Juansolo's DIY pedal buildage thread (renamed)

ThePrettyDamned · April 2014

Nice.

Actually, that's an amazing backup board for someone who has a proper big board. You'd just need a standard boss psu, so you're covered if a cable goes, a pedal goes or even if the power supply goes.

GuyBoden · April 2014

Nice

citizen68 · April 2014

Pedal engineer! Can I ask (as an innocent bystander) what the circuitry on the switches does? Love the pedal graphics too..

juansolo · April 2014

citizen68 said:

Pedal engineer! Can I ask (as an innocent bystander) what the circuitry on the switches does? Love the pedal graphics too..

Optical bypass. It allows us to use much more robust stomps than the usual blue/green 3PDT stomps you find in most true bypass boxes. Also it makes wiring easier and doesn't pop. The only downside is that it's expensive vs a standard stomp. Personally I think it's worth it purely for the fact we've only ever had one of those stomps fail vs lots of 3PDTs.

martinw · April 2014

That's amazing John! :-O

Proud owner of a full Juansolo pedal board.

samzadgan · April 2014

John...i noticed you've made a version of the Pharaoh...very interested to hear how that sounds and compares to the original...have you got any demo's of it?

citizen68 · April 2014

Thanks - hadn't seen those anywhere before..

juansolo said:

citizen68 said:

Pedal engineer! Can I ask (as an innocent bystander) what the circuitry on the switches does? Love the pedal graphics too..

Optical bypass. It allows us to use much more robust stomps than the usual blue/green 3PDT stomps you find in most true bypass boxes. Also it makes wiring easier and doesn't pop. The only downside is that it's expensive vs a standard stomp. Personally I think it's worth it purely for the fact we've only ever had one of those stomps fail vs lots of 3PDTs.

juansolo · April 2014

samzadgan said:

John...i noticed you've made a version of the Pharaoh...very interested to hear how that sounds and compares to the original...have you got any demo's of it?

Haven't done a demo of it. It should be pretty much nailed on if the schematic is accurate. But it's one of those I wouldn't make for sale anyhow, being an in-production pedal by a fairly cool dude. I do like it though. I can see it being really useful with bass, but for guitar I prefer the Ultrastoner. Also for bass we've just made what I consider to be the best bass pedal I've ever heard... Another we can't sell, especially as it's a prototype of a friend's soon to be commercial pedal. But I think he's built a total winner with this one.

samzadgan · April 2014

juansolo said:

samzadgan said:

John...i noticed you've made a version of the Pharaoh...very interested to hear how that sounds and compares to the original...have you got any demo's of it?

Haven't done a demo of it. It should be pretty much nailed on if the schematic is accurate. But it's one of those I wouldn't make for sale anyhow, being an in-production pedal by a fairly cool dude. I do like it though. I can see it being really useful with bass, but for guitar I prefer the Ultrastoner. Also for bass we've just made what I consider to be the best bass pedal I've ever heard... Another we can't sell, especially as it's a prototype of a friend's soon to be commercial pedal. But I think he's built a total winner with this one.

yeah thats cool...i have a pharaoh...and was wondering how it would stack up...and yes Mark is a very cool guy.

all these pics of multi-effects is giving me a lot of gas!

juansolo · April 2014

The Royal Trouser Press

This is entirely Matt's fault. His Sonic Death Monkey was back with us for repair (dodgy trimmer of all things) and I realised that something was missing from my Klonpressor. So Cleggy's grabbed that and I've built myself a new one.

The recipe is a little different this time and I think I've nailed it. On the front is the old favourite Rotten Komp from Grind Customs. The OD this time is my Madbean Kingslayer re-boxed and simplified a bit (I've moved the clipping switches onto jumpers as I found them a bit set and forget). I've gone with the Kingslayer because quite frankly I think it kicks the arse out of a Klon. Finally it's got Madbean's FatPants. A booster based around the input stage of an Echoplex.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/rtp-o.jpg

The decal is familiar because it's replacing my Klonpressor and I really like it.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/rtp-i.jpg

I get asked occasionally what the trick is to the internals and I usually respond that it's OCD, well it is that, but I had more of a think about it while making this one.

