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...Cause 70% of my pedal board will be made up of his designs!

I've been putting these guitar pedals together for the last year and a half... I built 2 of every pedal. My guitar has 2 output jacks (bridge/neck to one, middle to the other) so I can run 2 amps from one guitar without using a buffer or splitter. This allows me better tone control over my heavier distortions (one amp can carry the bass and treble, while the other can handle mids, for example), as well as varying mix/match with other pedals. I'm an analog freak, so this is my creative way of going about that.

I'll be building a switch that controls all of these so I can seamlessly go from one to the other without turning one off and the other on... And that will also be all analog.



Anywho, left to right top:
- micro pog (I didn't build that, obviously),
- proco rat with clean blend and reutz mod (Slow Loris),
- reverb (1776 rub-a-dub),
- tape delay with modulation (1776 multiplex - just did a build report on this),
- fuzz factory (stubbi - I etched one board, and perfed the other)
- big muff (modified mudbunny Mayo with mids mod)
- big muff (modified violet rams head with mids mod and clean blend),
- Clark gainster overdrive (etched egghead)

Left to right bottom:
- Tap tempo tremolo (one LFO controls 2 audio lines, so both signals are always matched - has 8 different waves and tap tempo - I designed and etched this one myself),
- reverb (same as top)
- tape delay (same as top)
- fuzz factory (same as top)
- big muff (mayo same as top)
- big muff (violet rams head same as top)
- Clark gainster (same as top)

Again - I never label them as I'm lazy, I know what the knobs do and which pedals are which, and I like the visual simplicity and toy-like quality with all the colors and whatnot.

If you want more info on any of them, just let me know. I'm happy to share! :-)

Thanks for the kind words... I did a separate LED for each so that I would know which delay has the modulation going (I can only have one delay at a time with modulation on) - I could listen, but again... I'm lazy. ;-)

I wanted a multiplex, I wanted modulation in it, and I didn't want a horizontal pedal, SOOOO... I took the circuit for the 1776 modulation board and went to town with some perf board and 9mm pots to make it as SMALL as possible. I added a DPDT on-off-on toggle with LEDs so I can switch the modulation between delay 1 and delay 2. As you can see below, it worked and I was able to sneak a daughter board under the main board and not affect the pedal orientation!













I never label my pedals cause I'm lazy and I kind of like when they look like fancy kids toys. I know what the knobs do, I'll never sell them, so that's all I care about. Anyway. 

Knobs are purple. I'll eventually replace the 3way switch with something more appropriate. This works for now.

Works and sounds great. I built 2 identical ones (the other one is red sparkle with black knobs). This is about as good as it gets for a delay. :-)

Thanks for designing this thing!

I'm 100% behind a small clone clone. Something that can fit into a 1590B? Yes. Just... Yes.

I built a MB mayo (albeit modified) and a violet rams head (I think stock, but may have messed with the ceramic caps).

The mayo's mods were to get a diffused red and a clear red 5mm LED into D1 and D2 (one to rough it up a little, the other to smooth it out some, both to amp up the attack), up the ceramic values to taste (i think mine is at 560pf to add a little clarity/high end), and swap the transistors - all of them were 2n5088 except q4 I left bc550 (the bc550's were a little bass-y to me, but leaving one in allowed for the tone I like). The original Mayo's were designed to sound like siamese dream era pumpkins, so this will get you somewhere around there.

The violet ram's head I left stock (I may have upped those ceramics to 560pf, as well, but I'd have to look later) - it's definitely more of the classic muff sound. Doesn't get the same bottom as the mayo does, but has similar attack (I hope I'm using that word correctly) and great sound - while still smooth like a muff, it's not as smooth as my mayo, but not as muffled either. These are what will get you closer to the dinosaur jr. solo sound, or even a little white stripes-ish when the sustain is cranked.

I recommend either of them - just add the mids mod (a 20-25k pot to R18 (lugs 1 and 3) with a 4k7 resistor between lugs one and 2) and you're golden.

I built a couple rub-a-dubs - if you get the long delay reverb module and turn it up all the way, it does produce some decent reverb.

I highly recommend them.

