faultline - catalinbread sft w/video

[eniacmike]

I'm really proud of this build. I tried to get the best parts for it. xicon metal film resistors, xicon electrolytics, topmay box caps. I ordered everything from small bear, except I got the enclosure 125b, and 3pdt swtich from pedal parts plus.

I got my board in the mail yesterday at around noon, and I left for tour yesterday at 3:30 and did the whole build in 3 and a half hours. I even drilled the enclosure in that time too. It was a risk to try to rush through but i just followed the instructions. I double checked orientations on the fet's and the electrolytics and just went for it. I love madbeans boards because they are organized so well.

I used a 125b enclosure so I have a little bit more clearance and it makes it easier to work around in.



I took these pictures from the van and I'm going to gig the pedal tonight in urbana, il.
I tested it yesterday very briefly and it sounds incredible. Cranked gain sound is huge, but it also dials back and gets that pick attack growl and cleans up with the volume knob. I am so impressed with this and the grapevine sft becuase they are so quiet. They have got to the quietest drives I have found so far, very low noise.

I am going to have to do the artwork when I get home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DaAU-tseS8
demo video here

[cleanclang]

Nice job. The rainbow of wiring is pretty!

[gtr2]

awesome job in 3 hours!

[eniacmike]

allright after gigging the pedal this week I decided to mod some of the pots. I switched the gain out for 1MC reverse log, and I switched the volume out for a 100B linear pot.

With the stock 1MA pot on the gain the dirt is all bunched up at the end of the pot and it was hard to dial in the right amount of crunch. Now with the 1MC pot the crunch comes in at 12 noon and you can dial in the perfect amount.

I also used the 100B linear pot for the volume because I found that if I had the pot at 12noon the pedal was cuttting my signal. I like to keep 12 noon as even as I can to my clean signal.

I know there is no physical reason behind this but I swear the pedal feels more juiced with the pot swap.

[G.G.]

I was reading about the 100B pot mod on FSB so I did that to mine too, but I hadn't heard about the reverse log mod. I did notice that I had to set my volume & gain a lot different than they did in the Youtube prototype vid in order to get the same sound, there must be a difference in the proto and final version they came out with.

[eniacmike]

yeah mine was alot different than the youtube video settings as well. With the new pots it is alot closer to the prototype vids on youtube. I will see if I can find somebody who owns this pedal locally so I can do an a/b comparison.

[eniacmike]

I finished my enclosure. This was my first time trying full color water transfer on an enclosure other than white. My process was

1 coat cheap white interior flat spray paint mostly on the top
bake for 30 min @ 150ºF
Tape off top of enclosure with blue painters masking tape carefully cutting around the edge to leave straight lines
1 coat cheap black interior flat spray paint on sides and bottom plate
bake for 30 min @ 150ºF
repeat 2nd coat of black and bake again

lazertran waterslide transfer sheet printed on a full color lazer printer. I tried to print these up at a local copy shop on their bad-ass canon firey color and the paper melted and almost broke their printer. So I printed these up on my mom's home color lazer printer and they come out fine.

waterslide transfer

3 coats of minwax spray polyurethane high gloss top coat.

[eniacmike]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DaAU-tseS8
video