Thursday, April 10, 2008
Transitioning to a New Website!
Because of the tremendous response to my Blog, and the limitations inherent in a blog type site, I will be transitioning all of this material, and all new updates to my new website for effects pedals - check it out at:
www.ampedals.com
Monday, March 31, 2008
Update Log
Mar 29 - Drivenstein Build Report: Pictures and Description
Mar 08 - Added Pulsor Sound Sample!
Feb 23 - Added Sound Samples of the TriceraRocks
Feb 22 - Added the TriceraRocks Pedal Pictures and description
Feb 18 - Added the TS Ultimate Sound Sample
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Drivenstein Distortion
Check out the rest of the pictures here.
It's got 6 Knobs and a 3-way selectable switch!
Top Row (EQ): High (L), Mid (C), Low (R)
Bottom Row: Volume (L), Saturation (C), Drive (R)
3-way Toggle Switch: LED Clipping (C), Asymm Clipping (Up), Combo Clipping (Down)
This pedal took me a while to get around to building, mostly because I was worried I wouldn't like it. Well let's put that worry to rest right now. It rocks.
The build went really smoothly, I wired up all of the pots and switch outside the enclosure, and then soldered in the in/out wires from the board to the on/off switch - that made it really easy to get everything connected. It worked the first time I fired it up, all except for the down position of the toggle switch. I quickly realized that the way I had originally wired it, I was grounding out the signal, so I made a quick fix and it worked marvelously!
The toggle switch toggles between three clipping settings. The first is the LED post gain stage setting. It's the loudest because LED's clip at a higher voltage than the other diodes I used, and they also clip "harder" so the sound is edgier. The Assymetrical Silicon Diodes post gain stage is the next, and it sounds awesome, but clips a LOT more, and is softer because it clips at a lower voltage. The final setting is BOTH the LED's clipping and asymmetrical clipping diodes in the gain stage of the pedal. This makes for a crazy combination, and sounds really hard.
This pedal in general sounds really hard, but with the 3-band EQ it's easy to get the sound you're looking for.
Sound Samples:
1 - Drivenstein Volume, Sustain and Drive knob Demo
2 - Drivenstein 3-band EQ Demo
3 - Drivenstein Clipping Switch Demo
Friday, February 22, 2008
TriceraRocks
The controls are:
Texture (red) - this is the "distortion" control, it makes the sound go from a fairly heavy distortion to just plain out of control.
Blend (green) - this blends the distorted sound with the clean signal, which works really well for adding just a touch of distortion.
Switch (L) - controls a feedback loop of the distorted sound
Switch (C, R) - Work together to make a symmetrical clipping stage with the other two diodes that are always in the circuit.
This was the most challenging pedal I've made to date. The biggest reason for this is that I wasn't using the exact transistors needed, and apparently the ones that were suggested as a replacement don't really work. I had the circuit built right, but the transistors just weren't right. That was problematic.
After extensive troubleshooting, I got the clean stage working (with the blend rolled all the way to the clean signal, I was getting something), but the distorted signal was not coming through at all. After trying the recommended (MPSA-14) transistors in every combination I could think of, I tried some other transistors (5088's) and immediately the circuit worked! It was a huge relief. I think it sounds a little different than it's supposed to (perhaps not so much of an octave fuzz sound) but still a really far out, distorted stompbox.
Here are some Sound Samples of this pedal:
1 - TriceraRocks Blend Knob Demo
2 - TriceraRocks Texture Knob Demo
3 - TriceraRocks Diodes Switches Demo
Thanks for listening - let me know what you think :-D
Thursday, February 21, 2008
"Wailer" Crybaby Mods
1. Six Selectable Frequency Ranges: Silver Knob(includes the Jimi Hendrix Wah range, stock, and 4 others)
2. Volume Boost: Green Knob (needed because of conversion to true bypass)
3. Variable "Q": White Knob (changes the shape of the filter, from wide to narrow)
4. Variable Mid Boost: Red Knob (Adds some mids and smooths the transition from heel to toe positions)
5. True Bypass with LED Indicator
6. Removing the stock input buffer and Adding an Output Buffer (so the wah is useable with any low impedance distortion pedals - i.e. germanium fuzz's)
Check out all of the pictures here.
