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New Guitar Day! In multiple ways actually. It's both new to me, and I assembled it so it's brand new and nobody else has played it.

It's made up of a variety of componants:

Body - Warmoth Chambered Alder with an Alder top, finished in Fiesta Red. Wow is it ever resonant, and not heavy at all! It's routed for universal, so it'll take any type of pickup set I'd like. I did two coats of the StewMac conductive paint in the cavity, instead of tape or foil, which really looks sharp. Also of note, the bridge is set for a floyd rose set of pins, which is interesting because the rout is like a standard strat rout, not the recessed floyd style which has become popular.

Neck - Also from Warmoth, it's their vintage modern type with a slim C taper and a 10-16" radius (10" at the nut, and 16" starts at the 12th fret and goes to the end. Pau-Ferro for the board, and a CBS headstock shape - not my favorite. Love this neck, except for the headstock, but I can live with it.

Bridge - This is a Schaller Vintage Roller Trem. It's meant to look, and feel like a classic two point strat type trem, but it's spaced for Floyed Rose posts. I bought this trem for another guitar of mine, to replace the clunky, ineffective Floyd Rose bridge on it, but found I couldn't intonate the guitar properly and had to switch back. However, on this strat I'm making it work. I'm about as close to maxed out as I can be, but I'm able to intonate closely enough that I'm happy. It's a beautiful, heavy bridge, which translates to lots of sustain. I have it setup to float, and when in use I'm finding that, even with new strings, I don't got out of tune, even with heavy bends! Brilliant!

Tuners - Probably a big part of the staying in tune is these Gotoh Vintage Locking tuners. Smart design, they use a quarter or a pick to 'unlock' rather than the Sperzel style I'm familiar with which have a disc on the back you have to turn. A great feature of these Gotoh tuners is that they're indiscernible from a standard 'vintage' set of tuners. They have that classic Kluson look, but they're locking. They're quite stiff right now, and I expect the action to loosen up as I use them more, but I'm not envisioning them really being used as heavily as a standard non-locking set.

Pickguard(s) - Because the body came setup for floyd pins on the bridge, I couldn't use a standard Strat guard. It turned out though, that Warmoth produces pickguards for this setup, so I ordered a pair of guards from them! I got this WBWPearloid one setup for single coils, and I got a WBW one for a pair of humbuckers that are still in the mail. Also, I hate the two tone system Leo setup. I much prefer a master tone/volume, so that's what I went with on both pickguards.

Electronics - On this pickguard I've set it up with a set of (what I believe is) Mexican strat pickups. They're pretty good to my ears, nothing superlative, but certainly very useable. I got them on another body that I modded and played around with. I no longer have much of that setup, but I did have these pickups. I hate hum, so they likely won't stay. It's a 5 position, so at least positions 2 and 4 are good for me. The pickups going in the other guard will be a set of Tom Anderson (my favourite pickup guy) Humbuckers, and will feature a 3 way switch. I may do coil tapping with the tone pot on that one, but I have to find the pot for doing that. The singles have a .047uf Mallory, no treble bleed, with 250K pot. The Humbuckers will likely have a set of 500Ks, no treble bleed, and a .022uF Mallory.

Anyway, enough on all that. Here's some pics. No sound yet, but on future demos you'll certainly be hearing it.





Glamour Shot:



Conductive Painted cavity:



Hope you've enjoyed!

Jacob

Hey guys,

I know some of you in the UK use Rapid often. I'm looking at getting some stuff there that I can't get a good deal on elsewhere. Anyone out there in Canada/US/Worldwide ever get stuff from Rapid? How was the experience?

Jacob

1) Jkokura - "Boneyard"

4) This is the second Madbean Boneyard I've built recently. The other, the Ezekiel 37 I entered for the DIY Stompboxes 10 year contest.