I think a lot of it is down to Josh's Optotrons. All the wiring hinges from them and the layout is based around getting them in at the bottom as tightly as possible. Therefore leaving as much room as possible for the effects. The dual power pads on the Optotrons mean that they're all chained together and once all that's in and tested, you just have four wires per effect as you drop them in. I get all that done before any effects go in there.

The effects I always try to board mount the pots using solid core, sometimes they're spaced up a bit for clearance using some thick (probably not far off 1cm thick) sticky backed foam and double sided sticky backed pads.

As before though, it all comes down to planning. Lots of time in Photoshop moving things around, printing it out and laying boards on it to make sure it'll work.

Fusionista · April 2014

Oooh, that looks very nice. I want.

juansolo · April 2014

First of all I must throw out huge props to Jason Lilly (Jubal) for not only the inspiration for this build, but the supply of the most excellent switch board that made it possible. *bows* You sir are a warrior and a gent.

The Lament Configuration, for those that don't know, is a puzzle box that opens a gateway into hell where all manner of pleasure and pain await. Well this one is six of my pedals pulled appart and thrown into a box of fuzz and nastiness!

The method to this madness was to take some of my favourite and have one fuzz box to rule them all. I've stuck with all silicon derivatives because they're less of a pain, and I've gone with pedals that are all quite a bit different from one another to offer the most variety.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/lament-o.jpg

In here we have:

A Ibanez Standard Fuzz clone from JMK

A Roger Mayer Spitfire Clone from Grind Customs

A Roland BeeBaa clone from 1776 Effects

A silicon Mosrite Fuzzrite clone from SJ Effects

Doug Hammond's Silicon Tonebender from Guitar PCB

On top of that is a Zvex SHO clone from Grind performing boost/thickening duties as a separate stompable effect on the end.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/lament-i2.jpg

I'm really rather pleased with this one. It's perfectly achieved what I set out to do, which is all my favourite fuzzes in one box. No need to ever choose which one I want, when I can have them all!

What started out as a spectacularly tight build became almost easy when Cleggy suggested using the side walls to mount effects. Indeed if it wasn't for the lack of room for knobs and the need for more switching, I think I could have easily got a couple more in there!

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/lament-i1.jpg

So there you have it, probably my most challenging and satisfying build to date. The only thing I'm not 100% happy with is the decal. Originally I wanted something relating to Pandora's Box, but I couldn't get it to fit. The Hellraiser decal works, but it's still a but tight, and being shiny and dark, impossible to photograph (I must have taken well over 100 when I thought f**k it and started at the best one with Photoshop).

ThePrettyDamned · April 2014

Oh my, Wow awarded. And not typical fuzz clones. The ibanez standard is a monster! @bucket likes the beebaa, too.

citizen68 · April 2014

Have another wow - that's classy

Bucket · April 2014

And another wow.

That fuzzbox is an incredible achievement - what a fantastic idea to have all those clones in one box. Really well-laid-out controls too.

martinw · April 2014

Now, you know I don't like fuzzes but that deserves a 'Good Show'.

juansolo · June 2014

The latest silly idea made solid:

Alice - Madness Returns!

I decided to re-visit the pedal of much madness that is Alice and bring her right up to date. Alice is part noise machine / part synth. Indeed you don't even need to plug in a guitar if you don't want to as you can just open up the threshold, turn the LFO on and you're in a world of knob twiddling fun.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/alicereturns-o.jpg

In here we have a Grind Customs Machette PCB, which is an Tim Escabedo UglyFace + Mick Bailey mods and LFO. Next up is a Grind Electric Boogaloo tremolo with a couple of mods recommended by Rej. Moving on to the Grind DeProfundis delay. Again with our dual gang delay/filter mix mod. Following that is Pickdropper's Phase 90 phaser clone. Topping it all off is a Grind Tenebrion reverb. Stock with a medium brick.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/alicereturns-i.jpg

While I was doing this one I decided to write a quick tutorial for the site for how I build multis. That's here: http://stompage.juansolo.co.uk

Finally we have a demo... Bear in mind that this is an odd one

Fusionista · June 2014

You are crazy man

dchwhite · June 2014

That looks amazing

WezV · June 2014

love it

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Juansolo's DIY pedal buildage thread (renamed)

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