Plotting Post-Playoff Pedal Plans....

[duhvoodooman]

With the 2009 baseball playoffs over now and my beloved NY Yankees once again assuming their rightful place as reigning world champs (sorry, PBP!), I've been thinking about a new pedal project "from scratch", i.e. not built from a kit or modifying an existing pedal. But it's hard to get baseball & the Yanks completely out of my head. S-o-o-o-o....

I've been thinking for a while about making a dual effect pedal incorporating a couple popular designs--the Z.Vex SHO MOSFET boost (won't repeat what SHO stands for in mixed company!) and the Fulltone OCD. I came across a DIY'er over at the BYOC forums who had build this combo and it struck me as a pretty cool concept. Plus, I've never owned either pedal and am curious what all the fuss is about.

So, taking a couple of circuit layouts I found on the web and integrating them together into a BB size enclosure (about 3.5" x 4.5"), I came up with my own integrated design, including a switch to be able to run the SHO in front or in back of the OCD stage, analagous the switchable effect order setup in my ZYS Mark II design. I've got all the parts, and when I get done with some customer builds I have in the works, I'm going to use this little project to kill some time until my Trinity 18W amp kit shows up.

Of course, any self-respecting pedal needs a snazzy graphics design, and here's where that baseball/Yankees connection jumped back into my head. So, in salute to the NY Yankees' 2009 World Championship and proudly wearing the pinstripes, I give you....."Aura & Mystique":

I don't know which effect is "Aura" and which is "Mystique", but then again, I guess it really doesn't matter! Hope to have a photo of the actual pedal to post within a couple of weeks.

P.S. Yeah, I know--we Yankees fans are insufferable, particularly when we win. Well, get over it, 'cuz we're planning on doing a lot of that in the next couple of years....

 

[marnold]

I don't know which effect is "Aura" and which is "Mystique", but then again, I guess it really doesn't matter! Hope to have a photo of the actual pedal to post within a couple of weeks.

I suppose "Aura" and "Mystique" sounds better than "Cash" and "'Roids." oke

Besides my indifference-bordering-on-distaste of the Yanks, I am nevertheless interested on how this pedal will turn out.

 

[R_of_G]

dvm, as a lifelong yankees fan and a certified tone junkie, let me congratulate you on an awesome design. :applause

 

[mrmudcat]

:what unch:

Interested in the pedal but as a life long redsox/braves fan ..........................:thwap

 

[piebaldpython]

I like the idea of combining the pedals. Sounds cool......HOWEVER.......that Yanks crap relegates the pedal to the firing range.....as a target. oke

 

[sunvalleylaw]

The way that is laid out for controls (not necessarily the guts) reminds me of the Analogman King of Tone pedal that interests me. http://www.analogman.com/kingtone.htm Do you know of any clones for that pedal?

Not really a Yankees fan, and a bit tired of the Mariners being a farm team for them, but I guess you would call it Sultan of Swat or something?

 

[duhvoodooman]

I like the idea of combining the pedals. Sounds cool......HOWEVER.......that Yanks crap relegates the pedal to the firing range.....as a target.

Hehe....any time I can get under the skin of a Phillies fan, I know I must be doing something right!! oke

 

[oldguy]

"Curse of the Bambino"

"Babe" and "Sultan"

"Ruth" and "Gehrig"

"Murderer's Row"
just some ol' time references.......

 

[duhvoodooman]

The way that is laid out for controls (not necessarily the guts) reminds me of the Analogman King of Tone pedal that interests me. http://www.analogman.com/kingtone.htm Do you know of any clones for that pedal?

My understanding is that the KoT is basically a fairly heavily augmented Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit. And BYOC makes a nice one of those, minus all the KoT bells & whistles, of course:

http://duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/BBOD.htm​

The Bluesbreaker circuit takes a much different approach to creating an overdriven tone than the TS-type ODs. It lacks the gain and mid-range punch of the TS circuit, and has an intrinsically more transparent sound. I find both approaches useful--just different.