I was able to snag two of some of the last Boneyard PCBs from Brian back when he was discontinuing them, and after reading through the documentation I decided to build one as I did the Ezekiel 37, as a fairly stock, "Marshall in a Box" sort of pedal, with the standard Hi/Lo gain options. But then I thought, "why not go all out?" So I decided to do what I'm calling the "Super Marshall in a Box."

I built this one in a Black Sparkle PPP box, a 1590Q size, which allows for top jacks and 5 knobs across. It's a bit tight with the three switches though. Probably won't do that again. Also, this was decaled with my 'classic' style of a clear vinyl decal that's stuck to the top and then clear coated with a non-yellowing poly urethane which is baked on. Knobs are okay, thought they'd look better. Probably switch them for Marshall type when I get some.

This Boneyard features a the mod you can do with the PCB, a boost feature that replaces one resistor with a Pot when you switch it on. Similarly to my previous version, I added a Buffered bypass switch PCB to the main bypass. This allows me to run this pedal with less opportunity for feedback to occur. I say less opportunity, because at extreme settings it can still go a little nuts. However, those settings are a little unreasonable in terms of their actual sonic benefits, so there's no chance of me actually using it in a situation that would warrant full blast on every control.

Anyway, I haven't had as much time with this pedal as I had with the Ezekiel when I entered it, but I will say that I really like the extra boost function. It's not as useful as an independent boost, one that can be used separately from the drive, but I do like how it actually genuinely does raise the volume significantly. Significantly enough to really cut through for a solo. It also really does react well to your guitar volume/pick action, which other Marshallinabox types haven't seemed to do for me. If I were to put this up, I'd rather use this one than any other 'marshall' flavour pedal I've used, and that means probably about 5 or 6 of them out there.

Overall, I think if you guys ever get a chance to either snag a Boneyard, or a built up version, and you like Marshall sounds, grab it. (All offers considered

2) Here's a good set of glamour shots.









And the Guts.



3) Here's the Video.

Hope you've enjoyed!

Jacob

[jkokura]

This was my second entry in the DIY Stompboxes 10 year contest! DIYSB has had a big impact on my life, and it was there that got me to jump two feet first into DIY pedals.

Name of entrant: jkokura
Pedal name: Zeropoint Delay
Tell us a bit about the pedal: This is a build of the Madbean project, Zeropoint Super Deluxe (http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/ZeroPoint/ZeroPointSDX.pdf). I've chose this as my second build mostly because of the aesthetic appeal this pedal has for me. I rarely get to build pedals for myself alone, but both this entry, and the Ezekiel 37, are ones I've wanted to build a long time.

Again, this pedal is built from a Madbean PCB, inside an enclosure from Pedal Parts Plus finished in their "Snuffler Water" finish. It's gorgeous. It's also been labeled using the afore mentioned (See Ezekiel 37) Vancouver Island Printing House doing up a Decal for me, after I designed the graphics in Inkscape. The graphics are the outline of a generic city, which fits well with the font I used, which also features a cityscape.

Talk about controls! The Zeropoint has many: (R-L, Top-Bottom) Path controls an element of the repeats giving the potential for a clearer first repeat, Modulation turns the modulation on and off, Ghost creates a second feedback loop which leads to some crazy repeat patterns. Rate and Depth control the speed and intensity of the modulation, Mix controls the level of the repeats in comparison to the dry signal, while Repeats and Delay are dedicated to controling the length and number of echos. Finally, there is a rotary switch gives the option between four distinctly different sounds to the repeats. These options I've labelled as Digital, Shimmer, Tape and Analog. Also, the PCB allows for a 'slam' switch, or a runaway repeats switch. Pressing this footswitch makes the repeats go into 'noise' mode quite quickly.

I really like the sound of it. It gives a fairly accurate representation of what the PT2399 can do, but it's genuinely a useful delay, not just a toy. I can totally see myself seeing this live, and despite some tweaking I'd like to do to help get a bit more control on the repeats, I think this pedal is pretty darn amazing. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!

