Advice on what to build next

[jfrabat]

OK, so it has been a while since I did pedals (I move from Costa Rica to Panama about a year and half ago), and just recently finished the last PCB I had laying around pending to be built (a 7 Dwarfs Auto Wah).  So far, these are the pedals I have made:

• Engineers Thumb compressor
• Slow Loris (rat variant)
• Scarlet Alpaca fuzz
• Ben Lyman's Vulcan Rat Creation (kind of another rat)
• My own designed Screechy Cat overdrive
• LPB-1 booster
• 7 Dwarfs auto wah
• Little Angel chorus
• Deep Blue delay (both with and without tap tempo)
• EA tremolo

I also have a tc electronic ditto looper...

I have a bunch of parts I can use for the next pedal, including:

• Transistors, JFETs, and similars (2N2222A, 2N3904, 2N3906, 2N4123, 2N4124, 2N4125, 2N4401, 2N4402, 2N5087, 2N5088, 2N5089, 2N7000, NTE457, BC327, BC550, 2N5457,
• ICs (CD4013BCN, LM386M, a whole bunch of PT2399, C45580, MC1458P, NE556N, 741, LM833, JRC4558D, NE5532, NJM13600D, RC4558P, RC4559P, TL071, TL072, TL074)
• Taptation kits (2 or 3 of them)
• Diodes, rectifiers and shotkeys (including 1N4148, 1N4733, 1N5817, 1N4004, 1N270, 1N914, BAT42, BAT46, BAT41, LED's of most colors)
• A couple of PT-1848 and 1725 transformers (I have a breadboard of an OCTAVIA being built)
• Caps, (including box, ceramic, Mylar, electrolytic)
• Resitors
• Pots and Trimpots
• Stompswitches
• Jacks
• Switches
• Enclosures of different sizes

So, considering the pedals I have and the materials I have to work with, what pedal you recommend I give a shot?  I want something that will be different sounding from what I already have...  just not sure exactly what!

[EBK]

You haven't built a big muff or a tube screamer yet?

[Marvin777]

Hey Felipe!

Maybe adding a Tap Tempo to your actual Tremolo?

I don't know if the taptation kit is suitable for this but it would be cool.

Cheers!

[jfrabat]

Hey Felipe!

Maybe adding a Tap Tempo to your actual Tremolo?

I don't know if the taptation kit is suitable for this but it would be cool.

Cheers!

To be honest, I took the tremolo out of the pedalboard because I did not use it nearly often enough, and the amp already has a tremolo built in.  But the reason I ordered 3 tap tempos is to add them to the delay in the pedal board (the multi function pedal already has it installed) and to the tremolo (lord knows that enclosure should have room to fit it!)

You haven't built a big muff or a tube screamer yet?

Very good points... I think a Big Muff Pi would be an interesting addition!

[willienillie]

I would recommend a script Phase 90, while through-hole JFETs can still be found in large enough quantities to match a quad.  And it's a wonderful sounding circuit, more useful IMO than many other more intense phasers.

I would NOT recommend building a wah, it's too expensive, and you can still find nice Thomas Organ-era wahs for much less than the cost of building one.  They might need a little TLC, like a pot and DPDT switch for true bypass.

[jfrabat]

You haven't built a big muff or a tube screamer yet?

Which version of the Muff would you recommend?  I have found a gazillion of them!  In just one page there are about 20 versions!

[EBK]

You haven't built a big muff or a tube screamer yet?

Which version of the Muff would you recommend?  I have found a gazillion of them!  In just one page there are about 20 versions!

I'd vote Green Russian or Violet Ram's Head.

[amptramp]

You Haven't told us what kind of music you are into and there is a whole galaxy of fuzz / overdrive / distortion pedals that would be used for different purposes.

You might want to do an equalizer because nothing you have seems to have anything more than basic tone controls.

You could make an IC / transistor version of the Magic Monitor, an RCA circuit from 1936 that automatically turns down the treble when the signal level drops.  It was originally designed to reduce hiss from records:



How does it work?  There is a direct path from input to output at the top of the drawing and below that, a triode amplifier output is rectified to provide negative bias to a remote-cutoff pentode.  As long as the signal is strong, the pentode remains biased off.  When the signal drops, the pentode acts as a reactance tube to multiply the value of the capacitance from the plate to the output, bypassing most of the treble to ground and acting as a noise gate with gradual effect instead of a sudden switchoff.

[jfrabat]

I think I will entertain myself with this one:



Maybe after I will go for a 5 band EQ...

[Mark Hammer]

If you're making a Big Muff, make a point of socketing the collector and emitter resistors in the two clipping stages, as well as the feedback capacitors.  Many of the issue-to-issue variations involve changes to those component values.

Since you have LM13600s but don't have the requisite JFETs, consider making a Ross/Ropez phaser rather than a Phase 90.  Plenty of interesting mods available for that.

Finally, I'm not seeing anything of the octave-up or octave-down variety in your list.

[Ripthorn]

I would suggest a Catalinbread naga viper with the 2n2222a. I love mine. You could also do an Andy Timmons overdrive. I just did a sample/ hold and the lm13600 would work there.

[Danich_ivanov]

Superfuzz type thing. Octave up fuzzes in general i find to be one of the coolest ones to build and experiment with.

[bluebunny]

Since you have LM13600s but don't have the requisite JFETs, consider making a Ross/Ropez phaser rather than a Phase 90.  Plenty of interesting mods available for that.

I just built bean's Stage Fright phaser (aka. Maestro).  I guess the 13600s would work in place of the 13700s.  It is a thing of gorgeousness.

[paul.creedy]

My current build list includes:

Two HLA circuits in one, for more (unbalanced this time) stuttery fun)
Clari(not)
Noise Swash
Rattle Crow

All of which I now have parts for*






*nearly, still waiting on some power sockets (and a huge (for me) order from Tayda which is for the next batch of builds).

I really want to spend some time once those are done playing with circuits in search of more odd noises. I'm hoping that what I learn from the build list will go towards this, and one dream is to make a clean HLA circuit that I can then add other things to, like modulation or maybe an FX loop.

[willienillie]

I just built bean's Stage Fright phaser (aka. Maestro).

Is that the big wedge Maestro with the paddleboat wheel knobs?  A buddy of mine has one of those, cool phaser.  I've never had a look at the insides.

[bluebunny]

I just built bean's Stage Fright phaser (aka. Maestro).

Is that the big wedge Maestro with the paddleboat wheel knobs?  A buddy of mine has one of those, cool phaser.  I've never had a look at the insides.

Yep, I believe so.

[willienillie]

Oops, I meant "steamboat" not "paddleboat".  Different things.

But this is what my buddy has:

[jfrabat]

I just found a Delyk board for an "Up, Down Daddy" which is one octave up and one or 2 down...  Still, I am drawn to the Big Muff...  I am going to breadboard it!

Oh, and I mostly play rock (mostly from the 80s and 90s, but some original stuff with my daughter, who plays the keyboards).

[jfrabat]

I think I will entertain myself with this one:



Maybe after I will go for a 5 band EQ...

Was breadboarding, and I noticed I dont have any 500pF caps...  Actually, I think I have never had.  I looked for 470pF but I did not have either.  So, now the question is, multiple caps in series (would have to be 3!) or wait and buy the right ones.  I think I'll hold off until the weekend...

[Mark Hammer]

Issues vary with respect to what value caps they use where those 500pf ones are shown.  Some go as high as 560pf.