Where to start with making pedals?

[Toe-Knee]

Digital reverb?

What's wrong with a spring tank? You could knock a tube-driven one up in half an hour!

I could but that takes up a lot more space! Then again I would have it always on and in the loop so maybe it isn't such a big deal. I've tried the belton reverb bricks but I wasn't a fan of them.

Do you have any links to reverb projects Frank? If not i'll get cracking with the google-fu!

[juansolo]

i started with a musikding kit. they're cheap, the doc is straightforward, everything needed comes with a simple click.
the only downside is that the pcbs are badly designed, and it's impossible to have a clean wiring inside the pedal with them.
the tremolo is great!

Be warned though, after the first pedal started, i started to spend all my nights looking at pedal stuff, reading, gathering informations, buying stuff ... and i ended up spending a LOT of money in this passion... :)

In what way were they badly designed? I haven't used any of them but have considered it every now and then.

Used their Der Kompressor board and it was good. Nothing wrong with that.

A bit off topic. But have you built any plexitones using madbeans boards? it seems like an interesting project and something that would actually be useful. Most of the pedals I build I use for a month or so then they get stuck in the drawer of no return.

I really wish someone would come out with a digital reverb PCB it's one of the only things that I actually need.

The Plexitone is stonking, but his current PCB is a little iffily arranged and causes some squealing. You can engineer it out (quite a few threads about it on the forum), but I'd wait for a revised board. The original if you want to etch your own works just fine and is lurking in my schematic stash (http://juansolo.demon.co.uk/stompage/schematics/Madbean/), it's the Boneyard 1. If you do make the mk1, you don't need the boost section. Nor do you need the hi gain really as it just brings in a bigger pot on a stomp. My new one I built as a three knobber, single stomp.

Reverb, 1776 effects (http://1776effects.com/) Rub-a-Dub reverb uses the new Belton brick (get them from Das Musikding) and it's really, really good. I've made a dual short into long reverb for shites and giggles. Not really necessary and an expensive way of doing things. But it's fun and it's nice to be able to compare them back to back.

I've just ordered a pair of short blocks to make a couple of singles that I'll be selling. The shorter block is slightly tighter and cleaner, the long one sounds 'bigger'. There's not a massive amount in it really.

It's significantly better sounding than the BYOC verb I also have. That has a tendency to get noisy at the extremes. The 1776 one on the ickle brick doesn't at all. Goes in a tiny box too :)

The only thing that's better is the WET Reverb. I still stand by that it's the best I've heard to date (and it's the one that sits in my loop permanently).

[Toe-Knee]

i started with a musikding kit. they're cheap, the doc is straightforward, everything needed comes with a simple click.
the only downside is that the pcbs are badly designed, and it's impossible to have a clean wiring inside the pedal with them.
the tremolo is great!

Be warned though, after the first pedal started, i started to spend all my nights looking at pedal stuff, reading, gathering informations, buying stuff ... and i ended up spending a LOT of money in this passion... :)

In what way were they badly designed? I haven't used any of them but have considered it every now and then.

Used their Der Kompressor board and it was good. Nothing wrong with that.

A bit off topic. But have you built any plexitones using madbeans boards? it seems like an interesting project and something that would actually be useful. Most of the pedals I build I use for a month or so then they get stuck in the drawer of no return.

I really wish someone would come out with a digital reverb PCB it's one of the only things that I actually need.

The Plexitone is stonking, but his current PCB is a little iffily arranged and causes some squealing. You can engineer it out (quite a few threads about it on the forum), but I'd wait for a revised board. The original if you want to etch your own works just fine and is lurking in my schematic stash (http://juansolo.demon.co.uk/stompage/schematics/Madbean/), it's the Boneyard 1. If you do make the mk1, you don't need the boost section. Nor do you need the hi gain really as it just brings in a bigger pot on a stomp. My new one I built as a three knobber, single stomp.

Reverb, 1776 effects (http://1776effects.com/) Rub-a-Dub reverb uses the new Belton brick (get them from Das Musikding) and it's really, really good. I've made a dual short into long reverb for shitees and giggles. Not really necessary and an expensive way of doing things. But it's fun and it's nice to be able to compare them back to back.

I've just ordered a pair of short blocks to make a couple of singles that I'll be selling. The shorter block is slightly tighter and cleaner, the long one sounds 'bigger'. There's not a massive amount in it really.

Cheers for that. I'll check them out. Thanks for the pointers on the current madbean boards. There's nothing I hate more than having to work around a dodgy layout so you saved me a possible headache there.

[juansolo]

Just edited my above post to add a little more detail.


