Newbie, first build report / ?'s

[SwampThing]

Greetings,
   I’ve been skulking around this site for a few weeks now, ordered some parts and just completed my first two builds. Man, I haven’t had this much fun since I built my first 59’ Bassman clone! Been messin’ with tube amps for several years now, but this is my first attempt at stompboxes.  
         First build was a Mini-booster, plugged it in and it works…beautifully!! Only problem was when I tried it with an ac adapter it didn’t work. I troubleshot it for an hour or so, checking the wiring,etc. and finally found that the “split-style” center pin of the jack just needed to be spread apart in order to make contact. Incredible tone…my Fulltone Fat-Boost will soon be Ebay’d in order to buy parts for a few more DIY circuits!!!
         Next up, was a Rangemaster,(researching rangemaster clones is what led me to the DIY community). Again, everything went real smooth. Ordered the tranny from Smallbear, put in fixed bias resistors and ended up with â€"7.16 on the collector. Only problem is the boost control pot works in reverse, (counter-clockwise to increase) Is that normal? Do I just need to reverse the pot leads? & if so, which ones?  Otherwise, this thing sounds awesome!!! Very pleased with the results. Even the cosmetics went well, I’ll try and post some pics soon.
        I plan on tackling the EA trem next. You guys got a very cool thing going on here, the forum & related sites made these first two projects easy.


Many thanks!!!

SwampThing <><



Romans 10:9

[Impaler]

As far as your pot problem , reberse the wires going to lugs 1 and 3 (the left and right ones)

[lightningfingers]

congratulations!:mrgreen:
now yourre hooked just like the rest of us :wink:

[petemoore]

The very best way to figure out what colors mix well is to try mixing your own.
 I suspect teh pedal you were using for boost [before this MB build] is a perfectly good one, but might better fit your rig with a few tweaks...minor brightness and 'hue' changes. Rolloff input lows maybe.
 I just re-tuned my Minibooster, is a very Good one, lovable Tone, plays well with others..can tempers Fuzz aggression in interesting [less ruthles/more listener friendly] ways.
 You might want to look at a Pig's Face: Miss Piggy to be exact. With trimmings, you can quite easily try out all your different transistor types, sample their mixed tonal combinations with frequency/bias tunings, Then choose your Tone for that #. You can drive yourself Nuts with that board for hours, days, weeks...find something you want boxed...and at anytime, you can Clone that exact cct. [sooo close enough]!!!
 The nice thing about Miss Piggy is that it seems the gain of the transistors can actually be controlled quite effectively, giving the [ever before hard to find] tuner control over one of the most important parameters to FF tuning. Also if no like Piggy, you can simple pull a few parts [or put a Sw/Sw's on them] and it's a standard FF..

[nightingale]

swampthing~
i admire your taste in circuits, even if they are 1st builds.. i would say you are on the right track..

[aron]

Cool Swamp!!!!  

[Phorhas]

I started with those as well... and too long ago too...

[Peter Snowberg]

Welcome SwampThing,

Glad to hear of your success!

For the control pot issue on your rangemaster, just swap the wires going to the two outer lugs of the pot and you should be all set. I'll be looking forward to the pics.

Best of luck on your next build!  

Take care,
-Peter