WHY WON'T IT WORK?

Here's a pedal that a friend introduced me to, made by a company called MWFX, who I had never previously heard of. As far as I can tell, it uses some kind of digital or sample and hold chip, triggered by a momentary switch, to get some awesome stuttery sounds. There are clips on the website which are well worth checking out, and I'm hoping that I can figure out how to do something similar on my own.


Not only does it sound cool, but it comes in what looks like a solid wodden box

I was browsing the cyber shelves over at Doctor Tweek the other day, and came across some really cool looking transistors, OC602s, which predate the first fuzz pedal (Maestro Fuzz Tone), and were in fact used in the first German transistor radio. At £2.50 a pop, these had to tried, right? Then, when they came in the post, I realized that I hadn't properly looked at the picture, and not only did the description make them sound cool, but they looked even cooler.

The large picture of the OC602 made in 1961

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!

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.

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.

Look at that chip!

And a 3 layer PCB?

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.