Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Productivity!

I've had an oddly productive week. I've built a grand total of 3 working pedals.
The CA3080A from China finally came in, and after strapping it into my BYOC 2-knob compressor, it fired right up! It sounds good, to say the least. Not quite as transparent as I might like, but really good overall. The best part is it makes my chorus pedal much more usable, it's not as plinky and tinny as before. I also finished the DAM Meathead clone. It's pretty good, but not amazing. It's not quite a fuzz, and not quite a distortion. It sounds absolutely wonderful on the low strings, though.  Not sure if this one's going to get boxed or not, but if it is, I'm going to put a JFET blend circuit in to blend back some of the high end. I may also try slapping a 100nf cap on the input, but I'm afraid it'll be too dark.
I just ordered some GT313 Soviet mil-spec germaniums from mother Russia. Three will go into a VERY nasty fuzz pedal I'm building for a friend, and hopefully another three will go into a Buzzaround. I'm hoping I get a nice range of gains. The Klon Buffer's done, and that's waiting on a box as well. I've actually ordered that box, and I'm a bit pissed that I haven't heard anything from PedalPartsPlus about it.
Things I'm thinking about building:
Vox Repeat Percussion clone
EHX Green Russian Muff with active blend....
Buzzaround.
The Rustler will rise as well.
The Cormpressor has many demons, and they must be exorcised. I'm not giving up that easily on this one. 
That's it, go home.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

First post.

RIGHT THEN. Here we go. I finished the Klon Buffer on Tuesday, and now it's waiting for an enclosure. Sounds amazing, to say the least. Way better than the Cornish buffer, and a lot simpler. The only major difference was that I used a CA3260 for the dual opamp, because I had one lying around (thanks BYOC... i guess)I went with a 1590A-type box in Ford Blue, which should look relatively nice. The BYOC Comp that's been sitting on the bench is waiting for a new CA3080. I've got two on the way, one CA3080E from BYOC, and an original metal can CA3080A from eBay. When that comes, I should be able to fire that up. No word on how I'm going to finish it yet, I'm thinking just a paint pen and clearcoat will do. I might try waterslide decals, which might be fun. I've already drilled out the vero for the Vico Vibe, which should be a nice easy build, however I may also slap a boost circuit into that box too, for a bit of extra fun. After that, I'll build a proper pedalboard.