All In The Stompbox Family

[Paul Marossy]

My stompbox family keeps growing...


http://diyguitarist.com/Images/StompboxFamily.jpg">

From upper left:
TS808 clone, Easy Drive, EA Tremolo, Bulldog Cab Simulator, Black Cat OD-1 clone, Blackfire.

Middle row:
Blue Magic, AMZ Mini Booster, 3-Legged Dog, Metal Simplex, Chaos Drive, BSIAB

Bottom Row:
FET Blender, PNP Boutique Fuzz Face, Orange Squeezer clone, a vibrato pedal, DOD YJM clone, Blue Clipper and my Jawari.

I also have about 5 or 6 more that aren't in the picture. And two years ago, I never even tried building something before... I guess I'm making progress. I actually started off messing around with tube amps.

Well, anyhow, I'm just taking inventory of my DIY stuff.  I have a lot more commercially manufactured pedals, too. Oh, the life of an addict.
(Sorry for the crummy picture)

[ExpAnonColin]

My goodness, that's a lot of distortion/boosters!  14?!  Build a phaser, man!

-Colin

[aron]

You can _NEVER_ have enough distortions.... hmmm not one of mine eh? :?

[bwanasonic]

My goodness, that's a lot of distortion/boosters!  14?!  Build a phaser, man!

Hee hee! The funny thing is, as I also accumulate more pedals (no where near as prolific as Paul, and none as nicely finished as his) I find I use less and less on gigs. But thanks to guys like Paul, I just keep building these damn little boxes. Paul also inspires me to actually paint and label some of my creations, uh, eventually...

Kerry M

[donald stringer]

Its a vicious cycle isnt it!

[Travis]

He has a Smash Drive and a Shaka Tube on his site.

[smoguzbenjamin]

:shock: Me jealous. But I agree with Colin: Build a phaser, man!

Maybe I'm gonna build a phaser too... I haven't got one yet. :?

[Marcos - Munky]

Cool. Could you send me the vibrato schematic?

[RDV]

Cool. Could you send me the vibrato schematic?

There's a link to the site where he got the schem on Paul's site.

Happy Hunting!

RDV

[Marcos - Munky]

Thanks, I will take a look.

[Paul Marossy]

Well, it's not so much that I need another distortion pedal, I'm just intrigued by all the different ways to create distortion.

But, I seem to keep settling on my TS808 and Black Cat OD-1 clones and my Metal Zone as being the ones I actually use. Once in a while I'll rotate in some of my other pedals to mix things up a little bit.

About that vibrato... it sounds alright, but it has a low output compared to the effected signal. I haven't been able to figure out how to make it louder. Someone suggested messin' with the feedback loop resistor, but I haven't tried it yet. That probably would work.

Build a phaser? Are there any easy ones to build? Sometimes I think a flanger might be cool to have, too. I hear those can be difficult, though.

[Robin]

Hey Paul,

   I found the Phase 45 to be a fairly easy build and has a kind of spacey, understated sound that works well for both electric and acoustic (with a pickup). I used Tonepad's layout - Fransico does a great job - but slightly enlarged the pcb and added a remote LDR in series with the speed pot for
foot control. Only thing out of the ordinary may be FET matching and it's really no big deal. RG and Rob Strand have provided a couple of methods that are simple to breadboard. There was a recent post here about posible mods to the 45 that I'd like to try, too. I think EB7 (?) and Mark Hammer had some good comments.

Rob

[Paul Marossy]

Thanks for the tip. I think it might be fun to build one of those.

[Mark Hammer]

Nice family photo.  Looks like my basement, too.

I've been pondering selling it all off and rebuilding everything on a single rack panel with some rotary switches for selecting which of the dozen fuzzes I want, which of the 10 envelope-controlled filters I want, etc.  The circuits themselves are cheap and easy to make; it's all the damn boxes, machining, plgs/jacks and patch cords, batteries, and stomp switches that take up all the time, money, and effort.  I'd be far better off with a couple of rack panels and a decent common power supply.  No shortage of parts to do it, though.  Rack panels, rotary switches, and power supplies coming out the wazoo, and Peter Snow was generous to give me one of the rack-units-on-casters he picked up from Radio Shack years ago.

[Paul Marossy]

I was recently thinking about making some kind of floor mounted job, too.
I could have all of my dist. circuits available at the stomp of a foot...

[brett]

Hi Paul.  Cool photo.  A comment and a question.

Like you, I'm not into phasers and flangers much, but I built a Phase 45 (tonepad.com layout) and it's a great effect and fairly easy to do.  Main hitch is having to buy a few FETs so that you get a match.  I used RG's JFET tester, which only takes 5 mins to build.

Now the question.  What are all of those knobs on your Blackfire?  There seems to be about 5!  Standard Blackfire as I recall only has a drive and a vol control.

thanks

[Paul Marossy]

Brett,

The BlackFire has a modified Marshall-style tone stack on it - that's why five knobs.

I just read up on the JFET matching thing at geo again. I have a bunch of J201s I could sort out into some matched sets. I may just give the Phase 45 a try... it looks reasonable enough to build.