Cascadia build

[jubal81]

Update, small box of fail.

So the pedal made it's debut this morning.  My drives were the Cascadia being fed with a GPCB 4-track fuzz.  Silly good combination.  In fiddling with the knobs I noticed that the Tight switch is now only working on the right hand setting.  Switching to the left drops the output to just barely audible.  Bummer.  So this afternoon I'll crack it open and see what's gone wrong.  Thinking maybe a pin of something shorting to the back of a pot now that it's been knocked around a bit.

If I'm reading the scheme right the switch is the difference between C30/R46/R47 and C29/C31/C32/R45/R48 right?  Unless the switch lost it's mind.

Anyway it's doing exactly what I need it to do: act like a tube amp.  Both it and the Lab Series L5 I'm playing respond well to guitar volume so I spent a few tunes with it on and controlled all my overdrive simply by turning up and down.  Only other stuff used today was VFE Choral Reef and a Nova Delay.  I'll see if I can pull some board tracks to use as examples.  All my stuff is packed away somewhere with our house on the market so recording anything around here would take ages.

Yeah, sounds like you got a short or dodgy solder joint on the C30/R46/R47 side.

[gordo]

That was it.  Solder joints all looked just fine but hit em again and back in business.  Why do pedals wait till showtime to exhibit flaws.  Then again, I'm pretty sure that in a church band it's not called "showtime".  I needed a big overdrive tone and the Cascadia certainly didn't disappoint.

On the plus side, taking the board out of the chassis gave me the unique opportunity of chasing washers around the basement that invariably one goes missing.  Most likely you get it back in heaven along with all those socks that the dryer ate.  And the LEDs never QUITE match up to how you had them originally.  Don't care, the pedal is back as it should be.

[gordo]

This one likely gets a permanent position on the board along with a never ending cast of characters depending on the tunes of the week.  Lately its been VFE's along with a host of MB and Aion stuff.

Praise band tunes have become very cliquey on Tele and Gretsch/Duesenberg guitars and a dazzling array of effects lately (also see anything coming out of Nashville) so it's nice to have the flexibility to cover a lot of territory in a single pedal.  By the time it hits the audience (errr...congregation) its probably a moot point, but in my in-ears it sounds spot on.

Dragging out soap box but the VFE stuff really isn't anything above what we're used to from anyone around here lately, the bar is so high.  The key is the flexibility and I see where Peter's view of the market homes in on.

Rejoining my self hi-jacked thread I think you should seriously consider pushing this out to the commercial market.  Its not that it's THAT original, its that it's so good at what it does better than most.

[jubal81]

This one likely gets a permanent position on the board along with a never ending cast of characters depending on the tunes of the week.  Lately its been VFE's along with a host of MB and Aion stuff.

Praise band tunes have become very cliquey on Tele and Gretsch/Duesenberg guitars and a dazzling array of effects lately (also see anything coming out of Nashville) so it's nice to have the flexibility to cover a lot of territory in a single pedal.  By the time it hits the audience (errr...congregation) its probably a moot point, but in my in-ears it sounds spot on.

Dragging out soap box but the VFE stuff really isn't anything above what we're used to from anyone around here lately, the bar is so high.  The key is the flexibility and I see where Peter's view of the market homes in on.

Rejoining my self hi-jacked thread I think you should seriously consider pushing this out to the commercial market.  Its not that it's THAT original, its that it's so good at what it does better than most.

Thanks, bud. I could see doing very small scale pedal sales, but the problem comes back around to sourcing the diodes. '


Interestingly, I actually called Nanolog, which is the company making those molecular junction diode clipping replacements, to see what's the latest. You can actually buy some in TO-5 cans now, but it's $75 for two - and this pedal would require 3. 


The guy I talked to said the OEM price would be about $25 each and they're working on a new plastic package to get the price down more. He said each of the TO-5 cans costs them $6.

[Frank_NH]

Just got my Cascadia PCB yesterday.     Will start my build when my Smallbear order arrives later this week (hopefully).  I'll try to set up a video demo and post it when I have the unit up and running.  My current pedalboard has a compressor and Klon clone (set up as a low gain preamp) upstream of my current overdrive, so we'll see how it behaves in that configuration.

[Marshall Arts]

Just got my Cascadia PCB yesterday.     Will start my build when my Smallbear order arrives later this week (hopefully).  I'll try to set up a video demo and post it when I have the unit up and running.  My current pedalboard has a compressor and Klon clone (set up as a low gain preamp) upstream of my current overdrive, so we'll see how it behaves in that configuration.

Just finished mine, not boxed yet, so no pics yet. I tried different diode combinations, and did not like a pure OA7 Setup. There was some fizz in the decay of chords. I have better results with 1N34 for D2-D5 and 1N949 for D6-D8. No fizz, open dynamics, great tone control. Awesome!

[jubal81]

Just got my Cascadia PCB yesterday.     Will start my build when my Smallbear order arrives later this week (hopefully).  I'll try to set up a video demo and post it when I have the unit up and running.  My current pedalboard has a compressor and Klon clone (set up as a low gain preamp) upstream of my current overdrive, so we'll see how it behaves in that configuration.

Just finished mine, not boxed yet, so no pics yet. I tried different diode combinations, and did not like a pure OA7 Setup. There was some fizz in the decay of chords. I have better results with 1N34 for D2-D5 and 1N949 for D6-D8. No fizz, open dynamics, great tone control. Awesome!

Sweet! Glad you dig it. Probably need to make the official recommendation to use sockets unless you're using 1N695.

I might have to check out the 1N949. The OA7s I have sound more aggressive, but didn't get any fizz. Went through and measured the rest of my stock and they tend to vary more than the 1N695, though.

[Marshall Arts]

Just got my Cascadia PCB yesterday.     Will start my build when my Smallbear order arrives later this week (hopefully).  I'll try to set up a video demo and post it when I have the unit up and running.  My current pedalboard has a compressor and Klon clone (set up as a low gain preamp) upstream of my current overdrive, so we'll see how it behaves in that configuration.

Just finished mine, not boxed yet, so no pics yet. I tried different diode combinations, and did not like a pure OA7 Setup. There was some fizz in the decay of chords. I have better results with 1N34 for D2-D5 and 1N949 for D6-D8. No fizz, open dynamics, great tone control. Awesome!

Sweet! Glad you dig it. Probably need to make the official recommendation to use sockets unless you're using 1N695.

I might have to check out the 1N949. The OA7s I have sound more aggressive, but didn't get any fizz. Went through and measured the rest of my stock and they tend to vary more than the 1N695, though.

I am glad that I used sockets. I will try to get some 1N695 as well....

[tcpoint]

Just finished my build, yesterday.  Went with 1n695s and have to say this is one great pedal.  It is going to knock off a pedal or two on my board.