Spent an hour this tonight to populate Stomptown Electronics‘ new PCB called the Icky Muff. It’s a combination of two classic pedals in out to achieve some of the great sounds/tone that Jack White got. It’s a MXR Micro Amp boost into a Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi. It sounds great on the test rig and I can see this will be a very usable pedal for sure.
Time to work on some artwork for the enclosure and box this beast up.
I have been sitting on this PCB for some time and finally remembered to buy a CD4047 for it. I finished populating it tonight and ran it for a quick test and fell in love. This is a great sounding chorus and can get that slow whirl lush sound really well. Now comes the hard part, boxing It up.
I had 2 delay projects this week and got tired of pulling chips that seem to give off more distortion when max delayed. I decided to make a quick Madbean Cave Dweller just for the sole purpose to test PT2399’s. I was able to go through 15 PTs in 20 minutes and it worked out great. I suggest this to anyone that goes thorough many Delay projects and wants to test their PT before they place in their project.
I have quite a few builds in the works but none that are complete. I hit a wall with 2 builds since I had problems with my builds and need to troubleshoot. I wanted to list out a few builds I have finished and need to box up in the next few weeks to help me prioritize them.
To be boxed:
Twin Peaks Tap Tempo Harmonic Tremolo – This is Drolo’s taptempo (TAPLFO based) tremolo pedal. I love this thing and it has been siting on my test rig way to long now. I need to get this boxed up ASAP and attached to my board. More info at Madbean or on his blog.
8-Ball – This is Madbean’s modded Blues Breaker and it sounds great. I had a modded BB I did on a PCB from JMK and never really got attached to it but the 8-ball may have brought some new life in the Blues Breaker. You can grab a PCB here.
Mudbunny – I built this Madbean Big Muff variant to Russian Green specs and love the sound of it but never seem to remember to box it up. I used some unmarked NOS button top transistors that just sound great in this thing. You can get a PCB here.
Ultra Stoner – I have built 2 of these and love both of them. I am thinking of doing a 2 in 1 with them and make one a lower gain into a full gain one… hmm… You can get a PCB here.
Machette – Ugly Face with LFO, this is a crazy effect and deserves a crazy enclosure. I am working on a few etching ideas for this. You can grab a PCB from here.
Need to finish populating:
There are more that could be on this list but this is all I really have on my mind at the moment.
I finally got a tutorial together on how I paint and wet sand my enclosure after I do a reverse etch. I will be making changes to it over time since my process is evolving with every project. My goal is to get consistent results and little room for error. As with everything with this blog, if you have questions or comments please feel free to express them. I am also always open for more ides or suggestions.
This is a VIPFx Pastie Drive which is modeled after the Wampler Paisley Drive. This pedal gets a really nice low-gain overdrive to a nice higher gain growl at a turn of a knob. The presence switch adds a nice sparkle to the top end and the mid contour switch has 3 different positions with a nice mid boost feature.
Don’t let the comment “Brad Paisley Signature Paisley Drive” throw you off, its a great sounding overdive.
This was not a perfect etch by any means but it came out useable and I really like the simplicity of it. All in all its a great sounding pedal and look forward to playing more with it.
Voltages:
Q1 J201
G 4.5v
B 4.6v
D 9.4v
Q2 J201
G 4.5v
S 4.6v
D 9.4v
JRC4580
1 4.7v
2 4.7v
3 4.7v
4 0
5 4.7v
6 4.7v
7 4.7v
8 9.4v
This is a Madbean MoodRing reverb which is a Belton BTDR-2 based reverb with a PT2399 for a bit of pre-delay on the reverb. This great sounding reverb has tons of control and really cool oscillation that can get great drone sounds.
I revered etched this 125B enclosure and used a metallic blue paint. I am really happy with the results of this.
When Brian @ Madbean announced the Kingslayer II I jumped on it and immediately forgot that I had the PCB since I had so many projects in my desk. I populated the PCB a few weeks ago and started tweaking it a bit by looking for diodes I was happy with and I came up with a couple unusual ones. I went for the stock 1n34a’s in D1 & D2 but I got some older AY20’s that I could not find any info on. They just sounded smooth and rounded, not harsh at all and not over compressed. I’m happy with them so far.
I etched the 125b enclosure and painted it with a emerald green. I’m not a 100% happy with the paint job since some of the gold fleck was taken off by the wet sanding.
I have wanted a nice smaller sized amp to use around the house and at friends houses instead of hauling around my Twin Reverb for some time. I was looking at Vox’s and my attention was turned to the Fender Princeton series by Timbo and other members over at Madbean Forums. They were considerably more expensive but had a lot better reviews and seem to be more consistent in what sound I was going for. I headed over to Guitar Center and tried a few out and really liked the overall sound of the 68′ Custom. With a visit to Sweetwater.com and 6 days for shipping I was in Buisness. I sold an extra Bassman head I had to fund this purchase and could not be happier.
I first tried the amp out with my late 80’s Epiphone Riviera with humbuckers and it sounded so fat. Had great sounding low end and not piercing highs. I then gave my Partscaster a go with its single coils and it nailed that classic Fender classic amp/strat sound perfectly. I decided to toss a few effects at it and it did not skip a beat. I tossed a 1776 Effects Multiples delay on it with a Madbean La Vache and they sounded great. I look forward to breaking the speaker in some and turning this amp into a daily player for sure.
I can finally post this on my blog now that she has the pedal. I did not want to ruin the surprise since they were traveling in Portland and I wanted it there waiting for her when she got home.
I wanted to build my aunt a pedal and recently she tried out a Way Huge Red Llama and liked it but she was still in the process of looking for her perfect mid gain pedal. I thought, this is something I can actually make for her that she may actually get some use out of. I went with a Madbean snarkdoodle 2012 edition and was surprised that I already had the CD4049UBE IC onhand. So at some point I was going to build since I can’t find any other build that uses that IC. I wanted to do something fun with the artwork since my aunt and I seem to have the same sense of humor. Here is what I came up with.
Revered etched for maximum awesomeness..
Gut shot.. really not much to this circuit.
Notice that green film capacitor for added mojo tonez.. all of a sudden the price doubled. lol
When I was demoing this pedal I found it had a sweet spot with the gain about 2:00 with my Epiphone Riviera’s humbuckers. It is a great/simple overdrive/distortion and I may just build one for myself at some point.
Maybe I can con her into making me a demo of it so I can post it here.