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Gudday all.  This Ultra Fett, a dual channel Fetto with an LPB1 booster and all the dip switches on the outside.

Might change the knobs one day, and might go back and tidy it up sometime, but for now I'm going to take a break from building and I don't see myself fixing it up any time soon.  I still have plenty of PCBs that need boxing (an STM800 for starters), but as you can see from the artwork I have precious little inspiration for artwork currently.

This thing is great as a dual channel drive, and the boost is ok.  I built a treble booster (and had tested it with one previously), but it wasn't really making unity gain so I dropped a Crackle Not Ok in and that was just squeal and noise... so I banged out an LPB1 and it's workable.

The external switches are ok, but the only ones that make a real difference are Gain 1 and 2, and the Mid Cut, so maybe I'll revisit a simpler version with dual channels and just Gain1/2 external with everything else set to open.

Gudday all.  Continuing on with the re-finishing, my mate who I'd build the double looper for told me that the finish had gone strange and could I put something else in it as he never used it anyway.  I blame the Rustoloeum auto crystal clear, that stuff is just terrible.  The finish had cracked and raised up in strange wave type things.

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=25896.msg251434#msg251434

Anyway, I sanded the thing back and filled the extra holes with Gorilla Weld initially, and then JB Weld on top of that.  I had a GuitarPCB Screaming Ultra lying around that I wasn't ever going to box, so I shoved that in and wired it up for dual channels with a 500k on Gain1 and 1meg on Gain2.  Clipping options are red LEDs and 4148s.  My friend has a number of builds I've done for him, and this one will go with his DangerZone OCD clone (not that he knows it yet because I haven't told him what I've done).

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=28587.msg277247#msg277247

So it's a bit tight and I kept the leads a bit longer so I had something to work with.  Dual channeling a pedal always adds a bit of mess.  Am I happy with the knobs?  Not overly, but I prefer to use the relevant colour for the channel LED where possible.

So, I built this for a friend 4 years ago, back when I was starting out, really.  While he's happy with it, it's been gigged fairly hard and the original method of photopaper glued and clearcoated on the enclosure wasn't wearing that well (I used that because I couldn't get datapol or similar where I was living at the time).

Original thread: https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=21543.msg212716#msg212716

So anyway, he said he didn't use the BMTB so much, and the finish was a bit ragged, so could I please fix it up?  Yeah, no worries.

Not wanting to work any harder than I usually do, I didn't drill any more holes and built a Rustdriver to replace the TB.  I filled the original LED hole with Gorilla Weld and decided to make my way to the drillpress to put in two more LED holes.

The weather here has not been conductive to spraying and I had to sand it back once or twice.  I lost count as I was doing a few other builds that needed the same treatment.  I changed the artwork to reflect what's in the thing and promptly put the sticker on crooked, which meant a quick top sand and recoat of primer.  With my only sticker left, I got it good enough but not really.  It's probably more off than the first effort.  Clearcoat and done.

I kept some of the original wiring because I'm lazy, and changed the jacks for lumbergs so I could fit everything in.  I didn't bother with the tone switch on the Rustdriver because it's interactive with the volume and I think it's dark enough stock anyway.

The Crackle Not Ok works really well with the Rustdriver.  It seems to add a bit of clarity and give it more raunch.

Did my first 1590a builds today.  Just another pair of FS-7 workalikes.  The hardest thing about them was getting the enclosures sorted as the weather has been crap for spraying.  Had to sand back once or twice.

Gudday all, here's Airwolf.  It's based on Sensei Tim's X88r layout at the tagboard forums, but as usual I couldn't leave well enough alone so I added dual channel switching and a preboost in the form of Tayda's boost pcb wired up for a standard treble boost.

Original thread: http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/Soldano-X88R-preamp-td28669.html

I had previously stacked it with my Superjudge+ in testing because it didn't seem to have enough dirt and really liked that combo, so I made a clean boost Superjudge with a bandpass (400-3k) and volume only.  For some reason, this combo squealed when in the box, so I tried it with Leviathan's treble booster and loved that.  I knocked up a Brian May Treble Booster and found that it added way too much noise, so I waited out for Tayda to get some stock in and build a BMTB from one of their pcbs.  Given the amount of noise this added, I figured I must have used the standard TB that can be build from that PCB, so made of of those....  It's still not as quiet as the one in Leviathan, so work that out.