EDIT 11/16:

As it happens, I just finished up a customer build of the BYOC British Blues over the weekend and it will be going out tomorrow:

 

[just strum]

Great design, but I have to admit Marnold had me LMAO.

 

[Tig]

I suppose "Aura" and "Mystique" sounds better than "Cash" and "'Roids." oke

Good one, Marnold! You know, the closer to the truth a joke is, the funnier! :goodjob

I dunno, "Aura" amd "Mystique"?
Sounds like DVM has been hanging out in too many stripper bars!
NTTAWWT (not that there's anything wrong with that)

 

[Kazz]

Trying to be objective here.....I am a lifelong BRAVES fan....so by nature I hate the Yankees...other than the fact that Don Mattingly is from my home town as well as he sponsored the habitat for humanity house that my mom received.

Now on to the objective part.....I looked over the Analogman pedal site....and while he has some cool stuff....and I do love the textured and purple look of his KOT pedal....none of his stuff is finished to the level of our DuhVoodooMan.

I have not to date been a customer of either so I am not a representative of either designer, nor would I give favor to DVM just because he is a member of this forum....it is just my less than humble opinion that DVM's pedals if not design wise....then definitely at the finish level are superior to analogmans.

I would also like to say....if I had enough in my fun money account I would definitely order a ZYS or any of DVM's pedals because we all know they are cool and we also know that the quality and customer service have no equal


I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Eric]

I suppose "Aura" and "Mystique" sounds better than "Cash" and "'Roids." oke

Besides my indifference-bordering-on-distaste of the Yanks, I am nevertheless interested on how this pedal will turn out.

+1

 

[sunvalleylaw]

My understanding is that the KoT is basically a fairly heavily augmented Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit. And BYOC makes a nice one of those, minus all the KoT bells & whistles, of course:

http://duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/BBOD.htm​

The Bluesbreaker circuit takes a much different approach to creating an overdriven tone than the TS-type ODs. It lacks the gain and mid-range punch of the TS circuit, and has an intrinsically more transparent sound. I find both approaches useful--just different.

EDIT 11/16:

As it happens, I just finished up a customer build of the BYOC British Blues over the weekend and it will be going out tomorrow:

Sounds good, ergo my interest. I may start another thread or PM you on it, rather than take up further bandwidth on this pedal, that also looks cool, just not what I am thinking of.

 

[marnold]

Shame on me for not noticing your title alliteration until now. Well played.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Shame on me for not noticing your title alliteration until now. Well played.

Nay, nay--no apology needed for not noticing my neverending nonsense.

I've liked alliteration with the letter N ever since Spiro T. Agnew referred to the media as those "nattering nabobs of negativism". He also called them "an effete corps of impudent snobs", but that one doesn't sound quite as cool! You just can't beat the Nixon administration for colorful crooks!

 

[tot_Ou_tard]

When we first arrived on your planet it seemed clear that we had to send an expedition party to a baseball game as it engenders such emotions.

It slowly dawned on us that this was not a debate about deep ideas, nor a spectator-viewed slumber party (the jammies with numbers on them initially threw us off), but rather appeared to be a sport.

So we set about trying to discern the rules of play.

For a while we were convinced that the core of the game was florid displays of incipient mental illness: tapping of sticks on shoes, rubbing fingers on hats, spitting etc, but when no marks appeared on the score card after a particularly compelling 3 minute OCD workout we understood that however entertaining such activity was, it was incidental to the true purpose of the game--which we now are certain is to strenuously swing a stick at a rapidly advancing ball so as to just barely miss it, or to sometimes act snobbishly indifferent to the ball as it whizzes by.

We had a great time once we knew how the sport was played. Occasionally, the stick-wielder would screw up and make contact with the ball sending it into the crowd, which caused the spectators to enthusiastically lunge toward it in an attempt to be hit in the head with the sphere. I think that the lucky targets were awarded points that they could exchange for beer.

