Bringing it all home: the reason for blackcraft

When I was first learning about pedals I was intrigued by Oliver Ackermann's Armageddon.  No doubt you could tell because of my cloning of his artwork. Over the course of my time messing around populating other people's PCBs i've taken some time to try and breadboard various designs all thanks to my good friend Micah over at Glass Hero.  To him i owe very much as he has been patient with me and dropped tidbits of information for me to learn from.

So after thinking about it for a long time, I've decided to try and build the original 7 transistor fuzz war.  this has reportedly given many people problems. Without knowing what they've done wrong I've decided to take a stab at building one myself.

I've got the schematic in hand and I've got some experience playing around with reverse transistor setups and have figured what the heck...

Here is the infamous 7 transistor schematic most people have probable seen. The starting point...

I've seen both this and the armageddon v1 pedal and they are based around the same circuit but have a couple notable differences.

Here is what I've re-drafted to identify stages and a more suitable looking schematic for me to follow.

And here it is on the breadboard...

Ahh but then there is the issue of variability, using some OEM motorola 2n5089s and the boost stage has huge sputtering issues...

This is probably the issue that others have run into.

Filter filterrrr

Working on a filter from another pedal and trying to figure out just how it works. Here is the schematic,

ANd here is my attempt to use the tone stack calculator

Prototype planning for my Amp in a box "solution"

I believe I have picked out two of the circuits which I'd like to serve as channels for my "Amp in a box Solution".  The Thunderbird and the Brittania from Runoffgroove as provided by 1776 Effects.

I accidentally ordered a large Hammond Enclosure, but would like to test out the functionality and placement of the effects.

A while back i purchased a plastic enclosure from radioshack and i'm thinking of using it as a testing box of sorts. I thought I read something about having a grounding issue with it on Beavis Audio a while back, but since it has been taken down I can't see it.  I have the templates ready to drill the box, but I still think I need to do a bit more planning.

Sunking II

Alrighty folks, here is some sort of Klone from Madbean.  If I understand correctly, it is based on the Klon, but it has been upgraded with some modifications.

I thought I would challenge myself and try the "I'm a glutton for punishment" modification.  Which allows for the choice between buffered and true bypass switching.  I don't have enough pedals or cable length to really be able to hear the difference at this point.  But perhaps it is good that I can't hear the difference :).

It sounds pretty cool, I have another Klon circuit that i need to try and build.  Once again I've gone with the Black/White/Red color scheme.   The White paint is kind of runny, and i believe that some of the blemishes on the glass i use to hold down the image on the screen during the photo emulsion process.  I need to refine that part of the process...

Process Pictures from the Forever Zero

There has been interest in how I created this enclosure.  I think next time I might try THREE LAYERS MWAHAHA.  I'm not sure if that is warranted or not though.  Anyways, below are two snapshots of the initial power point files and how I worked with them.  This first issue highlights one of the critical flaws I made.  The yellow and green highlighted ares are that of the actual PCB.  I just used a crude shape for the ZP Mini since the actual PCB has more indentations in it at the top, but it was just to get an idea. So this worked out excellently for viewing the horizontal spacing and where I would need to put the knobs, however you can see that I didn't include the dimensions of the input and output jacks.  Just looking at the yellow area, you can tell that it is too close to the top of the encosure.

The next step after the design was completed was to separate the "color layers".  On the far right is the finalized product, but i separated the two layers on the right hand side.  This is just making whichever colors you want "BLACK" so that they aren't effected by the light sensitive emulsion.  I usually try to make the image the colors I want first to get an idea and then convert it back to Black and Clear.  In this case, since the gold is the perimeter of the Reverb Knob, and looks to be on top of the white bands on the left hand side, I logistically decided that it would be layer 1.

Layer 1 also included the horizontal bar at the top so it made it a little bit easier for me to lineup with the enclosure, although sometimes it can still be tricky.

And here is the messy screen.  I was nervous about how it would come out at first, it is damn well near the worst "at-a-glance" looking screen I've made, but I can't argue with the end result.

My first multi-pedal::Forever Zero

Forever Zero...same color scheme as the moaj.  It is two madbean pedals in one, a delay with modulation and then a nice reverb.  Together they make a nice combination.  later on I'd consider adding an effect loop, but for the time being i just left it as is.  I used a white dc jack and a white baseplate to make the enclosure really pop.  I'm not sure about the gold knob, but I have a white knob coming along the way.

Double Channel...maybe. Oh and updates

Alright so furthering the quest for an "All-in-one" amp in a box solution.  I thought about incorporating the 100W Marshall Superlead (ROG Thunderbird) and the Vox AC-30 (ROG Britannia) amp simulation circuits into a single box with a footswitchable channel switch.  This is what I'm thinking of at the moment.

I built the Thunderbird and the have the Britannia next in queue, but I've been wondering the best way to go about it.  Should I have an A/B channel box with both amp circuits in it, Or should I dedicate each to an enclosure and then build an AB looper pedal. I'm trying to reduce the number of pedals that I'd need to pull out in front of me to play.

If possible I'd even like to incorporate the speaker cabinet simulator into the pedal as well as.

For all intents and purposes I'd like to get both amp emulators, an effects loop with blend control, and cabinet simulator/DI box as well.  But we'll see, one logical step at a time :)

Updates:
I'm working on another multi-effect unit.  Unlike the Rat/Cocked Wah project that was seen in an earlier post which never made it to an enclosure.  This one I'd like to combine a delay and a reverb pedal into one, with the delay before the reverb.  Maybe an effects loop in there too.  I'm under the current impression that reverb would almost always come last in my effects loop, but that is subject to change I suppose.