He (1776effects.com) also sells them prefab for like $8 or $9... Just fyi, but i get wanting to etch your own - it's what I did, but I redesigned the layout and used a SIP IC (can't remember the number right this second, though) instead of a tl072 to save a little space so I could shove it into a smaller enclosure and still have a battery.

Good luck!

I scored them with a utility knife on one side, then again on the other (you can see the line on the etched side through the PCB), then I just get it on the edge of a solid surface (counter, table, etc.) and press down until it breaks off - it doesn't take TOO much pressure. I'll probably use 1/32 thickness PCB next time, though, just to make it easier.

Then I sand the edges with 150grit to either smooth it out, or get it a little closer to where I need it.

For smaller sizes, you can always use a C-clamp to hold down what you don't want, and break off what you do want - but just watch the positioning of the clamp... you could scrape up your fingers pretty good when that thing breaks off. Ask me how I know. ;-)

So I've neglected to update here, but its been a time consuming project. To update:

I went back, adjusted the light distance and exposure time, used fresh chemicals and only did one board (with 4 smaller boards on it). It went great. No hiccups, no issues, and you can see the difference for sure.

I drilled and tinned this this weekend and went back over them with solder to touch up the less-than-perfect first batch's problem spots (on what was salvageable, anyway). All of these look perfectly usable to me now. I labeled them with rub-onz transfer paper. Not perfect, but it tells me where things should go.

Attaching a couple pics.

Top row: 3 madbean eggheads and a rub-a-dub reverb redesigned for a njm2082l chip.

Middle row: 3 madbean stubbii's (2 redesigned to give more padding between the traces and ground plane - I'm putting them in a 1590b anyway)

Bottom left: dual tap tremolo (bottom right and left are for audio lines, middle bottom is the LDR, and top is the LFO. Its a big board, but its going in a big enclosure).

Bottom right: top is 3 JMK blenders (redesigned for a njm2082l chip); bottom is 2 madbean modulatorers (redesigned to be THIN and have mounted 9mm pots - these will go into my 1776 multiplex builds)

well, it wasn't really a "kit" so much - more of a bundle where you buy the developer and etchant (ferric chloride, in this case) and it comes with 2 photoresist boards.

I had done research on a few boards, and it did say this was the best method, as the press n peel transfer had issues with smudging, and other methods required an expensive laminator and foils.

A friend of mine does press n peel blue, but doesn't think he has any paper left. He says he gets about 50% success rate on them, and has to fix the rest with a circuit pen or just start over...

I have one pre-coated board left, I think I'll give it one last go and hope that I can get all the boards that were miffed up onto it. I really don't want to get into the etching business, but the costs of paying someone to do it for me were about equal for all the ones I wanted - I'm regretting not having someone do them for me, LOL.

Hey guys - posted this over at BYOC too. Let me know if it's in the wrong forum, but I have my adventure in the first go-around of PCB etching. Here's what I wrote:

So I had a few boards that I wanted to etch because, frankly, I'm sick of doing perf board for complex circuits and I think I can fit more into a smaller space when I can design it.

So i ordered all the etching supplies from Jameco after looking through (BYOC) forum and watching this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Wnfnt2rNO0

Keeping in mind that the only thing I had to start were 2 tubs to hold the chemical compounds, the pricing comes out to about $175-$185 for everything. That will buy you 3 PCB's (including the 2 in the developer/etchant kit), the developer/etchant kit, the drill/bit/stand kit (which I'm now realizing the stand would have held my dremel, so that's money down the drain), the lamp and light, the tinit kit (for tinning the board when you're done) and miscellaneous small items (gloves, red light bulb, nail polish remove, etc.).

SO... The video (sponsored by Jameco) says a 13watt CFL bulb for 8 minutes on the image over the PCB in a photo frame is good, but the instructions say 100watt incandescent for 10 minutes, or 14 minutes for bigger boards. The instructions in one PCB said 1:10 ratio for developer/water - and in the other they said 1:3. So there are instruction continuity problems already...

I went ahead and did everything per the video since that worked for him with these specific parts. The first board developed okay (but I couldn't use half the smaller boards on it once etched). The second board did absolutely nothing in the developer for 15 minutes. I placed the tub into a hot bath (keep in mind, the developer wasn't cold at this point), and then it started doing something, but VERY slowly - I added a little more developer, but it still took almost 2 hours to "fully" develop (quotes used because it never actually fully developed - there was green ghosting all over as I found during the etching process).