Anyway, the boost is probably a bit of a waste, but it does tighten up the bottom end while adding saturation (and dropping a pinch of volume, surprisingly).  Probably best used as "alway on" if you want that sound.  It's ok.  It does that "Youth gone wild" rhythm thing pretty well.

First time I've done 3 footswitches in an NS sized box.  Haven't played it enough yet to see if I'll stick with DDs for that.  Knobs are from Wish.

Willy.

Gudday all.  Meet Bimmy, a dual channel Timmy with clean blend and input cap selection.

So, this is a commission build.  The character artwork, who I believe is called "Dropkick", was supplied by the client, and he wanted silver knobs.  Not sure that I'm a fan of the silver knobs as they're a bit hard to read but anyway.  The other artwork was done by me.

So, the blend is supplied by Paulinthelabs' buffered Y-splitter, and I added a tone control to the clean blend via 10n to ground and a 100k pot acting as the resistor in that lowpass filter.  Works a lot better on a guitar than on bass afaict.

The bass/guitar switch switches between 1uf and the stock 47n.

I had some massive issues wiring this up.  As with the Crunchbox, to switch out gain pots you need to switch out pins 2 and 3 rather than just pin 1.  When I finally got that working, the lead to vol 3 broke off the vero and I spent ages trying to fix and clean that up, just to find that the output (which is the master output) from pin 2 on the blend pot had come off.

It's a little wonky on the drilling, so I'll probably discount the balance owing (I always get 50% up front from internet randoms for custom builds). Still to tidy up a little inside with zip ties, but it's not bad.

Willy.

Gudday all, I built another FS-7 workalike, but broke a chunk out of the enclosure when I failed to grip the box hard enough when redrilling the jack hole.  I filled it up with gorilla weld, drilled out the other end, sanded, painted, stickered, cleared, done..

I decided to make a couple of footswitches for my MS-3.  Two normally closed momentary footswitches, a 125b, some paint, a sticker, and we're done...  The switches came prewired, didn't even bother trimming or stripping them.

Just picked up an as new MS-3 second hand, for roughly half price.  This is a great unit.. but it's made nearly everything else I own obsolete.  Everything in it is usable, and the drives are pretty functional, better than I expected.  With the assigns, you can change 8 parameters and/or effects on the current patch's footswitch, basically a new patch...

The pedal interface is painful to use imo, the PC editor is fantastic though.  If it had a cabsim and xlr out, it would be a killer pedal.

I'm a little torn.  I've invested so much time, money, and effort into building the pedals I have (and I have several in the works), and now.... I just don't need any of them.  I don't even know what I'm going to put in the MS-3's loops.  For a cover band gig, the MS-3 and a wah is enough.

I'm thinking about some amp type drives in the loop.  I have my HT-dual (big, bulky, sounds great), or the BE-OD in a few different flavours, but the MS3 can't control those beyond on/off, so I'm thinking either an Iridium or a Mooer Preamp Live.... But... do I need that many drive options?  I don't want to be stepping on a pedal in the loop to change high/low gain sounds either.

It's all a bit crazy, but I see myself selling off a lot of my pedals and building bits soon...

Gudday all.  Got a bloke wanting a "transparent od" for use with bass AND guitar...  So, I'm thinking a Timmy with a blend.

Here's part of the message:

I'm not looking at anything too crazy just a nice little transparent as possible od that I can use for bass predominantly but has enough tweak in the tone to be usable for guitar too ( maybe adding a 80-100hz knob if possible to fine tune for bass and guitar) and possibly having a boost channel/stomp button also with just a level and gain control,

None of that is too hard, really, but I'm wondering what I would be changing out to make it bass only without the blend - and would it be possible to switch those out on a toggle....?

Gudday all, here's The Crossroads, a gift build for a friend I've known for 27 years or so.  He happens to run a guitar shop called "Crossroads Music", so I thought I'd use the artwork on the side of his building (which was the artwork for Samick guitar ads back in the early 90's) on the pedal.  Looks a bit off center, but I didn't want the dude's head covered by a knob.