Pictures of the pedal (inside and out):







And the Guts.


Audio/Video:

Additional Details:

I used a Bypass board on this. It's literally nothing special, just a switch PCB with connections for wires so I can avoid having to solder wires directly to a switch. It also has pads to mount an LED. If this is needed, I will post the schem and layout, but it's the same as every one out there, just tailored to my needs.

Thanks for looking! I Hope you've enjoyed!

Jacob

[jkokura]

This was the first of my two entries for the DIY Stompboxes contest. DIY Stompboxes has had a big impact on my life as a DIYer, and I've been glad to both give back and also celebrate 10 years of awesome people doing DIY simultaneously. Thanks to Aron, and to the rest of the community there, I jumped two feet full in to DIY.

Name of entrant: jkokura
Pedal name: Ezekiel 37
Tell us a bit about the pedal: This is a build of the Madbean project, Boneyard (http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/Boneyard/docs/Boneyard.pdf), and also includes a PCB of my own design, which incorporates a buffer into the Bypass switch. The Buffer is of the Op Amp variety, and is always in the circuit, being in line before the switch.

This build has been a labour of several months, mostly I both worked ideas for the enclosure. The enclosure is a silver 125BB from Pedal Parts Plus, whom always gives me the best service when it comes to enclosures. The graphics are printed by a Printing house located on Vancouver Island, and is black lettering on a clear vinyl decal stock. The graphics, are a full text of Ezekiel 37 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+37&version=ESV), hence the name. The Chapter focuses on a prophecy which describes a field of skeletons, a 'boneyard' if you will.

The controls are simple: (R-L) Volume, Tone, Lo-Gain, Hi-Gain). One of the best features of this pedal is the hi/lo switch, which chooses between two pots for the gain levels. This makes the pedal versatile, and certainly feels much like hitting channel two, or a high gain mode on an amp.

As for the sound, I can't say how it compares to playing a real Marshall. However, I do feel it sounds really good, more amp-like than any other 'marshall in a box' pedal I've ever played. I really like this pedal, and I can see me using it, even though I rarely need anything that's very high gain. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!

Pictures of the pedal (inside and out):







And the Guts.


Audio/video:

Additional Details:

Aside from using a Boneyard PCB, from Madbean, I also used a buffered bypass board I created myself. The Schematic and Overlay are here below:





Thanks very much for looking at all this, I hope very much that you've enjoyed!

Jacob

So, I picked up this rad Fiesta Red Warmoth strat body off ebay, and I think I have most of the hardware, and a neck sorted to but this strat together. But, what I don't have figured out is what to do for pickups.

The body has a universal route, which means any combo of Singles through humbuckers will work. Keep in mind the following details:
- I have a wide variety of guitar sounds already available to me, including Super Strat type with vintage sounding hum-canceling single coils, Hum-canceling Tele, PAF style equipped Dot, Nashville Tele (strat middle pickup) with piezo bridge, and cheap Les Paul copy with vintage Dimarzio Humbuckers
- I would rather get a gretsch for gretsch sounds than try and get them out of a strat (only guitar type I might not try and cop here)
- What I'm not interested in is hummy or noisy type pickups (P90s, I'm looking at you), or weak single coils
- I'm game for considering outside the box ideas on what to drop in this thing
- I'm willing to go vintage with humcanceling, hot, interesting combos, or even go with a single pickup, but I prefer master volume and tone, and obviously I need to be able to find a pickguard for the setup.
- I don't want to spend a fortune on pickups I may or may not like (so, a $300 set of X Brand isn't an option), used is a great option.

So, can you give me your favourite strat setup considering the above? (basiclally, not wimpy, not aggressive, and not noisy)

Oh, and If you have them, I'm looking for Schaller locking tuners, a White Pickguard with Master Volume/Tone (no middle Pot hole), and the pickups to buy used if possible.

