The Beef Curtain...

[hairyandy]

Well, I'm almost finished with the Beef Curtain, my new overdrive that I think sounds pretty amazing.  I'm taking a break and thought I'd post a couple pics of my progress and tell you guys a little about it.

The Beef Curtain, as I'm calling it, started out as an attempt to clone some DIY overdrive that a friend wanted to have copied.  Someone made him this pedal years ago and he wanted another with TB and an LED that he could take on the road.  His pedal sounds AMAZING, it turns any Fender amp into a nice plexi-vibed Marshall.  The circuit wasn't too complicated so I thought I'd give it a go.  My "exact" breadboard copy sounded like crap.    I used all of the same values (at least from what I could tell) but no matter what I did it was terrible and wimpy.  So I just started plugging in different stuff and changing how things hooked up and pretty soon it was cool.  I then thought about putting in a tone circuit and settled on the Baxandall.  I changed the values quite a lot to make it sound good with what I had and then added the diode clipping section using some old Mullard OA85's and a 1N4148.  That all completely changed the nature of the beast.  I then had to tweak the base circuit some more to see what it would do with the diodes and tone stack and went around in that circle for about a week.

Finally I settled on where it is right now.  I made the diodes switchable ("soft/hard" switch) and I put the tone stack on a footswitch.  I noticed when playing around that the tone stack ate up a considerable amount of gain, so when it's switched out it's a great signal boost.  I also settled on the 5534 as the IC although a 741 was pretty killer too and kinda grungier.

Here's the outside of the box:



Here's the board:



The finish is a laminated vinyl sticker that I designed in Illustrator.  I have a friend that works at an imaging company that owed me and just got the machine to print these.  I'm talking with him about offering it as a service to all of us here since it's very cheap and can be done all over the Net and through the mail.

That's pretty much it.  I should have it finished tomorrow but, unfortunately, I've got to go back out on the road on Sunday for two months.  I've never done a stripboard layout before so I'm gonna try to get one done as soon as possible so that you all can try it out but I can't promise anything too soon.

One last thing:  if anyone recognizes this circuit please let me know what it's similar to.  I've looked around a lot and couldn't find a schematic that looked much like the original version of my friend's pedal.  (Maybe the Dist+/OD 250 but they're still pretty different.)  I'm still really noob at this so it's all a learning experience for me and I'd like to learn a lot more.

Thanks for looking,

[petemoore]

I bet that sounds good !!
 Often times a circuit does come to life when you mess with it.
 It's cool that you figured out to combine different elements and tweek them into it !!
 Nice Box, Nice Job !!!

[MartyMart]

Andy, looks fabulous ,,,, erm "any" chance of a schematic of the circuit?
Pretty please, before you're "off" ... BTW I just came back from a couple
of weeks around Germany/Hungary and Russia !!
Some nice/copious amounts of Vodka over there !!

It looks a little like a "Hotcake" - though that doesn't use diodes for
clipping, it's an "op-amp" clipper design ..... ?

Marty.

[Wild Zebra]

I was over at Andy's a few days ago and this pedal sounds pretty darn awesome.  He tweeked out the values to get some nice overdrive.   It had a nice boost.  Look forward to a stripboard.

take care
have a nice trip

[Dragonfly]

...looking good so far Andy !


are you gonna market these, or possibly make the schemo available ?

rock on !

The "Other" Andy

[black mariah]

I'm still waiting for someone to cut the BS and just call their Big Muff clone the "Gaping Vagina".

Personally, I call my Big Muff clone "Your Mom".

:wink:

[ninoman123]

Those stickers sound really cool. Talk to your friend. Thats something that I would be interested in

[hairyandy]

Thanks guys!  I've got to say that making this thing has been much more rewarding than building Rangemasters, although the BC/RM combo sounds really good.  I used the BC last night for the first time at a rehearsal and it did exactly what I wanted it to do.  So far I've played it through my 65 London combo and a modded '68 Bassman head/2x12 cab and it was really consistent with both.

So far the only thing I want to change is the way the volume knob works.  It's an A100K Alpha and it's really interactive with the gain ("Beef") knob which is an A500K.  If I turn down the volume knob, the overall volume does go down but so does the gain a little bit.  It sounds best with the volume all the way up but then it's pretty loud, especially compared to the bypassed signal.

As far as the vinyl stickers go, my friend wants to offer these as a service.  Right now they're still kinda figuring out the machine (they use it to do bus and car wraps and other signage) and also figuring out pricing/shipping/logistics, etc.  It's basically a giant inkjet printer that also laminates and does cuts based on a die line.  In my case the outline of the pedal worked fine as the die line.  I just emailed them my Illustrator file with all fonts embedded as outlines ("curves") and they printed fine.  When they figure out how they can price it, I'll probably make a webpage for it and post it here so that everyone can order stickers if they want.  This might take a bit since I'm leaving for a tour on Sunday.  I'll try to make it happen quick though...

are you gonna market these, or possibly make the schemo available ?

