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.
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!
I’ve had some extra rack units that I’ve wanted to setup. I started looking online for another rack case. Anything close to what I was looking for cost over $100. I didn’t need anything nice. So I looked up instructions for a DIY option. There were tons of ideas. I even found people using IKEA side tables for their rack gear.
Last Sunday, Anny and I went over to Lowe’s to pick up some wood. I just went with all the cheapest stuff, but it still ended up costing over $40. I used a power conditioner to measure the width.
I made some lines and used a handsaw to cut it up. Then yesterday after work, I picked up some nails and screws. I used the nails to line everything up. Then came back over the joints with a power drill and wood screws.
When it was time to mount the rack gear, I found these mini screws to drive in. The only issue is that I broke 6 trying to screw them in. I guess the wood is too hard.
It’s not pretty, but it works! All I got to do now is wire up everything to my patch bay.
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.
I put together the tube screamer last night. I couldn’t turn it on until today, because I was still waiting on the IC chip to arrive. The mail came, I popped it in, and I love it! I was expecting the pedal to be brighter, but from what I’ve read the RC4558 is supposed to be warmer.
Most of the parts were purchased from Mammoth Electronics. The PCB is from General Guitar Gadgets, and I used a few GGG’s ideas for mods. The left toggle is a fat switch. The right toggle is a on-off-on that lets you switch from (asymmetrical 914 diode clipping, no clipping – boost, red led’s – crunch). I also used the list supplied by GGG to switch out some parts like the Keeley Mod.
This was the first pedal project that I housed in a 125 size enclosure. It’s a third of an inch taller than the standard 1590b size. With that extra space I tried top mounting the jacks like Wampler!
