vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Oh my goodness, I absolutely love it. Nicely done @Gordo!
Last edited:
TH Black Eye (Soldano GTO) prototype build
- Thread starter vigilante398
- Start date
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
I’m
snazzy as always!
Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
What paint is that btw? I’ve been looking for pretty much that exact color for a thing I’m doing
TheHammer1982
Well-known member
So far I have not been able to stop the pedal from squealing. Swapped to a 1spot power supply, added shielded in and out wires, put tube shields on, still squeals 
I had some major grounding issues till I realized that I was using isolated jacks (duh...). I'm using a 1Spot as well. The paint, btw, is Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Ultracover. The color is called French Lilac Satin. Worth noting that although it covers well its a good idea to lightly sand and then thoroughly clean the enclosure. The paint itself was no issue but when I shot satin clean over the decals part of the backside wrinkled up. Heartbreaking to say the least but I managed to sand it out and reshoot with no issues. Go really light on the clear coat and shoot a bunch of light coats rather than soaking it.
benny_profane
Well-known member
Do the tubes glow with this circuit?
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Do you have it mounted in the enclosure? Putting the circuit into a grounded enclosure helps with a lot of things, but I would also encourage you to take a look at the board and make sure there aren't any solder bridges or accidental shorts. A lot of the pads are pretty close together, and I could definitely see it happening.So far I have not been able to stop the pedal from squealing. Swapped to a 1spot power supply, added shielded in and out wires, put tube shields on, still squeals
The brightness of the heaters depends largely on the brand of the tube, but 12AX7 heaters don't glow as brightly as power tubes like EL84, 6L6, etc or submini tubes like 6N21B. The reason being the filament current draw is lower, they don't need to heat up as much for the electrons to flow. If glowing tubes is important to you, you could:
- put an LED behind the tube. How you do this is up to you, but this is the easiest and probably best to get increased tube glow.
- run the heaters at a higher voltage. The filaments in the tube are a fixed resistance, so the higher the voltage you give them the more power they will dissipate, and therefore the brighter they will glow. This will negatively impact the lifespan of the tube at the expense of looking neat, and I do not recommend it. 12.6V is the recommended heater voltage per the datasheet, and at that voltage they will be more noticeable than at 9V, but you could probably get away with running a little higher without immediately frying it. It will fry faster than it would otherwise though. That's an added benefit of running it with 9V on the heater, it prolongs the life of the tube.
TheHammer1982
Well-known member
I went over the board looking for any shorts but didn’t find any. After I got it mounted back up it started working right so who knows lol. There is still a little squealing if the gain is turned up all the way and the volume is at unity. Backing off of the gain a little takes care of the squealing with no noticeable change in tone so I’m guessing it’s normal.
Now that the squealing is gone and it’s being powered correctly it sounds amazing!
Now that the squealing is gone and it’s being powered correctly it sounds amazing!
TheHammer1982
Well-known member
The original GTO was a chonky boi!
Mentaltossflycoon
Well-known member
Giant and the knobs are still kind of close to the stomper. It does look like it's going to sound enormous though.The original GTO was a chonky boi!
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Yup, I hope to own an original someday if I can find a reasonable deal on one. I had a chance to pick one up for $600 a year ago, but I thought $600 was too steep at the time so I turned it downThe original GTO was a chonky boi!
I obviously don't need one, but it really is my favorite tone in the world and the nostalgia of owning an original would be cool.
Harry Klippton
Well-known member
Meanwhile I had never heard of this pedal til this thread
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Yeah it wasn't a super popular one for some reason, they didn't make very many. I had actually never heard of it until someone on another forum did a DIY project for it (that wasn't very well-designed and I hated it) and started looking into it. I built my first one in 2018 with 6N21B and fell in love with the sound, it's been my go-to dirt pedal ever since.
TheHammer1982
Well-known member
Mike Soldano said the originals got a bad rap for being noisy because of ground loop issues. He said lifting the ground would take care of the issue but he couldn’t put that in the instructions for liability reasons.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
I was debating putting spots for LEDs under the tube sockets on the board, but there was just no room for CLRs in there
if I was really clever I could have put the spots in there and put SMD pads for resistors so people that wanted them would have to really want them but could get them. Too late now though I'm afraid, and naturally there are traces running everywhere under the sockets so there aren't any safe spaces to drill into the PCB to make room for an LED. Sorry guys 