What's your nemesis circuit?

thomasbe86

thomasbe86

Well-known member
What is the one circuit that you have been working for way too long and keep failing at delivering what it should?

I had planned to release this new model for black friday, and again, for the 20th times in 20 years, I made silly mistakes with the prototype and it sounds absolutely nothing like it should...
It will come out at some point, I will make it work, but really... This project is cursed, I always swap something, miss something, every time I get back to it I forget something... Frustration builds up and my defense mechanism to protect my ego, is to postpone for another year..

Anyways, it got me so frustrated today when the latest boards arrived that I decided to share. Anyone else has a design or project that seems cursed and never seem to be able to get it right?
 
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I thought you were from Belgium. 🙈 Offtopic, but I suppose it to be important, so... Just to double check: you don't mind publishing your address just like this, right?
 
tegendemuur said:
I thought you were from Belgium. 🙈 Offtopic, but I suppose it to be important, so... Just to double check: you don't mind publishing your address just like this, right?
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Hehe, nope, by law in Switzerland you need your business address way too visible on your website, so it is public 😉
My legal expert (wife) reminded me that I am not allowed to post full schematics though 😅
Anyways, point being, what is your nemesis project?
 
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I don't make my own pcbs, I buy them, but... The first Hudson Broadcast I built sounded fantastic. Enough so that after I sold it I wanted one for myself. I've tried to build it 3-4 times since and they all don't work right in different ways. Usually squealing or motorboating on some settings. I've since gotten over it, but I will always side-eye that circuit.
 
thomasbe86 said:
What is the one circuit that you have been working for way too long and keep failing at delivering what it should?
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A simple two opamp section variable resonance high pass filter, to go along with the many successful low pass ones I've been doing for a decade or so. But it's been several years since my last attempt, and I do have some new twists in mind if and when I ever revisit.
 
thomasbe86 said:
Hehe, nope, by law in Switzerland you need your business address way too visible on your website, so it is public 😉
My legal expert (wife) reminded me that I am not allowed to post full schematics though 😅
Anyways, point being, what is your nemesis project?
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Yeah but atleast tell us a little bit more than this Mr. Schwipserland

My cursed circuit is Phase90, everytime I tried it had to go to shit for different reasons and I was always to dumb or unmotivated to find out why it didn't work. But finally i conquered it 6 months ago, and I'm very happy with the results and that I finally did.

Anyway, Have you tried any of those shiny glass mirrory mosfets (wlcsp) in a pedal?
 
One of the reasons I started building anything at all was the desire to have a good Buzzaround fuzz (rather crucial for an unabashed early Fripp fan such as myself), and though technically I have built one that works (but not amazingly, and it required a few mods to even make it sound acceptable), the number of failures I've had to even get there—including frying expensive and irreplaceable germanium trannies left and right—has been nothing short of thoroughly demoralising. The one that works remains unboxed even now, because I'm not convinced I'm not going to wreck it in the process of fitting it into the enclosure. I'm that cursed by it. I have successfully built far more complicated circuits with no issues, but the Buzzaround has me deeply stung...
 
I'm sure it will probably be the stupidest/simplest thing you'll hear mentioned here, but....

I've got the carcass of a simple passive A/B switch that's been sitting on my desk for probably two years now. I've tried to assemble it half a dozen times and each time something new ain't right. It's literally just a 1590A, three jacks, and a 3PDT... plus two LEDs and a power jack. I've put together probably close to a hundred pedals and dozens of things FAR more complicated and for whatever reason this cursed thing just NEVER wants to work right. It makes me think I'm going a little bit insane every time I take a crack at it. And it's made infinitely stupider by me knowing in the back of my mind I can just buy a fully functional factory-made switch off Amazon for like 20 bucks and be done with it forever, but my little peanut brain thinks "you already spent 12 bucks on the parts though, don't waste that" hahahaha
 
That and I think the second pedal I ever tried to make was some sort of PT2399 delay on veroboard, vastly over-estimating my own abilities and blissfully unaware of how PT2399's can be a little finnicky and whatnot. i don't think I've attempted anything with them since then and that was 15+ years ago :p
 
I love you guys but I do feel a little better knowing I am not alone :)

pettert said:
Yeah but atleast tell us a little bit more than this Mr. Schwipserland

My cursed circuit is Phase90, everytime I tried it had to go to shit for different reasons and I was always to dumb or unmotivated to find out why it didn't work. But finally i conquered it 6 months ago, and I'm very happy with the results and that I finally did.

Anyway, Have you tried any of those shiny glass mirrory mosfets (wlcsp) in a pedal?
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It is a mid thing, like MF1 of the Amek Mozart MZ15-RN, just keep making silly mistakes like powering it up with 18v with 6.3v rated caps was the last straw today...

WLCSP is way to small for my aging eyes, any good experience with these?
 
Joben Magooch said:
I'm sure it will probably be the stupidest/simplest thing you'll hear mentioned here, but....

I've got the carcass of a simple passive A/B switch that's been sitting on my desk for probably two years now. I've tried to assemble it half a dozen times and each time something new ain't right. It's literally just a 1590A, three jacks, and a 3PDT... plus two LEDs and a power jack. I've put together probably close to a hundred pedals and dozens of things FAR more complicated and for whatever reason this cursed thing just NEVER wants to work right. It makes me think I'm going a little bit insane every time I take a crack at it. And it's made infinitely stupider by me knowing in the back of my mind I can just buy a fully functional factory-made switch off Amazon for like 20 bucks and be done with it forever, but my little peanut brain thinks "you already spent 12 bucks on the parts though, don't waste that" hahahaha
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That is EXACTLY the kind of thing that can hold me back! Sometimes I really start to question myself if I don't give up on these things, it really feels cursed, like no matter how simple, I will not make it work!
 
I built an amp ten years ago that didn't work. I set it aside and ended up fixing it six years later. It's chronicled around here somewhere.

Long before I knew what I was doing, I built a byoc ESV fuzz which is a tone bender mkii and it never really sounded good. At some point about 5 years ago, I bought all the tone bender variant boards I could find between here, madbean, and aion. Never did build a one of them. Now I'd rather just breadboard them instead and the PCBs are taking up space.

I've had exactly two unsuccessful pedal builds and it's because I couldn't bias either of them, and I didn't care to try. An os mutantes fuzz (madbean El guapo) and some harmonic jerkolator board. It hurts my pride that I never finished either so I'll do it someday. Can't go around having failed builds cuz I'm better than that
 
I actually do have a circuit. I tried to forget about it.
Tried building a FF with 2x GeSi Sziklai pairs. 1 low beta Si and 1 low beta low/no leakage Germ. I couldn't for the life of me get it to bias, or even pass audio through the whole circuit. After several attempts over 2 weeks or so, I caved.
I'm sure it was something completely stupid but looking at a sziklai pair on the breadboard warps your brain in a special kind of way.
 
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