Monday, November 24, 2014

Updates Updates Updates

THE DREAM EATER
After a couple months of being pretty busy, I'm finally revisiting to update you all on a couple of projects I've completed and have been struggling with.

First and foremost, I have pretty much completed the Matsumin Valvecaster which I'm calling THE DREAM EATER. (I still need to finish up the wiring, there is also some radio interference with this pedal, but other than that it sounds pretty neat).

The Rundown:
This pedal is a tall 1590BB sized enclosure with the tube portion sticking out. The black sparkle was a pain in the butt and not advisable. It looks nice, but created a rough sandpaper like texture on the surface. I had to have multiple layers of clearcoat running over and over it to try and smooth the surface enough to screen print it.   Screen printing turned out OK, but the white paint I have has more of a tack like consistency than a paint like consistency and makes white ink prints look "worn".  Which is fine by me, but its just something to note.

The other issue is regarding the tube itself.  I used a socket for this, but tried to find some way to have it installed so that it wasn't sitting on top of the enclosure, but was peeking out.  Somewhere close to the height of the knobs.  This took a couple attempts with l-shaped brackets and washers as spacers, but I was able to mount something in the side to make it look OK.  I think next tube based pedal I try, I'll just mount on top of the enclosure or just have it hidden inside.


DARK MATTER
The next project I was trying to work on is a work-a-like of a prototype pedal created by Death By Audio.  It is the little know Evil Filter prototype, it is basically 2 pedals in 1.  A fuzz with 6 way clipping selection, and an active filter. So I've taken the BYOC mouse, which has a 6 way clipping switch and the Madbean Weiner Wah and put them together to try and see how it works. This is what we have to work with thus far:

The first thing you've probably noticed is that it looks like it's on a piece of cardboard. Yes it in fact is, I find that this allows me to drop it into the final enclosure when I have gotten on the wiring done somewhat tidily.  I already have an idea for the artwork so it allows me to map out where things will go to verify them fitting in.

So now that we've seen the messy gutshot, here is how I see it when I look at it.  I need to finalize the spacing issues and all, but below is what I want it to look like in the end. I'm calling it Dark Matter, I built this pedal for Mary and am looking forward to getting it printed drilled and up and running.
 
I'm thinking Red on Black would look really cool since it already has the Red LEDs.