My take on the Sunking

Cortexturizer · January 16, 2013, 04:48:33 PM

Here's a couple of pictures.

and a short demo of my uninspiring playing with a Strat [I'm mainly an SG player]

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/earthless/lots-of-gain-with-centaur[/soundcloud]

Long live DIY!

jkokura · January 16, 2013, 04:57:22 PM

That first pic especially looks awesome! I really like the assymetrical design, and your graphics are really well done.

You don't say much about your experience, or what you used for graphics. Mind sharing a bit more?

Jacob

DutchMF · January 16, 2013, 08:35:07 PM

Those are some awesome pics of an awesome build! I really like the way this looks, and I'm with Jacob on that first pic, pure pedal porn tight there! The reflections off of those knobs... To die for!

Paul

snz728 · January 16, 2013, 10:31:27 PM

looks sharp

nzCdog · January 17, 2013, 12:27:28 AM

Ooooh very slick. Love the look of this, nice job

jimilee · January 17, 2013, 12:48:16 AM

Well that's great,very clean and elegant looking

wolfingsworth · January 17, 2013, 03:21:15 AM

This is awesome! I love the gold graphics, how did you do that?

slimtriggers · January 17, 2013, 03:27:19 AM

Man, that's gorgeous!

jtn191 · January 17, 2013, 05:49:33 AM

+1, bet you've got some graphic design experience...

I need to hang out with more graphic design people!

Cortexturizer · January 17, 2013, 10:42:37 AM

Wow, thank you guys, you're awesome!
I'm sorry to respond late, I live in a different time zone and here I am at the office, taking a sneak peek of the forum

I don't mind talking about the pedal at all! And no, no graphic design experience here, hehe, I just build what I like.

I really took the time to wire this nicely. I enjoy wiring a lot, and populating the board. I love designing the finish, but HATE doing the finish! It's because I never found a way to do it and be absolutely satisfied, while keeping the process relatively simple [you cannot buy waterslide decals in my country, yep, living in a cave...]
As for the graphics, I did the design, and what that essentially is, is a gold self-gluing glossy cardboard, really thick, and on top of that I did a transparent dark blue folie that covered the gold paper in certain areas but not all of them [like a template, you leave white what you would like to be gold in the final look, and paint the rest with color that matches that of the enclosure]. On top of that I poured some epoxy resin, like this

While it does look great, I wouldn't recommend it for professional purposes [i.e. you're building for sale], I mean, I like the little amount of sloppiness [it enforces the DIY spirit] but some of you may not. To me it's great when an effect is just a little bit wrong looking, it really tells me that a person made it and not a robotic arm, but hey, that's just me heh.

Really a great sounding effect.

I wanted to hate this thing to tell you the truth, because all of the hype, but I only ended loving it. It is a perfect design. You get a perfectly clean boost, you get low gain overdrive tones, and you get cranked distortion tones, everything with really pleasing compression, and picking dynamics, attack transient saved, beautiful sustain, and mids to cut through. Seriously, what's there not to like?
Usually my philosophy is stacking for gain, for various applications I use a compressor [orange squeezer I really like, but this gets used only once in a blue moon when I need UBER sustain, but I do use it to increase the fain of fuzzed after it] => tycobrache octavia => OD/dist of some kind [alternating between TS808 clone, an original SD-9 from the eighties and now the Klon] and that goes into the Fulltone 69 clone I did, for extra volume and that Ge cherry bassy bloom on top. I get my clean tones by using the volume pot on the guitar.

I gave Klon a run last night at bands practice and I LOVED it. I immediately noticed increased presence in a band mix, but not in a cutting way that hurts, but in a good way, I think the band sounded tighter. We are a prog rock/metal/shoe-gaze/post-rock trio, blah, I hate labels like these...
When I did solos, the notes were crazy present and I had wonderful sustain. Playing rhythm on an SG's neck pickup, be heavy, and still be able to distinguish the notes in a sus4 chord can get a little tricky, but the Klon handled that very well.
I don't know, it was only one rehearsal, but I can already tell that I was wrong to question this design, it works great. I kept away from this pedal mainly because people were telling me that the overdrive sounds are harsh and unusable, but I find them to be liars huh! I think that this may very well be the best OD out there. [of course, it could be just my satisfaction with the pedal right now]
With my 6V6 amp [custom made 5E3-alike amp] I get just about every tone I could ever need with the Klon. It kinda reminds me of a Zendrive I built a while ago, but with more headroom, and less blanket on top of the sound. I get Robben Ford sounds very easily. It sounds to me like him even more than with a Zendrive.

Really really pleased with this pedal.

Oh, I used Panasonic, Xicon Japan, Silver Mica caps and electros, 1N270 diodes [actually I ended using one 1N270 and one BAT41, sounds great], metal film 1% resistors, ICL7660SCPA and TL072 chips. Alpha potentiometers, Amphenol jacks, I did some crazy paranoid shielding in there, and the pedal is super super quiet even on full tilt.

I am really glad you guys like my build that much. Maybe you'd like me to show you my Fuzz Face?

I'm REALLY a sucker for the fuzz face. I mean - a crazy person when it comes to that type of pedals

raulduke · January 17, 2013, 10:55:13 AM

Epic builds dude.

Also, is that a panel display for bias voltage I see

Cortexturizer · January 17, 2013, 11:01:07 AM

Yes it is my friend.
I'll write some more about it, along with some inside shots of the pedal, in a separate thread. I know it's not strictly a madbean kinda build, but I guess it won't hurt....

I did the design on that one as well, I am really pleased by how it came out. I tweaked that fuzz face a whole month until I was satisfied with the sound.

Here's an original picture of the old man on the graphics http://www.schoolofcoachingmastery.com/Portals/41761/images/old%20man%20wondering%20hiro008-resized-600.jpg
what a face!

Cortexturizer · January 17, 2013, 11:12:39 AM

eldanko · January 17, 2013, 02:48:06 PM

LOVE the bias readout. Geez, I wish every one of my pedals had one on there. I want my pedalboard to look like the Las Vegas strip.

Hangingmonkey · January 17, 2013, 08:46:14 PM

Nice, they both look great. Feel free to discuss how you did the led screen

madbeanpedals::forum

News:

My take on the Sunking

Cortexturizer

jkokura

DutchMF

snz728

nzCdog

jimilee

wolfingsworth

slimtriggers

jtn191

Cortexturizer

raulduke

Cortexturizer

Cortexturizer

eldanko

Hangingmonkey