This was a great project, mainly because I didn't have to make the PCB and wire up all the components- they were all there already! The hardest part was drilling through the Solid Steel enclosure - I've never done steel drilling before.
During this whole process I forgot that I was removing the output coupling capacitor from the signal chain by adding the output buffer, so I was getting a HUGE pop when switching the wah on and off. Then I tried putting a coupling capacitor on the input (useless...), and then I realized I needed it on the Output. As soon as I put one on, there was NO pop whatsoever, it's really quiet.
Here are some Sound Samples that highlight all of the new features!
1 - Introduction and Stock Range vs. Jimi Wah Range comparison
2 - Low to High run through of the Six Range settings
3 - Filter Shape control: "Q" value mod
4 - Volume knob demo
5 - Mid Boost knob demo
Thanks for listening - let me know what you think :-D
Monday, February 18, 2008
TS Ultimate
Knobs: Volume (white) - Tone (brown) - Gain (blue) - Boost (red)
Switches: TS808/9 (L) - Subtle/Xtra (C) - Symmetric/Asymmetric (R)
Footswitches: On/Off (L) - Boost (R)
Friday, February 15, 2008
Tube AMP Fuzz
This circuit is really easy to build - I etched my own PCB. Once the board was etched and clean, I wired it up in less than an hour. I had a cold solder joint on the output coupling capacitor, so it took a little debugging to get it working, but once I did I was very satisfied with it! I may even suggest using this as a clean"ish" boost pedal - with the fuzz knob all the way down it adds just a touch of crunch when really whaling.
Let me just reiterate how loud this pedal gets: It gets REALLY loud. Unity gain is less than 1/4 of the way up, and if you turn it up to 1/2 by mistake... it'll rattle the windows.
Sound Samples coming Soon!
Schematics and PCB layout are taken from
http://www.tonepad.com/
Lightspeed Compressor
The knobs are (white) volume and (blue) bias, which is setting the compression threshold. Because it's using an LED/LDR as the compression control, this has what is called "optical memory," which a lot of people think makes compression sound a lot more natural than transistor based compression. The idea is that when the LED is on, and then turns off, it doesn't turn off instantaneously, it's like a light bulb whose glow slowly deteriorates after you turn it off (over a few seconds) until it is finally all the way off. While happening much faster than a light bulb, (much less than a second usually) it's still a lot slower than electricity through a transistor, so it's really smooth going from on to off.
The hardest part of this build was getting everything in the 1590B enclosure. These things are small. I'm going with 125B's from now on. It just makes life easier :-D
**UPDATE** Jon, one of the guys in my band, used this as a lead boost last weekend and said he absolutely loved it! He said it sustained brilliantly and sounds really great. He was really impressed at how much it evened out his solo's and allowed him to hold notes forever (he actually held a note for a whole verse just to see if he could during practice!).
Sound Samples coming Soon!
Once again, the schematic and PCB layout are used with permission from http://www.tonepad.com/
Tremulus Prime
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Pulsor Tremolo
Here is a New Sound Sample, recorded using Chris' Custom Pulsor, running directly to protoolsLE and using AmplitubeLE as a cab simulator:
Thanks for listening!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
BluesBaby
The board etching and component soldering went well - I used solid core wire for the pots so it was tricky getting the three to go where I needed them. Once I thought I was done, I tested the pedal and was getting no output. I realized I hadn't insulated the pots from the enclosure so the volume pot was grounding out all the time. I put a couple pieces of paper in between them as insulators, and it works great now!
Sound samples coming soon!
All schematics and PCB layout used courtesy of http://www.tonepad.com/