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Messages - Gary_W

#1
Build Reports / My 'Mostly Madbean' board
February 18, 2013, 11:19:07 PM
Hello all,

Very rare I post here - apologies for that :)

Anyway, a big thanks to Brian for all the boards / schematics here - I've loved building all of these and, for the moment, I'm done.  Not sure how long that statement will last.  I had a little lapse earlier when I swapped a couple of caps in the King of Tone clone ;)

Anyway.....  I know it's customary to show individual pedals but as most of these are home made and all bar one from here then it makes sense to show the finished article.



Bottom right is the Sunking - a friend of mine etched me the board.  I love it, and it's the only buffer I use.  Boost is great on it too.  I never have the gain above minimum.  Other pedals do that bit!

The bright-eyed ape is the Aristocrat (it's a Kong of Tone :) )  Bought the board from Brian direct.  Didn't care for it till earlier tonight when I swapped the input caps....

The Hulk is a Snack Shack (the D*A*M Meathead clone).  I've added the 'dark' mod and it's on a switch.  Again, I bought the board from Brian.

The pearl shell is the Lowrider - again, bought the board here.  I was rather proud when it worked first time as I'd have been at a bit of a loss faultfinding this beast.  Really like it - does what it says on the tin!

Top right I have a Joyo compressor.  Will probably do a home-made effort at some point but, for the price and the rare occasions I use it, it's hard not to love!

The Serendipity was another Madbean board that a friend etched.  I love what it does but it's got a particular character that doesn't fit with most of the stuff I do live (cover band with lots of cleans / mild overdrives)

Next is the Hendrix-faced Grapevine (DLS clone).  I love this thing.  Only gets used on the lower-gain 'Rock' mode but it's fab.  It was (IIRC) the first board I bought from here!  This is the third box it's been in!  Loves a fuzz up it's front end (so to speak!)

Next is the Pink Floyd fronted Muffintop (WIIO clone in the members section).  Yes, I know it's supposed to be more of a Who pedal but Gilmour used Hiwatts too and I prefer Pink Floyd.  And it's my pedal so there!  :)  Etched at this end.  I really like this.  The DLS into this thing is a great classic rock tone. 

Keith Richards is a clone of the Formula No.5 that I found over at Freestompboxes.  Does what it claims to - great little pedal.....

Then we have the rest of the commercial stuff - I only discovered Strymon a few months back - I wanted a reverb pedal.  Got the Flint and discovered that I wasn't so anti-digital after all.....  It's rather good!

I have a couple more builds that haven't made it onto here - a Zombii (it's great but I prefer the Snackshack) and a Smoothie phaser (turned out really well but the Mobius callously kicked it off the board).  I have a half-built Egodriver that I can't bring myself to finish as I like what's on here already.....  Ultimately, anything I build has got to outdo what's here already.  And it's going to have a hard job.  But suggestions taken of course!

Next DIY projects will probably be Faultline and Sabretooth for the occasions when I (attempt to) play bass.  I suck at bass.  Fuzz will kill or cure, and I helped a friend build the Faultline for a decent bassist who loves the thing.  I think Catalinbread are fantastic (as you can see!).

Thanks again, Brian, for all the cool stuff here.  I am over the moon with my board.....  I play through a 7w single channel amp and mic it up for live - it's a loud little thing!!!  It's own overdrive is great but, on stage, the pedals make life a lot easier.



#2
Sorry to dredge up such an old thread but I wanted to share my experience that is relevant to the rest of the thread.  Hope that's OK.

I built the Aristocrat about 6 months ago and I've been trying hard to love it :)  It's not bad at all, but compared with the other projects I've built from here it didn't really see much use!

After having a trawl through the forums here it reminded me of the build doc's note saying 'for more bass, change the input cap'.

I've just popped in a pair of 47n instead of the stock 10n.  I've also turned the presence contols up to 2/3.  For my rig, this is now a much better pedal!  Sounds like my guitar but more of it.

It's still early days as yet and I need to try it at band practice later this week to see how it copes.  But thanks for the tip on the input cap as it's sounding really promising.  If anyone else is less than impressed with this build this is a dead simple mod that makes a night vs day difference to the sound.