The PCB is one I got from someone here, I think, ages ago.  It's a mix of versions, just a couple of cap/resistor swaps.  The box is a yellow Tayda powdercoat with black etching primer and datapol sticker on top.  This is the last of the confusing yellow/black enclosures!

Gudday all.  I have this problem where I start a build, and it's fairly basic, but then I get stupid ideas that get out of hand.

Tonight, I finished a Boneyard that took ideas from my Magnum Opus build, but simplified it to just two channels with different clipping LEDs for each channel.

BUT, I have two more dirtbox builds, along with all the other half finished boards on my desk, that have a real opportunity to get stupid.  This is how the process goes:

- That Fetto demo sounds good, let's build that.
- I like the option of low and high gain in a dirt pedal, let's add that.  It's a cascaded jfet design, so I'll need to compensate for volume when there's a gain pot switch.  So that's another 2 pots.
- Lol, these switches make a fair bit of difference to the sound.  Let's mount all 10 of them on the front where they can be accessed, instead of dipswitches inside.
- Ok, it'll have to go in an NS sized box for all this.
- The max amount of gain is pretty good if both Gain1 and Gain2 dips are on.  Wonder if I should put both of those to a footswitch instead of using it as a gain pot switcher.
- I should probably still have the gain pot switching too.  I can fit 3 footswitches in an NS, surely.  Others have done it...
- I think I want a bit more overall dirt.  How does it sound with a boost in front?
- Pretty good.  I wonder what boost I should use?  Maybe I should try a TS or BB in front of it.  If I leave the dips as switches instead of the footswitch, I can use a DD for a full pedal in front of the Fetto.  I can do 4 footswitches in a DD.  That means I can put the dips on a footswitch still.
- The single knob tone control is a bit simple.  Maybe I can put a 3 band eq in.  Will a Tonemender fit?
- What would be cool, is adding Lart's cabsim.
- Haha, I have a THcustoms Linedriver I can put in this too.
- I reckon I should put a loop in this, so I can put my effects between the Fetto and the cabsim/linedriver.
- I'll need a splitter in there so I can have both XLR and 1/4 outputs...

And so it goes.  I also have a Plexidrive on vero that I'm planning to basically turn into the deluxe version, but with a boost, tonemender, and channel switching.  That would be a DD as well, although it could feasibly go into an NS.

This is how I end up with things like the Magnum Opus.  I just keep wanting to add functionality.  It's crazy.

Gudday all, here's Biohazard, a Boneyard on vero.

The guts are a mess as I had to re-wire all sorts of things after finding out that if your LEDs are pot mounted, you need to switch out pins 2-3, not pin 1.  Then, after working all that out, it had a squeal that wasn't there out of the box so I dropped a klon buffer in to fix that.

Yellow/green asymmetrical LEDs on Channel 1, asymmetric red on channel 2.

Pretty happy with the drilling on the face, but the top mounted jacks are laughable, again.

Willy.

Gudday all, here's Godzilla, just another BE-OD clone on a Pedalpcb pcb using a predrilled, powdercoated, UV printed Tayda enclosure....   It is what it is, but I'm really happy with how quiet it is.

Gudday all, here's Nuka Cola, built on a Storyboardist Barracana PCB that I won a couple of years ago in the BOTY comp.  It's a Palisades clone, and it is what it is - a tubescreamer with all the extras. 

Features some wobbly pot layouts, despite a template, drill press, and pilot holes.  The footswitches also point out due to being too close to the inner enclosure walls.  The enclosure is a yellow tayda powdercoat that's been hit with etching primer, stickered with datapol, and clearcoated.  Knobs from Wish. 

Not posting in the SIPP thread as I'm still working for another week and the country isn't in lockdown yet, although plenty of non essentials are closed.

Gudday all, here's Wolverine, my build of a BE-OD on a prototype Madbean pcb that I won in a PIF from Brian a couple of years ago.