 

[duhvoodooman]

With customer orders now taken care of, I started work on this project last night. I'm using what's called "veroboard" (or "stripboard") for the build, and came up with a layout that put both circuits on one piece of vero. Started last night and finished populating the board this morning. Here's a photo of the board; SHO section is on the left and the OCD stage (considerably more complcated) is on the right:

Backside of the vero board. Sorry, there's no way to make these look pretty!

 

[duhvoodooman]

More progress today. Drilled the enclosure and did a fitup of all the hardware. Everything meshes nicely. Next will be the tedious part--wiring it all together.

And the decal, all ready for application:

 

[piebaldpython]

Stellar job there Vood. Nice work......EXCEPT.....for that hideous decal...:thwap

Lemme see....I oughta have a spray can around to "graffitti" that sucker up right proper. :crazyguy

 

[duhvoodooman]

Wired up & fired up today! Worked first time on both effects. The only build error I made was that the OCD gain pot was wired backwards, so the pot turned the wrong way--2 minute fix to swap the wires.

I've only played through it for a few minutes, but the SHO side has boost to burn, and the OCD is definitely a nice transparent overdrive with plenty of gain available.

Gut shot:

Lit up; red for the overdrive and blue for the boost:

 

[duhvoodooman]

Decaled enclosure, before clearcoating:

 

[duhvoodooman]

Done!! Final pics, inside & out:

 

[Ch0jin]

Looking good

Just curious what type of caps you used there for C3 and C9, the 220pf's.

Silver Mica? Multilayer Ceramic? DVM Special Black Coated's?

Inquiring minds want to know

 

[duhvoodooman]

Silver-micas from Small Bear.

BTW, if you want to see the whole hybrid-combo layout I used, it's available HERE....

 

[Ch0jin]

Haha, what a guess!!

Smallbear has some great gear, I get my germaniums from there usually.

Its a bit cheaper on some parts for me to source from more local guys like Farnell or RS Components because of the shipping costs. For example its like $50 minimum to order anything from mouser. Although I was a little horrified to see Farnell want over $4 each! for the 1N34A. $4 for a weeny germanium diode? Highway robbery I say

I grabbed both flavours of TL082 (ST Micro TL082CN and the TI TL082ACP) I found also. They have slightly different bandwidths and skew rates so we shall see what they sound like

Thanks for the link to the layout too. At this stage I'm thinking OCD clone only, but we shall see.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Interesting behavior that I've observed in my initial use of this pedal. I've played it through my two main amps--my Egnater Rebel 20W head and my Fender Blues Junior. The SHO boost sounds great through either one. The OCD overdrive sounds excellent thorugh the Egnater, but through the Blues Junior....not so much! For whatever reason, it has a distinctly fizzy sounding top-end through that amp. And I'm not talking subtle shadings here, either--a very obvious tonal difference. While I've noticed some difference in how different gain boxes sound through these two amps--no big surprise there--this is the biggest difference BY FAR that I've encountered on a given pedal. If this is typical behavior for the OCD circuit, then it's easy to understand how some players can just rave about the pedal while others have a strong dislike for it. "Fascinating", as Spock would say....

 

[Ch0jin]

"Fascinating", as Spock would say....

Very much so, although I had a very similar experience just recently. I had some bits lying around so I put together a Rangemaster clone (Austin Treble Blaster) after reading good things about them as a treble booster. Simple enough, one transistor and bang it all together on a tag strip, but even biased and running 100% correctly it sounded -HORRIBLE- to my ears.

There is mention in the documentation about how the circuit was designed to be fed into a 12AX7 preamp tube that's biased 1v to 1.5v negative, as this was typical of amps of the time. Amplifier Input impedance is also a big factor with a simple design like this too. I just decided it didn't match either of my current amps and put it back in the "sacrifice for parts" bin.

 

[duhvoodooman]

Well, it definitely sounds much better through the Fender amp in the "Lo" switch mode. That scrubs off some high end, which cuts much of the "fizz".