Reverb weapon of choice: http://youtu.be/paIpgtQ9rcc

If you've got a pair of amps the stereo version is ridiculous. http://youtu.be/xhxCGg6GAow?hd=1

[Toe-Knee]

Just edited my above post to add a little more detail.


Reverb weapon of choice: http://youtu.be/paIpgtQ9rcc

If you've got a pair of amps the stereo version is ridiculous. http://youtu.be/xhxCGg6GAow?hd=1

That is incredible! I think I may just buy one of those.

[juansolo]

That demo sold me one :)

You will get stung for import duty though :( which smarts a little.

[juansolo]

The hardwire supernatural looks to be a more featured new digiverb: http://proguitarshop.com/digitech-supernatural-reverb.html Sounds good in the demos. Though what I like about the WET is the sheer simplicity of it. It's so easy to dial in the sounds you want with just two knobs. At the other end of the spectrum there's the Strymon of course...

[add4]

i started with a musikding kit. they're cheap, the doc is straightforward, everything needed comes with a simple click.
the only downside is that the pcbs are badly designed, and it's impossible to have a clean wiring inside the pedal with them.
the tremolo is great!

Be warned though, after the first pedal started, i started to spend all my nights looking at pedal stuff, reading, gathering informations, buying stuff ... and i ended up spending a LOT of money in this passion... :)

In what way were they badly designed? I haven't used any of them but have considered it every now and then.

by 'badly designed' i meant that it's hard to have a clean wiring because the pin 1 of the gain pot is wired on one side of the pcb, and the pin 3 on the other side., in the end, a clean wiring is hard to get.

[forestcaver]

Re: digital reverb - I quite like the belton bricks... built as per general guitar gadgets...

[wisteria]

They are  your feet!

[Frank]

Do you have any links to reverb projects Frank? If not i'll get cracking with the google-fu!

This looks rather good ...

http://www.el34world.com/Hoffman/images/revibeschematicToreT.gif
http://www.el34world.com/Hoffman/revibeparts.htm

[jpfamps]

Do you have any links to reverb projects Frank? If not i'll get cracking with the google-fu!

This looks rather good ...

http://www.el34world.com/Hoffman/images/revibeschematicToreT.gif
http://www.el34world.com/Hoffman/revibeparts.htm

Weber also do a kit for this.

It's essentially the Fender stand alone Reverb unit combined with the tremolo circuit found on several of the Brown Tolex amps such as the Super and the Concert, which incidentally sounds VERY cool.

The circuit essentially works by splitting the audio into two, one half is high pass filtered and the other low pass filtered. These two filtered signal and then varied in amplitude in opposite phases and summed to give the final audio output (did that make sense??)

This circuit was only used by Fender for a 2-3 years in the early 60's, probably because it employs 2 1/2 valves, and for the same valve count you can have tremolo AND reverb in an amp.

This circuit has a good reputation, although there are a couple of quirks.

Firstly the "dry" signal passes through the filtering/ summing stage. This may be good, bad or indifferent.

Also the reverb and tremolo are in parallel. Again I have no particular opinion on the merits of this.

Weber also have another interesting kit:

https://taweber.powweb.com/store/5h15t_schem.jpg

This combines the Fender reverb unit with a Vibro Champ style tremolo. Again this is a cool trem. This kit has the trem after the reverb rather than in parallel (I think before would be strange...).

Incidentally (shameless plug), I've been prototyping a high voltage MOSFET LFO based on one of RG Keen's circuits which can be used to add trem to a valve amp.

I retro fitted this as a bias mod trem in one of our 15 W amps (another shameless plug), with excellent results, and hopefully will be offering this as an inexpensive kit to retro fit trem in the near future; I need to do a slight PCB tweak.

[Frank]

I need to clear some workspace and start soldering again. A valve reverb is definitely missing from my life.

Best I ever heard was on a friend's ancient old Ampeg Reverb-o-rocket, stacked with big meaty 6SN7's and probably never revalved from original. He sold it because some moron in a shop said no one made octal tubes any more.

[jpfamps]

I need to clear some workspace and start soldering again. A valve reverb is definitely missing from my life.

Best I ever heard was on a friend's ancient old Ampeg Reverb-o-rocket, stacked with big meaty 6SN7's and probably never revalved from original. He sold it because some moron in a shop said no one made octal tubes any more.

The Ampeg circuit does indeed sound great.

It's a transformerless design and requires a higher impedance tank, although these are now easy to source due to the proliferation of solid state reverb drivers.

This is another interesting circuit which I (hope to be) experimenting with soon.

http://www.freewebs.com/valvewizard2/reverbdriver.html

[Frank]

Blimey yes, SRPP looks interesting and saves the expense of a transformer. And I was thinking all reverb tanks were 8 ohm, seems they go as high as 2k input impedance.