my Tonebender MK II build, and verified stripboard layout!

[monkeyxx]

Hi fellas,

I've been doing some vero/stribpoard layouts lately and I finally built one of them.  From my first circuit trace, of a Throbak sTone Bender, which ended up being nearly identical to the Color Sound / Sola Sound mk II stonebender, not counting the mods, which at this point are mostly well known.  My clone actually sounds a lot better than the Throbak.  Hell I could build and sell these things if I had the mind to!  The low end is thicker and tighter...the throbak in comparison sounds kind of thin and mushy.  I used to have to run a Fat Boost after it to thicken it up, and because of this, never played the thing very often.  I think I will have to mainly attribute this to the quality of the electrolytics I used (BC Components) vs the Xicons in the Throbak.  I also used a multilayer ceramic capacitor rather than a ceramic disc, did not experiment with this.  Swapping the transistors between the pedals affected the gain level and noise floor, but the tone stayed pretty consistent between each pedal.  I need to find three better 2N404s for my build, the ones I have in there (from minifux1 on ebay, Peter Langer) are on the noisy side... especially when the input trim ("pre gain") is rolled back.  This was a very satisfying build, and I am very pleased with the result.  Might just be a tonebender fan after all.  I'm getting the hang of this pedal thing and it feels great!  Clear coating the metallic silver spray paint finish really made it look a whole lot better.  the spray clan clear coat is a lot easier and nicer looking for me than brush on polyurethane, another lesson I learned from this build.

I call it the Royal Albert Hallbender because the tone is SO reminiscent of Jimmy Page on the ZEP DVD.  I guess any good MK II will do you there...but this is a really good one.  Pre-Gain (I called it Input Trim) is great for taming really hot pickup guitars, or just getting a more overdrivey sound.  I've heard it can help impedance issues with wah pedals and such, as well.  I just like having the bias external in case a weird z vex kind of mood strikes me, or playing outside in the heat or something might require a nudge.  You can alter the character a bit too with this control.

BEHOLD

[tasos]

Your red wire from the battery snap goes to the input stereo jack? shouldn't it be the black??

[deadastronaut]

^POSITIVE GROUND!...

[tasos]

ok then!