Until this moment, i did'nt knew.

[GrindCustoms]

For no apparent reasons, it turns out that i'm whoarding on EHX pedals, especially the BigBoxes and Vintage ones...

Truth be told, i've never been a huge fan of that company, it's probably the DIY that have made me love them or want to get into them more. Same goes for the BMP circuit, for many people it's the greatest dirt ever and i can understand that because i really dig that one especially since the whole Ultra workout... where i've come to know the circuit pretty well.
But main reason why i never been that much into dirt pedals is probably because of my background, coming from the extreme metal scene and have been playing in those type of bands for many years before, i never used stompboxes to create my distorted but rather high gain tube heads. Since i've started to build pedals my whole optic of that have changed a lot and i now crave for dirt pedals... probably because i'm not worried anymore of needing to have a sound than can effectively track 240bpm alternate picking...lulz.

So this week i've received 3 EHXs so i thought i'd took a group shot of what i have so far, mainly because i'll take a little break of purchasing EHX pedals for a little time, got plenty of them to work on DIY projects now

[gordo]

Good score!  It's a little ironic but back in the EHX peak (mid 70's) the common perception was they were cool cuz they were cheap but were not really gig ready unless you had two of them.  I worked in a music store after high-school and can remember having cases of Small Stones and the failure rate was about 50% in the first month.  We pretty much got used to replacing about 1/3 of the pedals we sold and banked on the other percentage trying to fight it out with EH.  The construction was really a joke and by DIY standards would be "sub-noob".

[mremic01]

Good score!  It's a little ironic but back in the EHX peak (mid 70's) the common perception was they were cool cuz they were cheap but were not really gig ready unless you had two of them.  I worked in a music store after high-school and can remember having cases of Small Stones and the failure rate was about 50% in the first month.  We pretty much got used to replacing about 1/3 of the pedals we sold and banked on the other percentage trying to fight it out with EH.  The construction was really a joke and by DIY standards would be "sub-noob".

Yeah, this looks pretty bad: http://s1224.photobucket.com/user/jellyman5264/media/badstone-2.jpg.html

How did they make those PCBs? Old MXr boards look similar. The curvy lines look very unprofessional, but cool. But the line width seems too consistent to be done with a sharpie.

[gordo]

That looks about right.  Funny how things have changed.  Like what prompted them to do the lazy curves and weird placement back then?

[mremic01]

Is it lazy or just a stylistic choice? MXR boards did the same thing, I think it looks cool. But the nasty globs of flux and messy wiring just look like all around lack of competence.

[davent]

That looks about right.  Funny how things have changed.  Like what prompted them to do the lazy curves and weird placement back then?

Speculation... etch resist may have been narrow tape and dry transfer pads, lazy curves would be determined  by the bending limits of the tape. I have narrow tapes that are 15mil, 45mil & 1/16" wide, can only lay down lazy curves.

[Cortexturizer]

Love those harmonix boxes!
I have two from 77, bass balls and the small stone and would die for the memory man blue box, juat that one and I can be at peace

[culturejam]

Is it lazy or just a stylistic choice?

From what I've read, it's a stylistic choice. Those traces are hand-drawn, so the artists used a bit of flair. Also, right angles are generally "bad" in PCBs, so having curves removes the chance of it.

I think they look cool. Eagle actually lets you do curved traces, but I find it kinda hard to control.

[rullywowr]

Search for tektronix video of PCB manufacture.  I posted this in open discussion a few days ago. They used to enlarge the PCB 4 times and use a grid over light box to lay down tape.

[davent]

I took an imported an ExpressPCB layout into Inkscape and used that to give the layout some extreme curves. The actual pcb etch is much more conservative but the top is true to the functioning circuit.

[alanp]

From what I've read, it's a stylistic choice. Those traces are hand-drawn, so the artists used a bit of flair. Also, right angles are generally "bad" in PCBs, so having curves removes the chance of it.

It bugs the OCD in me when I spot an unnecessary 90 degree turn in a track on one of my boards. "Crap... why didn't I miter that one?"

[selfdestroyer]

We need to combine forces Rej. Its addicting for sure.

Here is my group shot.



Cody

[culturejam]

^^ What is that Muff on the bottom right? Whoa.

[selfdestroyer]

^^ What is that Muff on the bottom right? Whoa.

Haha I always get asked that. It was a newer big muff I night from a dude that put a concert white stripes sticker on it. He cut the sticker to make it match. I just love how it looks factory. I call it the White Stripes Edition BMP. Lol

Cody

[lincolnic]

Good score!  It's a little ironic but back in the EHX peak (mid 70's) the common perception was they were cool cuz they were cheap but were not really gig ready unless you had two of them.  I worked in a music store after high-school and can remember having cases of Small Stones and the failure rate was about 50% in the first month.  We pretty much got used to replacing about 1/3 of the pedals we sold and banked on the other percentage trying to fight it out with EH.  The construction was really a joke and by DIY standards would be "sub-noob".

A week ago I was modding a 2001-ish NYC Big Muff to take a regular sized DC jack, and I was marveling at how poorly constructed it was on the inside. The wiring was really sloppy, and the soldering wasn't great either. I'm not the best at clean wiring, but even my builds are neater than that!

Hopefully they've cleaned up their act a bit in the past 13 years.