Rangemaster & Tonebender in a box build - MODS UNDERWAY!

DannyP

Having twice mucked up rehousing a Dano Rocky Road (major headaches) I have given up.

I am left with an enclosure (120x95x34mm) that is drilled for 2 footswitches (landscape, no other holes drilled yet).

So what should I stick in there? I'm looking for 2x Fuzz Dog Pedals Parts kits that will stack nicely into each other.

Any ideas?

Cirrus

Timmy and rat is a good combo. Timmy first acts like a gain boost, rat first boosts the timmy in a kinda cool way giving a sweet low-mid voicing.

DannyP

Does Fuzzdog do a Timmy? They do an EP booster, which I've always fancied.

I've never owned a Rat, so that could be a possible.

I'd quite like some more fuzz in my life too. 

I think some folks team up a Muff and a Rat.

I'd quite like a Fuzz Face too, but maybe I'll do that as a stand alone.

DannyP

Or a tonebender and a treble boost?

stickyfiddle

Muff with booster in front of it works very well.

I love Rats, but haven't found they stack very well with other stuff tbh

DannyP

I've gone for Rangemaster & Vox Tonebender MkII, with an effect order switch so it can stack either way.

I hope to be able to go from vintage to vintage bonkers to outright bonkers. So help me God.

DannyP

Well I've put it together now. Tested both boards and both worked fine.

I put it all together in the enclosure and NOTHING. The LEDs worked, but all silent when stomped. AARGH!

Theeeeen, I took the guitar lead out of the output and the amp lead out of the input and swapped them round. Jeez, I must be tired,

Anyway it works, and I think it's going to sound great when I've biassed them both properly.

I've taken it to bits now as I want to do some aesthetic bits to the enclosure. I'll post again when it's all done.

suspiciousminds

How have you wired the boards together danny?

DannyP

It's all wired up, I'm just putting a decal on the enclosure.

Edit: I'll stick a pic up if I get a minute.

DannyP

All finished and sounding good:

BloodEagle

Looks great - id love to see some gutshots

DannyP

BloodEagle said:

Looks great - id love to see some gutshots

I'm not sure you would to be honest, it's not all that pretty!

DannyP

I'm getting some good sounds especially with both stomps on - think Sgt Pepper/Birthday/Taxman solo etc, but in some rooms, the treble boost is just too harsh.

Conversely, the Tonebender on it's own is a bit dark with the current Vox spec capacitors.

It will be going under the knife next week when I've sourced some different value caps and a switch or 2. Watch this space.

DannyP

Right, I've removed the effect-order switch. Rangemaster into Tonebender sounded vastly better than vice versa to my ears, so that's the way its staying.

Instead, I've added a 3-way toggle that swaps out different input caps on the Rangemaster, so I can tame that harshness and add some options.

I thought that was quite a smart and original mod, but having done some googling to research the cap values, I see that some modder called Robert Keeley has done the same thing on his Java Boost - great minds eh?

I got a bunch of caps in to experiment with, and the values I went with are 4.7nf (stock), 6.8nf, and 10nf. The 4.7nf setting is toppy but usable, 6.8nf is a more reasonable treble boost and the 10nf is a pleasant mid range honk that is a bit like a cocked-wah, but not as extreme.

All settings are particularly cool when pushing the amp over the top.

DannyP

On the Tonebender side, I swapped out the 15nf caps at C1 and C5 for 10nf caps, which has brightened it up a bit.

DannyP

So now, both effects sound great on their own, but together the tone is harsh. Cool, but harsh.

I have been racking my brains trying to figure out a way of taming the tone ONLY when BOTH effects are ON.

It was doing my head in for a couple of days, and I was considering buying a pair of 4PDT footswitches (yuck!), when it suddenly came to me in bed last night what the answer might be...

I reckon if I put a capacitor between the Tonebender PCB and the cathode of the LED for the Rangemaster, it might do the trick.

The idea being that if the Rangemaster is OFF, the cathode of the LED is not connected to ground, so the Tonebender sounds normal.

If the Rangemaster is ON, the cap from the Tonebender PCB is grounded via the LED cathode because the Rangemaster LED is on. Therefore some treble is bled to ground ONLY when both effects are on, but individually, they remain unaffected.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, I'm going to give it a try later on.

DannyP

This is what I had in mind - not sure exactly where to attach the cap to the Tonebender circuit (PCB2), but I'll do some experimenting with my croc clip jumper leads.

Will having the LED cathode and anode both connected to 9v when the Rangemaster is off knacker the LED though?

DannyP

Ah but then I've got the 9v supply hooked up to the cap when the Rangemaster is OFF. If I used an electrolytic capacitor, would that prevent the current going the 'wrong way' back up to the Tonebender PCB, maybe? Or would the current knacker the electrolytic cap?

DannyP

HANG ON A MINUTE!

The 9v and LED+ have no reason to be wired to the switch in the first place!

Take them off the bottom right lug of the switch and I'm laughing, right?

At least I'm learning stuff as I go along.....

DannyP

Yes! I've done it! It bloody works!

I put a 4.7nf cap on a little trim pot, just like a guitar tone control, stuck it in between the Rangemaster LED cathode and the Out from the tonebender board, adjusted it to taste and closed the box - job done.

Not that any of you sods care....

Alnico

DannyP said:

Yes! I've done it! It bloody works!

I put a 4.7nf cap on a little trim pot, just like a guitar tone control, stuck it in between the Rangemaster LED cathode and the Out from the tonebender board, adjusted it to taste and closed the box - job done.

Not that any of you sods care....

Well done Danny.

None of anything you've said makes a blind bit of sense to me but it sounds pretty impressive. You should be proud of what you've done, rocket science or not.

When do these go into production then? It sounds really interesting !