About a week ago, I got an email from a friend of a friend, with a couple of ideas for new pedals. The first, less exciting one, was an standard A/B looper, but where, instead of a switch to change between A and B, the switch would be used to swap the order, so you could have A running into B, or B running into A. This seemed like quite a cool idea, and with not much searching, I found a schematic for it over at Beavis Audio, job done.
The next idea was more exciting. Another A/B Looper, but one where the loops are turned on and off alternately via a tremolo type circuit, and with the possible option of an expression pedal to replace the tremolo. This one's still only partially made on the breadboard, but I have got 2 LEDs flashing alternately, with rate, depth and speed controls, so it's all looking good!
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I've been pretty busy with other stuff the last few weeks, so haven't been able to do any pedal building, but I got some time this week, so made a friend a ZVex Machine clone. I'd promised it to him a while ago, and it was a circuit that I'd been looking for an excuse to build anyway. After sorting out some issues with it grounding on the box, it works pretty well, and, despite the lack of finish, i think it looks quite cool too.
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| First Pedal with a toggle switch! It's to select between the full Machine, or just the Super Hard On part of the circuit. |
I've just got the Strymon Lex, which is an amazing sounding pedal, and, looking inside it, you realise how much effort's been put into the design.
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| Look at that chip! |
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| And a 3 layer PCB? |
the way i see it, there are two options if you don't want your pedal designs being copied, there's the Strymon way, of awesome DSP design and ridiculous amounts of circuitry, and then there's pedal goop, which I think just looks tacky:
This is what the PWM project turned into. It's basically the same circuit, put in one of the cool new trapezoid boxes, partly because the standard 1590B MXR sized boxes were too small for the circuit, and I didn't want to have to use the much bigger 1590BB. This is the perfect size. Plus, as I've already said, it looks cool!
I'm not sure that I've found a practical use for this yet, but it's easily the most fun I've had with a stomp box since I got the Fuzz Probe (something to do with the fuzz?).
The knobs are gonna change, but these were the only ones I had, hence the odd one. It's also going to get a screen print of a weasel on it that's being designed by a friend, updates to come.
Tired of those boring old rectangular, MXR sized boxes? Well, help is at hand! Hammond who are the go-to company for fx boxes, have brought out trapezoid boxes. I've just got a few of the smaller ones, and plan on getting some effects housed in them soon.
One from John Lyons over at diystompboxes.com:
- Leave your comment • Category: Boxes, Enclosures, Hammond, Trapezoid
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This is the post that I wanted to put up last night, but, due to Youtube being useless, it's had to wait until today.
Anyway, having spent a while checking out every schematic on Tim Escobedo's site, I decided to have a go at messing around with the PWM, which turned out to be masses of fun. At the moment, it has an envelope which controls both the speed and depth of a tremolo simultaneously. The tremolo, in turn, is controlling the pulse width.
Confused? so am I, here's a video of what I've got so far:
Ok, so when I make something, I almost expect it not to work, but when I'm using technology that's been proven over years of use, and even that fails me, it's just annoying. This is the first video I tried to upload to Youtube, it's supposed to be a demonstration of my version of Tim Escobedo's VCF fuzz pedal, with some additions.
This is how it appears on the website:
I feel that the lack of audio makes it slightly less interesting...
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Right, so I took the 2399 off my breadboard, because it was all a bit much for me, but here's a great example of what can be done with it when it's in the right hands. Pitch Pirate, and for those who are interested, here's a picture of it from the same site:
If you like the sound of that, or are into any sort of crazy sounding effects, it's worth checking out his other stuff, there are some really cool sounding pedals in there.
This post epitomizes the name of this blog. I just built a Red Llama for a friend, it has the neatest wiring I've done so far, and it was working perfectly...
Then, having put the bottom on, it stopped... bottom comes back off, no loose wires, nothing seems to have changed. Strange.
I have read that these chips can break unexpectedly, so I'm assuming it's that, but with no spare to check, I have no way of knowing, so I could be back to square one. New chip is in the post, fingers crossed!
- Leave your comment • Category: CD4049, Fuzz, Not Working, Red Llama
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I just watched this, it's worth checking out if you have any interest in guitar effects, or in fact any electronic music.
Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Jimmy Dunlop on Vimeo.
So, having read a lot about the LM386 (op-amp) and PT2399 (delay chip), I decided to get a few to mess around with. After getting them both in the post today, I got out the breadboard and started to mess around with the LM386, hoping to come up with something interesting. This might have happened, if I hadn't busted both of them by plugging in the power supply with the wrong voltage... not an expensive mistake, but I was having fun!
Anyway, with no 386, I moved on to the 2399, and built the LoFi delay, which, as it turns out, doesn't work very well with guitar (should have heeded the warning). Anyway, one more idea down the drain, on to the next! I'd seen the Noise Ensemble on DIY Stomp Boxes a while ago, so, still hungry for something that would give me some interesting noise, I gave it a go, and it sounds awesome, I've got it as 'stock' at the moment, but am going to mess around with it over the next few days, I'll put up some sound clips when I've got something I like.