Mictester silicon tonebender - Beejive PCB!

[JakeFuzz]

Here is my Si Tonebender built on Jimmy's excellent PCB. I believe he plans to do a run of these in the near future...

This is an improved MKII design from Mictester over at FSB. It is really an optimized MKII with a simple tone control and output buffer. There is also an input capacitor switch to put in a big (10uf) cap for added awesomeness. My build uses BC108 and BC109 transistors. This is a Rustoleum hammertone finish with mini chickenheads. I used a Tayda 1590b which has really steep sides (almost zero draft angle) and Tayda pcb mount jacks which stick out really far.

This thing sounds awesome. Great sustain on high gain settings. Low gain is more of a unique benderish overdrive. Very happy with the volume knob roll off of this circuit, not completely clean but nice useable drive that doesn't dull out. You can pull great regular MKII tones out of it too. Overall a very versatile effect, I could see it covering the area of several other circuits.





First takes  . The guitar goes slightly out of tune toward the end (new strings), sorry! 

[MattOcaster]

Great stuff!
Been on my to do list for a while.

[nzCdog]

Dang!  Great build and demo Paul!

[raulduke]

Nice build dude.

Nice PCB layout as well!

[gtr2]

Nice PCB layout as well!

lol, that's the first thing I checked out too.


Cool build!

Josh

[cajone5]

This thing sounds incredible -- definitely want to build one for myself!

Who/what should I be looking out for if a run of PCBs is ever done? Definitely don't want to miss this.

[jimmybjj]

Wow Paul, sounds really great, nice playing! Nice looking build to.

[jimmybjj]

This thing sounds incredible -- definitely want to build one for myself!

Who/what should I be looking out for if a run of PCBs is ever done? Definitely don't want to miss this.

Hi, I am will be doing a run of these. I am just going to do one more proto before releasing it. This what the pcb will look like, sorry for the crappy photo.

Jimmy
BeeJive Pedals

[njkke]

Great pedal, great playing and great floydian medley!

[JakeFuzz]

Thanks guys! This circuit really reminds me of a mashup between a MKII and a Lunar Module the more I play around with it. It has the best of both circuits. It has the grittiness and character of the MKII but the sustain and even violin like smoothness of the LM at high gain. 

[snz728]

I built one on vero and like it but if it wasnt called a tonebender I dont know if I would know, it has a lot of sounds in it. I didnt put in the cap switch though.  If you go to FSB the thread has more mods to make it more aggressive if that is what you like.

[DutchMF]

Cool stuff JakeFuzz, both the build and the demo! Is that one of the Banzai bezels on there? And man I like those mini chickenheads, where did you source those?

Paul

[JakeFuzz]

Cool stuff JakeFuzz, both the build and the demo! Is that one of the Banzai bezels on there? And man I like those mini chickenheads, where did you source those?

Paul

Hey Paul. Yep it is a Banzai bezel! Thanks to you I have a small stockpile of these. Without question my favorite bezels. They look like flying saucers  . The mini chicken heads are from small bear, these are my favorite knobs. Classic look in a smaller package. With normal sized chicken heads I can only get 1 row of knobs before I am off the sides of the enclosure.

I built one on vero and like it but if it wasnt called a tonebender I dont know if I would know, it has a lot of sounds in it. I didnt put in the cap switch though.  If you go to FSB the thread has more mods to make it more aggressive if that is what you like.

Yes! I tried some of those gain mods on this circuit actually. The emitter bypass makes it totally ridiculous. Could be cool but it just had so much gain to be really useable. The cap switch is nice. It adds a bit of oomf to the sound that you miss in a regular MKII; it does mud it up a bit so it is nice to have the other setting as well.

[mjcyates]

Pedal sounds great! I would definitely like to build one.

[fendman]

Like you say this is a versatile pedal..sounds great I like it. I would definately like one of these boards or the chance to etch one.

The build looks good....the playing......................very nice, I enjoyed it.