Jacob

This topic has been moved to Tech Help.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=10995.0

222444

Jacob (aka Jimi)

So, I've decided I'm going to take the plunge and build my first amp. I've always loved Matchless, so I'm gonna go for the Lightning for my first build. Perhaps ambitious, but comparing the schem to the other simple 'beginner' amps, it's like building a two knob overdrive versus a one knob fuzz. Not that big a jump.

Anyway, I'm in need of some coaching, someone I can go to with advice and questions when I'm trying to understand or have questions on things. I'm also having trouble sourcing some of the more tricky parts, like chassis and faceplates and such. Point is, if there's someone on here who's pretty experienced at amp building, I'd love a mentor I can deal with by email if they're willing.

Thanks,

Jacob

Found this while jumping around facebook this morning. Gonna bookmark it for fun projects to try out. This guy may be here, or at other forums, but this is the first I've seen his site (and I often check out the sites in your sigs...)

http://www.paulinthelab.com/

Jacob

I just wanted to share some stories. Yes, that's right, It's story time with Jacob.

So I placed a Mouser order last week. On May 23rd actually, so Thursday. It was in the afternoon, and as soon as I hit submit, I remembered a part I had forgotten to add. Crap. So I pulled up the 800 number, got a person right away, and had them try to add that part to the order. Too late, so she simply submitted a new order and gave me free shipping. No big deal. Both packages were sent out same day, and arrived on Monday, so 2 business day service. That's what you get with $20 shipping to Canada.

I also placed an order with Smallbear last Monday night, so they would have gotten it on Tuesday morning. That same day, the sent out my order (admittedly small and easy). It arrived this morning, so I got 5 business day service from Smallbear as well. I know it's not super fast to some of you, but things rarely arrive that quickly to me here in Canada, and I'm used to 3-4 week waits on most packages I order, so that was pretty rad.

Also, I'll add that I recently made a big order with Pedal Parts Plus. In the process, I've had to deal with their customer service a bit, and decided to place a call with them. You guys should know that they highly, highly value the DIY community. They're working to make things better for, us, and are highly committed to giving us good service. I'm super glad to be their customer, even when things take long.

Jacob

This Jacob Moon guy is awesome.

If you like Video song covers, you should like this. Also, if you like Tom Waits. Also if you like that almost Country sort of sound. And pretty Gretsch Guitars. So that means like everyone should love this, cause we all fit into one of those categories, right?

Jacob

Hey there yous guys.

I'm thinking about doing a pickguard with a strange pickup wiring with strat pickups. I don't like hum, and usually use noiseless pickups. However, I have a set of mexi strat pickpus, and I was thinking of wiring them for three settings with no hum: neck/middle, neck/bridge, middle/bridge. I tend to use neck middle a lot on most of my guitars, and I almost never use bridge alone, so it seems like a cool idea.

Anyway, the point of the question is, does anyone know if this will provide me with hum free status? Anyone know enough about how those 3 way tele switches work to help me to figure out the wiring scheme?

Jacob

It's snowing again this morning.

No seriously.

It snowed on the 23rd of October 2012, so if we get to the 23rd this month, that means since the first snowfall, we'll have had 6 months of snow. There's still 6-8 foot drifts in the parking lot here at my work, and on the lawn outside my building, the snow is still 1 foot deep where it hasn't drifted.

If we get to the first weekend in May with snow on the ground, that will have meant 6 months since it snowed and didn't melt, because the first weekend in November it snowed and stuck on the ground.

Jacob

Jacob

An interesting site today.

http://www.thecheapestguitar.com/ (Please note, I'm not advocating this site - buyer beware)

It looks like a factory in China/Asia is pumping out clones of big name guitars and selling them cheap.

What do you guys think?

