Last night I was going through Brian Wampler‘s Pedal Mod book. I realized I had never snipped C11 in my Phase 90 to mod it. While I had the pedal open, I went in and swapped out the LED. I had extra gold LED’s from my RAT clone pedal.
Then tonight I opened up the analog chorus and swapped out the LED to a pink one. I never liked how insanely blinding the blue LED was in there.
For the last 10 years I’ve been using my 5150 head with a broken ground plug. It wasn’t until recently, that I learned how potentially dangerous that was. I found this video that shows how simple it is to replace the plug. I ran over to home depot and grabbed a new plug for $3. The amp is much less noisey now!
I had just watched some videos about the Steel String Clean Drive pedal made by Vertex. It sounded killer! I was curious to learn about its design. To my surprise PedalPCB.com makes their version of the pedal. I purchased the PCB and went through the parts list. I ordered what I needed through Mammoth Electronics. In total I spent under $40. The last of the parts showed up last Friday. I woke up early on Saturday and got to work. I was done by 2 p.m.
The pedal has a great texture to it. I’ve never put together pedals with JFETs. I guess there are a lot of pedals that finely tune JFETs to get “amp like” tones.
I’m excited to plug this one into my 5150 half stack. I forgot to buy knobs for this build. I pulled these off a pedal I’m not using right now.
I’m excited to try some bare bones tracking. I’d like to try singing and playing acoustic guitar direct to tape. I’m going to order some blank tape off eBay soon!
In this video I’m sending a few guitar leads into the tape machine at 3.75/ips. I’m then recording the delay back into the computer.
This pedal is a mashup of a few different pedals.
I like the idea of the Double Barrel, where you have two distortions with an order selector. This way you can slam one into the other for different tones. I used a 4PDT toggle and this wiring diagram I found HERE
The left hand side pedal is my version of LPB-1 Boost. I added a toggle to the input capacitor value. 220nF or 47nF. This comes in handy when I slam the boost into another pedal on the Neck pickup. The 47nf cuts off some the low end to let it breathe. I also added a clipping diode selecting toggle. It’s similar to the tube screamer side of the Double Barrel. The CENTER position is off. The DOWN position is Silicon Diodes. The UP position is Red diffused LED’s.
The right hand side pedal is my version of an EM Drive. I added another clipping diode selecting toggle. This time a negative germanium diode remains in the circuit, but the toggle chooses between a positive Silicon or a positive Red Diffused LED.
Woke up this morning with a bunch of notifications from Instagram. I guess Mammoth Electronics‘ Insta found my fuzzface clone and reposted it!
It wasn’t until last year, that I finally purchased a mic-pre. I was always too stingy. I figured the preamps on my interfaces sounded good enough. Then I heard about the JHS Colour Box. I was stoked. It was a NEVE clone that didn’t cost over a $1000 dollars. I bought one at the beginning of 2016 as a late Christmas present to myself.
I thought I would use it more for microphones, but it added too much of a fuzz. I did enjoy the grit it adds, but the box became a one trick pony. I always ended up just using it for guitar and bass. I did get some great sounds for vocals out of it, when I re-amped takes I had already tracked. I was hesitant to let it go, but I didn’t use it enough. I knew I could get at least $300 for it.
After I heard some samples of Warm Audio’s TB12, I listed my Colour Box on eBay.
The day my Colour Box sold, I bit the $600 bullet and ordered the TB12. It showed up yesterday. I wired it all up last night after work. I love it! I haven’t yet tested it as a preamp. I have it routed as a plug in. You can really push tracks through it. It gives everything a little “oomph”. You can even slam the gain and get some fuzzed out grit.
My only gripes with the TB12 are its aesthetics:
Now it’s time for me to get a patch bay. I need to be able to switch around my compressor in the signal chain. I worried that I would miss my Colour Box. That great fuzz and those gain stages it gives you, but the Tone Beast can do all that and more.
This past week I cleaned up my home recording rig. I wired up some old outboard gear I’ve been neglecting. I organized my cables and I was in the market for a Re-Amp box. The cheapest ones around were $100. I can’t imagine they’re that complicated, so I looked online for a schematic. I thought I might be able to just build one myself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find enough information about the transformers required.
Then I found DIY.RE ! For $50 they’ll send you a kit to build your own passive re-amp. I ordered one last week. It showed up yesterday. When I got home I put it together.
It took more time setting up my tools than assembling the box (an hour total). I plugged it into my rig last night and it works! I’m excited. It’s going to be a big help, mixing down my record.
