Effect Pedal building

[David Root]

Mark Huffman in Houston (markoparts.com) had been looking for a long time for the "secret" to the barcodes on older transistors like the example I showed earlier.

He just told me he has found transistors of the same type with the same mfr. and date code that have different colored bars on them. He thinks they must be only lot codes. If so, they are not significant, which explains why there's nothing on the web about them.

[David Root]

I built RG Keen's JFET Matcher, which uses a 741 IC. It measures Vgs cut-off voltage.

To quote Mr. Keen, "The matcher sets up a middle-of-the-power-supply voltage on the left side with two 10K resistors, and then a JFET and another 10K resistor to compare to the reference voltage. The opamp's job is to compare the two voltages and make the voltage on the JFET gate just right so it looks like a 10K resistor (same voltage and current) in this setup."

I tested 24 2N5485 and got five well matched sets of four each. Layout and pic of my actual tester attached. Tester looks like s**t but it works.

[dorrisant]

Check this out...

[IMG:766:432]http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad30 ... 506232.jpg[/img]

SD-1 modded to TS-9 with clipping diode selection, presence mod, and silver mica/metal film in the signal path.

[surfsup]

Awesome! Post of the month...

[Structo]

So is that a 1969 SS TS-9?

That is cool!

[tubeswell]

Check this out...

[IMG:766:432]http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad30 ... 506232.jpg[/img]

SD-1 modded to TS-9 with clipping diode selection, presence mod, and silver mica/metal film in the signal path.

Which bit d'ya stomp on?

[dorrisant]

There is a jack on the bottom. I plug in an old Fender switch and stomp on that. Also, a small momentary contact switch in parallel located under the back bumper does the same.

This one went to "Bobo", the guitar tech for Pop Evil...

[M Fowler]

Are you guys and Jana building or using effects pedal loopers?

Mark

[ampbldr2]

I built one from mammothelectronics. Not on my board yet but soon it will be.

[M Fowler]

Kool.

I'm still having an argument with myself about these.

On one hand I can see setting up different pedals in loops but on the other hand I think it isn't necessary for an average bar and barn player like me.

[dorrisant]

That is cool... nice looking! I need to go build a couple of these... been thinking about it for a while.

[M Fowler]

I want a sloped box for mine and longer so I can loop 6 or 7.

Anyone seen a long sloped metal box?

Mark

[M Fowler]

I decided to just build a looper so ordered up switches, leds, bezels, jacks and heavy duty enclosure to handle my big f*cking foot.

Mark

[M Fowler]

How the hell do you guys solder up all those small switches no wonder I stick to big finger projects. Well the looper is done and tried it out yesterday. Now to figure out a new custom board and what pedals I want in the looper. Also, I plan to build another box with buffer.

I could have designed this better but I was in a hurry or brain dead maybe both.

[dorrisant]

Found this little gem on TDPRI...
Ken Wanted one of these pretty badly... I have some old LM741s so no I HAVE TO build it!

"From the Listener archive: Features

March 13-19 2004 Vol 192 No 3331

Selling like Hot Cakes
by Chris Knox

Some of the world's finest guitarists swear by an Auckland musician's little invention.

Suburban Auckland. Leafy, quiet, a small, discreet house with a tidy but distinctive garden. Nothing too unusual.

Down the path at the side of the house to a tiny shed out the back … to be welcomed into an impossibly cramped cataclysm of outdated musical gear and long-forgotten electronic oddities that never quite got fixed. Teetering towers of circuitry and arcane instruments surround and threaten to crush the gentle soul whom you can dimly make out, bent over a nervous oscilloscope, soldering iron in hand.

Paul Crowther, formerly Emlyn in those far-off days when he was the original drummer of those spiky young radicals Split Enz, glances up, smiling in a way uniquely his and puts down what he’s doing to take care of your poor wounded delay pedal/bass amp/analogue synth/whatever.

Paul Crowther, a Class A boffin. Also a soundman, a still-bloody-fine drummer, father of three and husband of one. The latter being Jo, a charming hearing-challenged sprite of a woman, with a spine of steely stuff.

Question: how do you get from drumming in the Phil Judd-era Enz to having some of the finest guitarists in the world swearing by your Hot Cake?

Hot Cake?! Sorry, did I not mention the Hot Cake? Crowther invented the Hot Cake, which is a cool name for an ordinary old guitar distortion device, a fuzz box. Except it’s not ordinary, because Crowther figured out a way to distort the guitar’s sound (the way that everybody’s wanted it ever since Dave Davies scorched through his torn speaker on “You Really Got Me”) while retaining a big chunk of the undistorted sound at the same time. If you don’t know a Fender from a Ferrari, this may not mean much, but for those of us who lust for the superb dark-brown fury of a truly fine fuzz box, this Cake is some kinda Holy Grail.

Apart from the Enz contribution, this demure little pressed metal box is Crowther’s major claim to world fame. Virtually every big overseas band that comes to this country will have a local support act with at least one Cake in their on-stage kitchen. Upon hearing the creamy, monstrous noise that the locals are coaxing from their otherwise unremarkable guitars, the stars will make some polite enquiries and head back home with their own small precious boxes, more than likely bought from Crowther himself.

Thus the humble Hot Cake will front up with White Stripes, My Bloody Valentine, Pavement, Neil Finn, Lemonheads, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and God knows who else. Keith Richards’s guitar roadie bought two after hearing the Exponents use one; the GooGoo Dolls’ guitarist had one Velcro-ed to his effects pedal board within five minutes of being introduced to the beast; Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes had one substituted by his roadie in mid-set, found himself in overdrive heaven and never looked back; and Eddie Vedder bought one each for all the four or five guitarists who played on the famous Neil Finn & Guests Tour.

Brilliant!

But, hey, back to our burning question. What happened after he was made unconditionally redundant by the Enz?

Well, in 1976, that halcyon year of British Punk, he made his first Cake, physically built into Noel Crombie’s guitar. Then they fired him. Whether these two events are in any way connected is unknown. After returning home at the butt-end of ’76, he started building the funky little boxes for friends and the odd local shop, but spent most of his time working for Jansen as an electronic organ tech, a job that he had previously held before the Enz did their OE. In 1980, he helped found the Livesound hire firm and stayed there till 1990, when he left to mix live bands (including five years with the Mutton Birds) and bake a few Cakes on the side.

Then in early ’94, he had a phone call from an American woman on holiday whose son desperately wanted a Hot Cake. He had heard about them from a certain Henry Kaiser, not famous but a brilliant, unique player revered by your more adventurous guitarist, who had acquired one in New Zealand. It transpired that the gent with the mom was Ken Fischer, one-time brains behind the legendary Ampeg amps and currently regarded as a guitar tone guru. All he knew was the name and that it was made in New Zealand. Needless to say, Mom got the Cake and Ken loved it and gushed about it in his Vintage Guitar magazine column.

Suddenly the Hot Cake ($256 rrp) had stage cred. Orders poured in and Paul was a mail-order businessman.

Then, as a result of the same Fischer article, came interest from a major Japanese importer of boutique guitar equipment who has bought them on a regular basis ever since. Crowther pleads commercial sensitivity on actual numbers, but will confess to having exported “a few thousand” to date.

And now, in a small internal room off the kitchen in Paul and Jo’s house, safely away from the Shed of Impending Doom, husband and wife can be found assembling Hot Cakes, Paul doing the tricky bits and Jo the simpler tasks. They can’t build ’em fast enough!

Jim Anderton should give these guys a medal.

Or at least a bigger shed."

Just thought some of you guys might enjoy this as much as I did.

Tony