So the etching process worked, but the developer part threw me obviously - cause it was just not working very well. I would say I have 50% of my boards are useable - not very pretty by any means, but useable so far as I can see.

This method was touted all over a few boards - I found some that said they had issues with the photoresist boards not developing quickly sometimes. I still have one 3x4 board that I could etch 4 smaller boards out of, but...

The other method is the toner tranfer method, I think it's blue pcb transfer paper or something? I'm considering that since this method was kind of a dud for me. I don't plan on doing a lot of these - the boards i'm etching are my own designs and/or boards that aren't available anymore but have single-sided etch art. I'd like to not spend much more money on these things.

Any advise, pointers, etc?

So I made a slight miscalculation - the tone knob works fine... the SUSTAIN knob is what drops completely. My apologies, I added the mids mod and haven't decal'd any of my enclosures yet.

So yea, it's not the mids or tone pot - it's the sustain pot.

Does anyone else find they have this issue with that pot? I know that my little big muff doesn't do that...

Well, I for one am interested in what trannies and diodes you used, I kicked a Little Big Muff off my board for this one... care to share your mods?

Paul

This was a post I put in someone else's thread - never did a completed build doc for it, though. I'll get around to it eventually, hehe. Anyway, here's the mods based on the Mayo schematic from madbeans build doc:

Here are the components I changed:

D1 - diffused red 5mm LED
D2 - waterclear red 5mm LED
Q1 through Q3 - 2N5088 transistors (Q4 stays as BC550, which has a reversed pinout, mind you)
C2, C5 and C8 - 560pf caps

The reasoning and building process:

The Mayo was too clean, and I wanted something more like the IC muff (without having gotten an IC muff board) - it had the tone, but not the grit or power - so I swapped parts around like crazy until I got where I wanted. I had it next to a little big muff (the new one, not the one from the 70s) to compare sounds.

I started out by swapping one transistor at a time - the 2N5088's are definitely less bass-y, maybe a little dirtier. But having ALL 5088's was a little too gritty - adding back in 1 550 smoothed it out for sure.

I had swapped out D1 and D2 with diffused LEDs at first, but it got a little too dirty, but when I put the 1n914  back in, it lost too much - so I heard that waterclears are smoother so I stuck one in and it did the trick.

It was still VERY bass-y, though, so I swapped all of the ceramic 470p caps for 560s - worked out GREAT!

If you're building the Mayo spec and want that classic Pumpkins / silversun pickups / IC muff sound, you might want to try those mods - they worked really well for me. It's not exact - it's still a TOUCH more bottom heavy, but nothing that some tone and mids mod EQ-ing wouldn't fix (if you want it exact - get an IC muff board - I got this version of the board so I could mod it for something different).

I'll open it up probably this weekend to check it out. I need to take it all out to get the decal process going anyway.

I figured if it were a common thing, no big deal - but my suspicions were right. *sigh* always something...

I love the sound, though - It's a modified Mayo version (used some LEDs and a mix of trannies) - much fuller and richer than the little big muff I was trying to emulate. Hopefully whatever this problem is doesn't hurt the sound.

Hey everyone - was playing around on my mudbunny pedal yesterday and the knobs got all our whack from being moved around. Played with the settings and found something (possibly) odd...

when I turn the tone all the way down, I get no volume at all. The volume works properly, as does the sustain and the mids pot mod to R18 (I have the 2012 mudbunny version).

Should the volume drop completely when the tone is all the way down? The pedal screams otherwise, and the volume seems fine when the tone gets to like 30% and higher.

If this is not normal, what could be the culprit?

I did exactly this, and it blew my transistor - made sure the right values went to the right places and everything. Scrapped the trans and the cap, got the right cap from TNBlueshawk (luckily I bought 2 of the trans, so already had a replacement there) and it fired up without a hitch.

Could've been dumb luck (or lack thereof), or a problem with the cap in the first place. I would proceed with caution, and if anything, just order the right part to be on the safe side.