As far as marketing, I'm definitely going to build these and sell them but I don't know how or to what extent yet.  I plan on posting a schematic/stripboard layout when I get the time to figure out how to do a good one.  Do you have a pre-cut up library of images for making layouts Andy?  If so, I'd love to get those from you...

I'm still waiting for someone to cut the BS and just call their Big Muff clone the "Gaping Vagina".

I like that!  The BC is way more SD-1 than BM though.  It's not exactly a high gain monster like the BM...I thought "Swollen Pickle" was pretty damn suggestive.  How about the "Jerkin' Gerken"?

Thanks again,

[MartyMart]

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/Richard-Boop-RLBJR65

Here's a set of parts from the gallery, they can be cut/pasted from within
microsoft "ms paint" real easily.
I borrow my girlfriend's PC for this, as I'm a "Mac" person .... !!!  :shock:
I'd be happy to draw up a vero layout for you, when your schemo is done
and checked

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/Martys-layouts-and-photos?page=1
Here's some of my little "doodles"  !

Marty.

[hairyandy]

Thanks Marty.  I saw those in there, but like you I'm a Mac guy and don't have access to MS Paint.  If I open up that parts file from RLBJR65 in Illustrator won't I have to cut them all up?  It is just one big file right?  That sounds like a total pain in the ass.

I've looked all through the Gallery and I really like yours and Dragonfly's layouts.  That's really what I want to figure out how to do.

See you in Jolly Ole',

[MartyMart]

I'm not sure, graphics is the "missus" forte !
It is just "one file" but in paint, you just highlight a part and copy/paste it
over a chunk of the vero image, it then has a "on top"/"see through" function
so your Pasted part blends over the vero .... presto !  easy eh !
Lines for "jumpers" and text can be easily added, you end up with a .gif
file that's at an "OK" resolution.
I import that into Photoshop on my mac and "touch it up" a little.
Illustrator may well have similar functions ... ?

Cheers,
marty.

[Dragonfly]

I plan on posting a schematic/stripboard layout when I get the time to figure out how to do a good one.  Do you have a pre-cut up library of images for making layouts Andy?  If so, I'd love to get those from you...

yep...i have a set of "pre-made ones i can give ya ...i'll PM the images to you....

i'm not sure what you'll use on the mac for them, but it'll give you a great starting point...

andy

[george]

I'm still waiting for someone to cut the BS and just call their Big Muff clone the "Gaping Vagina".

call me unversed in the many synonms for female genitalia, but I fail to see the connection with such and a "Beef Curtain" ....?

sounds more like the inside of an abbotoirs to me.

Or is it one of these things that sounds rude without it being obvious why? like FCUK?

[trjones1]

I'm still waiting for someone to cut the BS and just call their Big Muff clone the "Gaping Vagina".

call me unversed in the many synonms for female genitalia, but I fail to see the connection with such and a "Beef Curtain" ....?

I think the connection between "big muff" and "beef curtain" falls outside the scope of this forum.

[george]

sigh - the forum police are here ...

at least you don't come right out and say "this post belongs in the lounge".

I didn't even know there was a "connection between "Big Muff" and "Beef Curtain" ....

[MartyMart]

With stomp box titles such as :

Big Muff

Swollen Pickle

Mc Meat

Super Hard on ..........


I dont see the problem  ...    :shock:  :shock:  :lol:

Marty

[black mariah]

call me unversed in the many synonms for female genitalia, but I fail to see the connection with such and a "Beef Curtain" ....?

I'll send you a PM and explain it. I don't want the more sensitive people among us to actually have to deal with the concept of genitalia. :roll:

[trjones1]

sigh - the forum police are here ...

at least you don't come right out and say "this post belongs in the lounge".

I didn't even know there was a "connection between "Big Muff" and "Beef Curtain" ....

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little off topic discussion, I'd just rather not read an R.G.-style technical discussion on size variances of certain parts of the female anatomy  :wink: .

[george]

sigh - the forum police are here ...

at least you don't come right out and say "this post belongs in the lounge".

I didn't even know there was a "connection between "Big Muff" and "Beef Curtain" ....

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little off topic discussion, I'd just rather not read an R.G.-style technical discussion on size variances of certain parts of the female anatomy  :wink: .

wow ... size variances!!!! tr, all you are doing is making this topic more and more interesting!!!  sounds like you know more than you want to let on! :wink: right back at ya!

black mariah, by all means PM me.  Being male and married I would consider myself fairly well versed in "certain parts of the female anatomy" but I just can't grasp (?) how they can be considered to be a "beef curtain" (if in fact female genitalia are what this term alludes to, as trjones1 suggests :wink:)

[Rochey]

One must turn to the urban dictionary in these times of strife....


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Beef+Curtain

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=muff