DIY Guitar Pedals

[okgb]

I believe Joe gore had a write up where he  " tested " different capacitors to , as I recall
un-dramtic results .  As a writer at guitar player I liked him , he pulled less punches than others
there who pandered to the advertisers .

[ And super funny when he did a " 10 riffs that must die " article and cited a triumph song ,
which got rikk emitt  upset , cause he must of thought he was talented .

 

[CJ]

tropical fish caps are not for the sound, there for the looks, 

 

[dandeurloo]

Just finished a buildyourowntone Klon clone.  It has a high whine.  Anyone have any ideas on what could cause that?  The tone seems great if I could get rid of this whine. 

As a drummer/producer I love Joe's playing.  Very cool vibe.  He makes me wish I could played guitar. 

Side note to my obsession:  I have always been into guitar tone.  I have built over 1200 guitars in my life.  I and one other guy named Kevin Smith built all the Vox reissue guitars in the early 2000's and we built a bunch of custom guitars called Tonesmith.  Kevin still does Tonesmith guitars.  We've built guitars for some of the best players and tone guys like Tom Petty and Mike Campbell!  Thus my love for guitar tone.  Honestly I probably love it more than drum tone.

 

[volker]

Just finished a buildyourowntone Klon clone.  It has a high whine.  Anyone have any ideas on what could cause that?  The tone seems great if I could get rid of this whine.

Do you use a voltage doubler IC? If so, check the datasheet if the one you use has an option to increase the switching frequency.

 

[CJ]

cool Dan!

hey, do you have the prints or a link for the Vox teardrop guitar Brian Jones model?

i need that little red rooster slide sound,

 

[dandeurloo]

Volker I'm using a TC1044SCPA.  The datasheet says its possible.  Looks like I am about to learn something! 

http://pdf1.alldatasheet.net/datasheet-pdf/view/74996/MICROCHIP/TC1044SCPA.html

I read through it and I am not sure if it will help or not.  I think mainly because I don't know what it is at now or what frequency I would want it to be at. 

Maybe you can tell me if I am correct.  It is saying that it currently is oscillating at 10k.  If I increase voltage to pin 1 I can move it up and out of the audio band as far out as 45k.  Does this seem correct to you.

Thanks

 

[dandeurloo]

cool Dan!

hey, do you have the prints or a link for the Vox teardrop guitar Brian Jones model?

i need that little red rooster slide sound,

Are you looking for one?  I am pretty sure I could get my hands on a built one for ya.  If so PM me. 

Otherwise all the drawings are at Tonesmith in the computer.

 

[volker]

Volker I'm using a TC1044SCPA.  The datasheet says its possible.  Looks like I am about to learn something! 

http://pdf1.alldatasheet.net/datasheet-pdf/view/74996/MICROCHIP/TC1044SCPA.html

I read through it and I am not sure if it will help or not.  I think mainly because I don't know what it is at now or what frequency I would want it to be at. 

Maybe you can tell me if I am correct.  It is saying that it currently is oscillating at 10k.  If I increase voltage to pin 1 I can move it up and out of the audio band as far out as 45k.  Does this seem correct to you.

Thanks

Yes, that's along the lines of what I remembered. I never built a Klon but I was pretty positive there was a voltage doubler involved. The audio circuit is not so high gain that you would get it to oscillate so easily with a proven layout.

Anyway, all you need to do is tie pin 1 to pin 8. But make sure before you do that it is not connected to ground or some other potential. In that case just cut the trace.

 

[dandeurloo]

Volker, it seems they are already tied together. 

I tried it with a different guitar and amp and the HIGH FREQ noise went away and sounded great?  I will try again today with the original guitar and amp and see if it is back again.  High impedance stuff is so strange sometimes.

 

[Andy Peters]

Who has made some great DIY guitar pedals.  I would love to maybe build a few and could use some direction on which ones are great sounding.

I have three Tube Screamers, a couple of Rats, an CS-9, that Boss flanger everyone in the 80s had, and a Boss DS-1. Amps include a '62 Deluxe, a '62 Bandmaster, a '64 Bandmaster and a '66 Bassman.

I could improve my tone by being a better guitar player. Or at least changing the strings on my main axe (1981 Ibanez Artist, yo) more than once in five years.

