Dirty Bird & Triwave build reports (+ pics and a questio

[inverseroom]

Just finished Charlie's Dirty Bird, and to my utter astonishment, it worked perfectly immediately on powerup (except for a backwards LED).  Below is a pic of the exterior.  I'm not going to show you the inside because I made the mistake of wiring up the pots and switches before putting them in the case, and the result looks like a plate of linguini marinara.

The enclosure is of course a junction box.  I must say these are now my go-to enclosure.  They are awesome and look unabashedly utilitarian.  The graphics were done with MS Word and printed onto glossy adhesive, then stuck to the plate and given a nice thick coat of matte lacquer.  Holes were drilled with a unibit of course.

One problem is that the sensitivity knob always has to be all the way up for the notes to register, and even then the high notes often don't.  I wonder if this circuit was designed to have a fuzz or boost on the front end?  Or is there a way to recalibrate the sensitivity for a direct guitar signal?  I have to congratulate Charlie on that "Chirp" footswitch, it is absolutely awesome.



Here's my 4ms/Commonsound Triwave Picogenerator, in an extra-large junction box.  It also went smoothly, except for a couple missed solder connections the first time around, and having inadvertently bought a center-positive PS from Mouser :x.  I started out with the unmodded version but the next day had to add the cross-mods (on the side), and it makes a big difference in sound.  Really nice!

The enclosure was painted with blue lacquer and then I found that the stuff I sprayed over it caused the blue to crack.  Damn.  But then I realized it looked kind of cool, and I left it that way.  I spraypainted the knobs, too, and printed out the knob markings on inkjet sticky paper, sticking them on before clearcoat.

 

This has been a busy week--I'm off from work!  Thanks for all the advice, y'all...

[inverseroom]

Don't let it slip away!  I really am curious about the sensitivity issue here.  Has anyone built the Dirty Bird, and if so, have you had this problem?

Thanks!

[moosapotamus]

Those look awesome, John! Nice graphics on the DB.

Not sure about the action on your sens pot. I recall it having a useful range, but I don't have a DB myself any more. All the one's I built found new homes and I neglected to keep one for myself.

Are you using a 50K for the sens pot? I don't know if a smaller (or bigger) value, like 10K, would make any difference. But, you could try putting a resistor (10K, 12K, 15K... whatever you've got on hand) across lugs 1 and 3 to drop the pot's value, instead of replacing the pot (which is probably what you'd have to do to try a larger value). Don't really know if that'll make a difference, but it's pretty easy to do and might be worth a try.

~ Charlie

[inverseroom]

Thanks, Charlie--I'll give that a try.  I'm using a 50K.  Could be something as simple as the difference in our pickups.

Glad you dig the box!

[Hal]

wow, looks sick.  Any chance of getting a peak inside the picogenerator?

[inverseroom]

wow, looks sick.  Any chance of getting a peak inside the picogenerator?

More spaghetti.  :oops:   But actually the 2" x 2" x 4.5" junction box is pretty spacious, if you use mini pots and mini switches, which is what I did.  And the triwave board is not overwhelming either.

Actually I highly recommend making one of these.  It sounds like a couple of warring LFO theremins.  Hey, I have to put it through that Dirty Bird...

[80k]

Here are a few pics of the inside of my triwave picogenerator i built a couple years ago, per Hal's request.

http://img173.echo.cx/img173/7678/potsmountedandwired8ql.jpg

http://img173.echo.cx/img173/3858/potsmountedandwired20ex.jpg

[GodSaveMetal]

Please in the page of the Dirtybird the link of the pcb is broken, please put in gif, thanks.
The pedal sounds out of these world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Renegadrian]

You mean this one?!

LAYOUT
SCHEM

Just a quick google search and here it is!