Davy Jones RIP

Melx: New Email Address

As you might (or might not) have noticed I've set up an email account specifically for this blog. (it's at the top of the page under the title!) I often get comments asking questions which is great for quick simple question and answers but often I feel that I could help more if a few emails were exchanged. I'll check the email account everyday and try to reply as soon as I can, so please feel free to use it if you need any help or advice or just want to say hi or whatever.

Please don't feel that your question is stupid, even if it's something that appears to be plainly obvious to everyone else, I often felt unsure about certain things when I first started making effects and often a quick 'Yes that's right' was all I needed to get going with something... confidence is a big part of building these things and it takes a little while to get that.... but I promise you can do this, anyone can.

So anyway, feel free to send an email if you are stuck, need help or advice or whatever.

Melx

DIY silicon fuzzface starter project: 6

Here's a couple of pics of the build so far with the last two standy up resistors in place. We'll be putting the electrolytic caps in next time. The macro on my new camera doesn't seem as good as the one on my old camera, so they look a little off focus but you should be able to see what's what.... maybe some brighter sunlight would help....

DIY silicon fuzzface starter project: 5

Just a quick update tonight to tell you were to put the last 2 resistors.

the 330 ohm (330R) resistor goes here, as you can see it goes between two holes that are next to each other so it won't sit down flat so bend one leg over so the resistor stands up and one leg bends down to it's side. (if you have no idea what I'm talking about photos will be up tomorrow)

The 8K2 goes here, again it's a standy up on end job.

There's not much else I can do right now, so a word about that 8.2k resistor. This is where some of the 'magic' happens in 'boutique fuzz faces' you can leave this resistor out and add a pot (10k would work well) in it's place (solder wires to legs 1 and 2 on the pot) this will allow you to have a variable 'bias' control, or if you want to 'fine tune' your transistors in the fuzzface after building it, you could put a 2 row socket here, so you can change the 8.2k for other resistors, maybe try a 9.2k and a 7.5k and see what effect this has? if you find this is too much of a jump you could solder say a 7.5k and a 1k together to give you a 8.5k for example, or seek out some closer values. many options there, but I've built a few of these and I've always got a good fuzz sound without bothering with any of this, I find it easier just to swap transistors around until I hear something I like... if you have a fair few different ones in your stash, I'd probably just try this first.

DIY silicon fuzzface starter project: 4

OK so this is what you should have now, if it doesn't look like this then you've messed up!

front...

....and back.

I'm going to solder my sockets in next, if you aren't going to use sockets then just ignore this bit for now as it's probably best not to solder your transistors in at this point.

The sockets go in here..

so, now you should have this....

Then we can add the 10nF capacitor here, life will be easier if you bought a small ceramic capacitor like I suggested in part 1! I'm using a little red multi layer ceramic because I have literally hundreds of these.

.....and finally (for this part anyway) this is what you should end up with.

I'll get the rest done asap, it might have to wait until tomorrow though peeps.

DIY silicon fuzzface starter project: 3

Ok, if you've been waiting patiently for this, firstly sorry. I have a bit of time to get this done now so the following parts will be coming thick and fast! ...... anyway, you are getting this for free and I'm not getting paid to do it so stop your moaning!! ;)

So, you should all have your parts and board ready to go. One thing I did forget to mention was some 'sil sockets' (single in line) that I'm going to use to socket the transistors, you don't have to do this but as a wide range of NPN transistors will work in this (and give it different sounds) it's probably worth doing and you will be able to hear for yourself the difference (or not) between the 'hallowed' BC108/9 and a cheapo 2n3904.

ok, so on with the build, first thing to solder in is a jumper wire, it goes here, it's the third column from the right (leaving you two empty to the right of it) and it goes from the bottom up 4 holes, leaving 4 holes empty above it. Before you solder it in make sure you have the board around the right way.

Next we are going to solder in the 33K resistor, it goes here... after my confusing description of where the jumper wire went, I think I'll leave the picture to speak for itself!!

Now we'll add the 100k resistor, that goes here!

You might have noticed this already but what we are doing is soldering in the flattest components in first, I find it just makes things easier this way as it means you can rest the board down on the table to hold the component in place and a taller component isn't sticking up making your component fall out... if you see what I mean? :) It's for this reason we aren't soldering in the other two resistors just yet as they are 'sticky uppy.'

Later today I'll solder my components in and give you a photo of what you should have so far, then we'll get the rest of the parts populated on the vero..... see you very soon.

Melx

Egoverdrive

I finished building this a little while back, it's one of those projects that's been ongoing for a while, so I was pleased to get it finished, I've wanted a nice lowish gain overdrive (something like a Timmy or a Tube Screamer) to go along with my Distortion plus I built at the end of last year, but wanted something with the simplicity of 2 knobs, I've never really been into messing around with controls to try and get a 'good' sound. I guess one of the good things about building pedals for yourself is you don't need to make anyone else happy, so as long as the tone of the pedal works for you and your amp/guitar, you don't really need a load of tonal options built into the pedal. This overdrive is based on the timmy circuit but is a much stripped down version of that pedal, firstly I ditched the extra clipping diodes options, it sounds best without them to my ears so it's pretty much a waste of time having them to me and is simple enough to exclude them. When it came to the tone controls, I wired the test circuit with them, then set them where I thought they sounded best, then I just measured the resistance and changed them for fixed resistors of the appropriate values. I tried various op-amps but in the end went for the classic tube screamer IC, the JRC4588D. I'm pretty happy with it but to me it doesn't sound quite as good as the GGG Bluesbreaker I made a while back, so eventually this might be replaced with one of those.

To keep with the Bob Mould theme I named this 'Egoverdrive' which is a bit like the Mould track 'Egoverride' it sounds especially good with the Dist+ before it and if you keep both pedals fairly low on the distortion side you can get a really nice rocking crunch sound.

LPB-2 update.

Firstly, Happy New year!

Secondly, sorry the pictures aren't very good/clear in this post, I should have taken them in the daylight, but I forgot and it's impossible for me to get good close ups with a flash indoors ... but I will try to describe things the best I can.

So, anyway after making my LPB-2 'true bypass' I decided later that I would like to add an LED too, I've been asked how I wired this, so this post will explain that clearly, hopefully.

The negative wire from the LED is going to the top left of the 3pdt as usual (see switch diagram below) the positive wire from the LED is going to the middle left pole on the slide switch (with a resistor in between to stop the led blowing) the led will turn on and off when you slide the switch. There is also 2 resistors on the same lug of the switch.

The Negative battery wire goes to the top left lug of the slide switch and the positive goes to the ground lug on the output jack... don't ask me why, that's how it was! To be honest it's pretty confusing looking at the mess of wires and parts inside this thing.

The rest of it is wired as it was before but with a 3pdt..

If you have any questions about specific wires and where they are going it might be easiest to leave a comment below and I can look at one thing at a time and answer quickly.

you can find the original post about the LPB-2 and other related posts about bypass here.

Closing Down until the New year

Have a nice break, a cool Yule and a great new year... see you next year!

It's been fun again..... I'll post pics of my amazing present from Kev at 'Effect Extra' when I return. :)

melx

Finishing Touches

Tantalum Jaguar Booster comes with custom D.I.Y box and label, instructions, spare battery and a choice of two knobs.

Bobmould+ Distortion comes with custom D.I.Y box and label, instructions, spare battery and rubber knob covers.

lol, most fun I've had in ages! :)