bricksnbeatles said:
@vigilante398 is the drill template in the build doc the same vent layout as the milled enclosures? Ordered the PCB and enclosure last night; in the meantime I figured I might get started on the artwork design, and I plan on having the vent holes incorporated in the artwork. If not, I’ll just wait until it arrives and take a 100% scale scan of the face to get the graphics started.
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Yup, I milled the first few enclosures before I made the drill template so I used the existing enclosures to verify the drill template and the holes and slots should line up pretty darn close. The jack placement might be a little different as I went back and forth on the position for those a couple times, but everything on the face should be the same.
 
vigilante398 said:
Yup, I milled the first few enclosures before I made the drill template so I used the existing enclosures to verify the drill template and the holes and slots should line up pretty darn close. The jack placement might be a little different as I went back and forth on the position for those a couple times, but everything on the face should be the same.
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Awesome! I’ll get the graphics going and then make any tweaks necessary once I have the enclosure on hand.
 
This is entirely too much fun. Despite the tiny board and 3/4 page BOM there is a lot of crammage here. Let me just get this out of the way: This thing sounds fabulous. Lots of fat gain on tap and capable of ridiculous amounts of volume. I like the voicing on the tone control, no flubby bottom end (well it IS a Soldano) but no shrill highs either. Fairly quiet given that it's got a ton of available gain, although I might geek out and use shielded cable.

If you've never built a high volt project before it's almost an optical illusion plugging a One Spot in and getting high volts out. I snapped a pic of the multimeter with no tubes plugged in on it's first power up. The usual time that people get hurt working with these is when you trouble shoot. All logic and methodology goes out the window and the next thing you know you're grabbing a part with both hands... Just stay calm and you should have no issues. It's quite an easy build.

The tubes are bench tubes I have kicking around for amp repairs and the thing STILL sounds great. I'll be swapping them out with a couple of JJ's I suspect, once I get this enclosure nice and pretty. Nathan I'd say you knocked this one out of the park, really nice job here.

Sushi01.jpg Sushi02.jpg Sushi03.jpg
 
Gordo said:
This is entirely too much fun. Despite the tiny board and 3/4 page BOM there is a lot of crammage here. Let me just get this out of the way: This thing sounds fabulous. Lots of fat gain on tap and capable of ridiculous amounts of volume. I like the voicing on the tone control, no flubby bottom end (well it IS a Soldano) but no shrill highs either. Fairly quiet given that it's got a ton of available gain, although I might geek out and use shielded cable.

If you've never built a high volt project before it's almost an optical illusion plugging a One Spot in and getting high volts out. I snapped a pic of the multimeter with no tubes plugged in on it's first power up. The usual time that people get hurt working with these is when you trouble shoot. All logic and methodology goes out the window and the next thing you know you're grabbing a part with both hands... Just stay calm and you should have no issues. It's quite an easy build.

The tubes are bench tubes I have kicking around for amp repairs and the thing STILL sounds great. I'll be swapping them out with a couple of JJ's I suspect, once I get this enclosure nice and pretty. Nathan I'd say you knocked this one out of the park, really nice job here.

View attachment 28441View attachment 28442View attachment 28443
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Just curious, with the Gain set to minimum where it works, where is the Volume pot at Unity???
When the Gain is at 12.00 O'clock, where is the Volume pot at Unity???
 
music6000 said:
Just curious, with the Gain set to minimum where it works, where is the Volume pot at Unity???
When the Gain is at 12.00 O'clock, where is the Volume pot at Unity???
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There is a "gain floor" resistor on the gain pot, so even full CCW you're getting some signal. With gain full CCW, Volume pot is around 2:00 at unity. With gain at 12:00, Volume pot is also around 2:00 at unity.

Test was taken with a SD JB bridge pickup, Tone pot was left at 12:00 for all tests, and it looks like I have a pair of JJ/Tesla 12AX7 installed. Signal was run straight from guitar through the pedal direct into an interface, where the waveform amplitudes were compared in my DAW.

There's a pretty steep resistor divider at the output so it's possible to get above unity, but even fully cranked you won't blow up your amplifier input. You can adjust this resistor divider ratio if you want a hotter output, but those are the numbers "stock".
 
Gordo said:
This is entirely too much fun. Despite the tiny board and 3/4 page BOM there is a lot of crammage here. Let me just get this out of the way: This thing sounds fabulous. Lots of fat gain on tap and capable of ridiculous amounts of volume. I like the voicing on the tone control, no flubby bottom end (well it IS a Soldano) but no shrill highs either. Fairly quiet given that it's got a ton of available gain, although I might geek out and use shielded cable.

If you've never built a high volt project before it's almost an optical illusion plugging a One Spot in and getting high volts out. I snapped a pic of the multimeter with no tubes plugged in on it's first power up. The usual time that people get hurt working with these is when you trouble shoot. All logic and methodology goes out the window and the next thing you know you're grabbing a part with both hands... Just stay calm and you should have no issues. It's quite an easy build.

The tubes are bench tubes I have kicking around for amp repairs and the thing STILL sounds great. I'll be swapping them out with a couple of JJ's I suspect, once I get this enclosure nice and pretty. Nathan I'd say you knocked this one out of the park, really nice job here.

View attachment 28441View attachment 28442View attachment 28443
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Excellent, glad to hear you're enjoying it! Looks great! :cool:
 
vigilante398 said:
Mmkay, just give me a couple days.

View attachment 28410
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This made me home-sick for my home away from home.

I want one, may have to order two, too — myself and a friend.

Graphics to be bassed [sic] upon:



Here come da Judge!

1969_GTO_Judge.jpg
 
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