In case you missed the earlier posts, it's a tayda pre-drilled, powdercoated, UV printed enclosure.  If you have a build you definitely want to box, these are great but need the power jack drilled out for the usual jack, and the LED hole is 4mm ( think - it was too big for a 3mm LED) , so it needed drilling out for a 5mm.  Might work for a 3mm w/ plastic bezel.  As luck would have it, the Pedalpcb predrilled enclosure was a perfect fit for the MB template.

Took a while for the box to arrive (cheapest postage this time), but not needing to drill, prime, sticker, clear the box makes the wait worthwhile.  It appears the text is a little blurred, and my gain label is a bit off center.  That's probably a limitation of the printer, combined with a vectored file.  Or it could be something I did.  The off center text is definitely my fault.

Sounds great, but it has a bit of a whistle at the higher gain levels that disappears with a buffered pedal in front, so I'll drop one in tomorrow night.

So, my Tayda UV prints have arrived. As promised, here's the pics.

These are not the best graphics layouts I've ever done, and I'll blame that on not having used Illustrator for around 20 years, plus rushing the work so I wouldn't miss Tayda's deadline for the test run of UV prints. These are just for a couple of BE-OD pcbs I have lying around.

As you can see, these were printed onto powdercoated, pre drilled PedalPCB enclosures. The power jack needs to be enlarged if you're going to use the normal sized jacks.

I'm pretty happy with the quality, although you can see some print lines on Godzilla on certain angles. The detail seems pretty good, but you loose a little in the vectoring conversion even at the highest settings. I'm going to say that I got what I sent in.  The photos are a bit crap, these are iphone photos...

Gudday all.

I won this PCB for placing in the 2018 BOTY comp and brought a bunch of yellow powdercoated 125b boxes off FB marketplace a little while ago.  Completely unsure what to put in those boxes, so they're getting relatively random builds put in them as I have heaps of veros and stuff that need boxing.

This is also the result of what happens when you have no artwork inspirations.  I layered the drill template and the pcb diagram in photoshop, and stuck the lot onto a transparent sticker.  I applied it, clearcoated, and drilled the enclosure.  The swarf went under the sticker so I had to pull it off, quick sand and clean with wet/dry paper and iso alcohol, stick my spare sticker on, finish with a clearcoat.

Not my favourite knobs, but I had them lying around and they don't cover the artwork.  Edit:  I've stolen the knobs off Stealth and used them here.

Willy.

Like the title says, it's just a power brick so I can use the 16vAV outlet on my AC10 now that I've taken the HT-Dual off.

Feed it whatever over 12v, and it rectifies down to 3x 9vDC and 1x 12vDC, and it also has a pass through at the other end for the  source power.  I ripped the circuit out of my previous S.L.O.P.P.Y, replacing one of the 9v regs with a 12.  There are footswitch washers on the jacks because I had a bad day on the drill press with the step bit.

I feel bad because my 3 channel Boneyard (Magnum Opus) is getting more love than my HT-Dual at the moment.  Besides having an extra channel, it's got less noise at high gain and seems to fit in the mix better, at least playing along in the bedroom - the HT seems to have way too much bottom end.  Both are on the pedalboard currently

I've just had the HT fixed too recently, but I suspect it might be on the way out again as the volume seems to be varing, although this could just be a relative mix thing.  This is a shame because it cost so much originally and sounded so good to my ears back in 2010...  Even worse is that I purchased a CIOKS AC10 specifically to use with it, which was about AUD$350.

It gets better.  I'm not enjoying tap dancing in the coverband with my current rig, so I'm looking at replacing nearly everything with a multi.  A secondhand Zoom G3x (with my drives in front), the Hotone Ampero or the Gem Box 3 are top contenders for compact units with XLR outputs.  Or.... a Boss MS3 so I can use my drives in a loop but... no XLR or cabsim in that box.  All these things have way too many options too.  I dunno.  The plan was to find a decent effect box to use separate to my drives, but if the HT isn't cutting it... then the onboard drives will likely be good enough.  Given there's so many in those units, one or two should work.

I have a million veros and PCBs lying around that need boxong, but I'm toying with the idea of building JMK's epic looper and having the effects BUILT IN!

Keep in mind when reading this that I'm still a crappy guitar player..