-a

 

[CJ]

wow nice amps!

does the Bandmaster have Vibrato? how does it sound? does it move the note up and down like a real vibrato or is it like the typical blackface twin?

did you do anything to the Rat pedals like change the diode to the Jeff Beck diode?

thanks

 

[Andy Peters]

wow nice amps!

They are my son's college fund, unless he decides to start playing the guitar.

does the Bandmaster have Vibrato? how does it sound? does it move the note up and down like a real vibrato or is it like the typical blackface twin?

Yup, all Bandmasters have Vibrato, which of course is really tremolo. (All Fender amps with "Vibrato" really have tremolo.) The '62 brownface Bandmaster "Vibrato" circuit is unlike anything else they did; it seems like it has a phase-shift thing going on, not like a Twin at all. It's my favorite amp, both for sound and performance reasons, and also because it was given to me by a good friend and bandmate who's since gone into the Clearing at the End of the Path.

Don't hate me, but I bought the '64 Bandmaster and '66 Bassman for $500 total at Atomic Guitars in Maryland back in the mid-90s. We'd finished soundcheck and had time to kill, so the band's guitarist and I (I was mixing FOH) took a drive. As we were leaving I saw a blackface Deluxe Reverb sitting there with a shockingly-low price tag (and a sign that said "reverb broken" but we had to get back to the club or else I'd've bought that, too.

did you do anything to the Rat pedals like change the diode to the Jeff Beck diode?

Nahh, they're stock. I'm not much for "searching for tone." I plug the thing in and rock.

=a

 

[kato]

WAH!

Kato, is that the automatic wah from Andertons old circuit?

It's a manual wah, not an auto-wah - for the "stuck wah" effect used by Zappa & son. Two filter designs discussed earlier in thread (Tea Philter & Karate Chop) - I figger'd I'd try one with an actual inductor.  It's just Clyde with a hand-knob, rather than a foot-pedal.  If it sounds better than the Karate Chop, I'll post more.  Otherwise I'll never speak of it again.



SUBMINI TUBE OVERDRIVE!

has anybody done a vacuum tube overdrive box?

you could use a 5636 or similar mini tube,

This guy, Rick Holt made several designs with submini's.
Don't know what this sounds like, but you could probably find out in 20 minutes.



He's got more complicated projects like the "Promiscuous Girlfriend" with two 5840 tubes if you're into it.

Image above links to all of Rick Fcuk's tube projects including Murder One guitar amp, Firefly, Promiscuous GF, Thermionic Craquement, Vibratone Submini Guitar Amp, etc. DIYstompboxes login may be required to view.


There's also the stupidly-simple ValveCaster. 9v, 1 tube, 3 pots.
Everything can be wired onto the tube socket. No PCB or perf needed.

Dano at Beavis Audio has modified it further into the "Subcaster," which uses a 6111 dual triode at 12v and a LM317 to drop to 6v for the heater.




From the department of f**k YEAH!

Check out the sound sample for the Quite Shocking Fuzz.  It's an octave down effect (the Shocktave) into the Univox Superfuzz.  Smart combination.

 

[Kingston]

Here's an interesting take on the 5840 submini I bumped into several years back. Le Craquement Thermionique, a full blown preamp with tonestack. Small and elegant.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=83517.0

 

[dandeurloo]

So I have built the tea philter, the Karate Shop and a Klon clone and a sweet germanium over drive.  Honestly I like all of them very much.  I have of course played with different Chips and found some could benefit and other not so much.  The Klon really tightens up with different chips.  Good stuff all around!

I love this thread.

 

[CJ]

thanks for the tube stuff!

this thread does kick batman's azz, 

 

[CJ]

i hope this DOD was not an important piece in the world of stomp boxes because it just got torn up, gonna replace all those silly chips with that tube,

should take about....maybe.....20 minutes,  ;D

 

[CJ]

what, you guys use dykes to trim off the parts?  c'mon, don't mess with my mind,

yes i know about the dangers of G-10, there was a vac cleaner nozzle right next to the board,

pic does not show the sparks, now i save chopping wood and drilling holes,

 

[Kingston]

Seems to me the 5840 submini needs a more complex tone network than the one on "Le Craquement Thermionique" for example. I listened to all the demos in the thread and they weren't impressive. Strangely monotonic and warbly bee-buzz distortion, like a bad fuzz or broken synth implementation.

A nicely tuned wide mid scooping loudness curve with plenty of high freq sprinkle might work.

 

[dandeurloo]

I liked how he mounted the tubes in IC sockets!  That was a nice trick.