Jacob

This is a preview of the upcoming Moon Lander PCB coming from JMK PCBS, but it's also the first build I've done fore myself in a while. Because Dave (pickdropper) did this enclosure, it looks way better than I could have done. I love doing collaboration builds, so if anyone out there in DIY Pedal land has an idea on a collaboration project they want to do with me, let me know. I have mad PCB skills to bring to the teamwork thang...

Anyway, the build didn't go smoothly, but it all worked out. When Dave did the enclosures, or rather, when I gave him measurements for the pots, we didn't consider how close we'd end up to the 'top wall' of the 125B. So, there were a pair of problems. You might see in the gut shot below that I actually had to grind away a bunch of the corners where we have the extra metal for the screw taps. That was ok, but not even thinking about things, I then proceeded to drill out the top wall for my usual configuration of top mounted 1/4" and DC jacks... Duh - if we were too close on the side pots, of course the middle pot would be too close too. Thanks to Jon who sent me a 9mm pot, which with some finangaling I was able to fit in there - so it's 'almost' all PCB mount jacks.

I've started using some 3PDT boards of my own design. I am not sure about it, because essentially if there's an issue you pretty much have to throw away the whole switch and board - no getting that PCB off of that board to reuse either - but the ease of the clean looking ribbon cable and board mounted LED has made me feel a bit better and get a bit quicker in my builds.



I love the etch Dave did, and the aluminum knobs I have were perfect.



And the Guts.



Hope you enjoyed!

Jacob

Had a client who wanted a custom switching unit for their rig.

Basic setup runs like this: Buffered Input (Split to Tuner Out) > Effects Loop > Amp Switcher (Amp 1/Amp 2 with A/B)

So, you can run your guitar in, have a dedicated Tuner out, Run an effects loop, run your signal with quiet switching (no ground issues) to two amps, and the second amp output is actually A/B so you can run to two channels on the same amp (client's amp pair is an Egnater and a Vox AC30 which he wants to run either of the two channels on).



Glamour Shot.



And the Guts.



Originally I had 3 PCBs made up, but the A/B one I used a bi-colour LED, and I misunderstood/couldn't find the correct LED - all of them seemed to work backwards to what I needed (i.e. common cathode not anode... I think). So, there's a PCB missing, but I still have a couple copies of the switcher and buffered effects loop with dedicated Tuner out.

Jacob

Been a while since I posted a build report, and I finally got a name plate on this one, so it's up!

The weener is a wicked awesome build, especially if you dig cool axial parts. I got all the caps I need from Mouser, including the 4uF radial cap Bean recommends. I did have a few complications in the process, had to do some troubleshooting, but it came down to simply using the right pinouts and touching up some dodgy solder points. Anyway, it's all working.

Biggest tip - play with the actual gear and rack to find the sweet spot in the rotation of the pot. The trim pots weren't helping me, so I started to make adjustments with rack and gear and bam it got better.

I used the White Mammoth Enclosure and Blue tread (obviously) and I hope they've gotten on top of the issues I had. If you'll notice, the PCB doesn't sit straight in the enclosure. Also, I had to drill out a bunch of the holes because they weren't tapped correctly. But otherwise, it's pretty rad. Only thing I didn't do was use a DC jack, so there's an empty hole in the side. I wish they didn't drill that hole, but left is as an option. But Blake's a good guy, and I've given him my feedback about this.

Anyway, if you're looking for a wah, this is an awesome option. This one makes my fourth wah actually, and for a guy who never uses a wah except for experimenting for fun on my own, it's a bit weird. I have this one, a Vox I've owned forever that I've moded, a Stock Crybaby, and a rebuilt Boomerang now. I'll be doing a shootout vid soon.

Here it is.



Thanks Rej for hooking me up with a name plate.



And the Guts.



Hope you've enjoyed!

Jacob

Mesa is releasing pedals of their own now.

http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2013/Jan/Mesa_Boogie_Tone_Burst_Throttle_Box_Grid_Slammer_and_Flux_Drive_Pedal_Reviews.aspx

Discuss.

Jacob