deadringer

[dwstanford]

deadringer build.  great sounding overdrive.  this is one of the first overdrives ive done.  i love it.  i may have to trade in my fuzz addiction for an overdrive addiction.   I just hope I don't O.D. on OD. 

[attachment deleted by admin]

[petesz]

looks awesome! nicely done

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Yes very nice. Working with bigger enclosures really makes it so much easier for wiring/sweet layouts.

[dwstanford]

Yeah, this one had tons of room.  My wiring was still pretty sloppy, though.  My OCD infested brain hurts when I look at it. -

Ah, fuck it.  It sounds good.

[gtr2]

Cool, not many build reports of the deadringer.  Nice to see one!

josh

[dwstanford]

I was wondering why there weren't more deadringers on here.  I was looking to learn from other peoples fuck ups beFore i started building.  I guess there are too many great and hard to acquire overdrives on this site to distract us.  I just though of it, but i should have given this pedal a Dead Ringers theme like from the film with Jeremy Irons.   I guess I will have to make another one. .  Thats one crazy ass film.  Its about twin gynecologists who have this weird ass symbiotic relationship where one is an extroverted sex addict and the other is an introverted drug addict.  Classic Cronenberg flick.

[madbean]

I was in a band called "Clarke Nova" named after the typewriter in Naked Lunch. Cronenberg is awesome and twisted!

[redbean]

I was wondering why there weren't more deadringers on here.  I was looking to learn from other peoples fuck ups beFore i started building.

I'll be building one soon, so I'd appreciate any advice you have to offer.

[dwstanford]

Yeah, I can tell you that you have to plan your layout very precisely.  I was going to try a 1590b and went for the BB to give me a little breathing room, but even with the larger enclosure, I had to work to get everything to fit like I wanted it.  Mad bean did a great job on this board.  Everything was laid out extremely well.  I even had room for a few silver micas and some rather fat greenies.  Bravo.  The only issue I had was with the wiring on the led for the boost section.  I read a post from another builder who had the same problem.  The led was on when the boost was disengaged and off when it was engaged. (wired backwards)  Either I fucked up the wiring for the switch (entirely possible even though i triple checked it.) or it was backwards on the diagram.  Just be sure to check that before you solder it down.  All I had to do is move it from the top center pole to the bottom center pole.  All good.    I can't champion this pedal enough.  I love it.  Its chief attribute is it's transparency.  It's really great at bringing out what's great about your amplifier.  It won't color your tone to try and simulate some other amp.  The only down side to that is that it won't sound all that great through a shitty amp.  That may not always be true, but I can tell you that I tested the board through my vox ac15 and it sounded amazing.  I couldn't believe how great it was sounding.  Then once I got it finished, I went to test it, but it was very late, so I didn't want to fire up the tube amp and wake up the neighborhood.  So instead I tested it through a little p.o.s. practice amp.  I thought I had screwed up the wiring because this was not the pedal I heard before.  It sounded dull and lifeless and way more compressed.  180 degrees from what I heard before.  I managed to subdue the rage that was building inside of me and I resisted the urge to throw it against the wall.  Instead I went to sleep.  And it's a good thing that I did.  The next morning, I went in and plugged it into the ac15 just to see what would happen and I got the awesome tone back that I heard the first time (but even better minus the noise of testing an open layout).  Great!!  So its not going to rescue you from a shitty sounding amp, but oh boy will it make a good amp sing.  

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

Thats why i don't "always" trust pedal demos. Pedals can sound so different with different amps and different players! I sometimes wonder if I'm liking a really good pedal demo cause of the pedal or the player behind it 

[dwstanford]

Yeah that shit is so subjective.  Amps, guitars, players, even the mics and the room they record the demo in.  Thats one of the reasons I got into diy.  I couldn't afford to be wrong about a pedal I spent $200+ on, but if I built it myself for $40 and I hated it, I could probably sell it to someone who does like it and even make a bit of a profit (that I will quickly sink back into my pedal building obsession). .   I've also learned that when i listen to pedal demos, I listen to the professional demos like pro guitar shop and gearmandude, but I also listen to the average joe demos recorded in some dude's apartment with a shitty mic or camera phone.  After all, a good player can take the worst equipment and get you something good out of it, but chances are, I'm gonna play more like the third guy than the first two.

[redbean]

plan your layout very precisely... wiring on the led for the boost section.... check that before you solder it down. All I had to do is move it from the top center pole to the bottom center pole.
 

Thanks! 

[dwstanford]

No problem.  Feel free to steal my Dead Ringers movie theme idea.  Sadly, I may not ever get around to it. 

[Liam]

Yeah, I can tell you that you have to plan your layout very precisely.  I was going to try a 1590b and went for the BB to give me a little breathing room, but even with the larger enclosure, I had to work to get everything to fit like I wanted it.  Mad bean did a great job on this board.  Everything was laid out extremely well.  I even had room for a few silver micas and some rather fat greenies.  Bravo.  The only issue I had was with the wiring on the led for the boost section.  I read a post from another builder who had the same problem.  The led was on when the boost was disengaged and off when it was engaged. (wired backwards)  Either I fucked up the wiring for the switch (entirely possible even though i triple checked it.) or it was backwards on the diagram.  Just be sure to check that before you solder it down.  All I had to do is move it from the top center pole to the bottom center pole.  All good.

Thanks for your post in my thread.  I'll get some photos of my one up soon.  I'm pretty sure the wiring guide has just that small error in it, but that it can't be all of us.

I can't champion this pedal enough.  I love it.  Its chief attribute is it's transparency.  It's really great at bringing out what's great about your amplifier.  It won't color your tone to try and simulate some other amp.  The only down side to that is that it won't sound all that great through a shitty amp.  That may not always be true, but I can tell you that I tested the board through my vox ac15 and it sounded amazing.  I couldn't believe how great it was sounding.  Then once I got it finished, I went to test it, but it was very late, so I didn't want to fire up the tube amp and wake up the neighborhood.  So instead I tested it through a little p.o.s. practice amp.  I thought I had screwed up the wiring because this was not the pedal I heard before.  It sounded dull and lifeless and way more compressed.  180 degrees from what I heard before.  I managed to subdue the rage that was building inside of me and I resisted the urge to throw it against the wall.  Instead I went to sleep.

Just laughed quite a lot reading that.  Mine got tested with my phrase trainer at 1 in the morning.  I actually said to a mate at work next day that I was sure I had built it right, and that  it was rubbish.

And it's a good thing that I did.  The next morning, I went in and plugged it into the ac15 just to see what would happen and I got the awesome tone back that I heard the first time (but even better minus the noise of testing an open layout).  Great!!  So its not going to rescue you from a shitty sounding amp, but oh boy will it make a good amp sing.  

Yesterday evening I fired it up through my SF Princeton Reverb.  Jeez that's a good sounding pedal - I really like it.  I actually dug out the Egodriver I'd decided wasn't very good for the same reason.  Sure enough - it's a real winner too. 

Liam

[dwstanford]

yeah, the egodriver is another badass monster of an overdrive.  it has many of the same qualities that the deadringer offers, but a different tone all together.  not quite as transparent, but i dig it.