Mike's Pedal Thread

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 9:42 am

No worries, you did a great job on the design.

It's been clearcoated this morning, and I designed and built the circuit board last night. With any luck I should be able to get it in the post to you before I go to Glastonbury.

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:32 pm

And Empires' pedal is done also! I'm really happy with it as one of my first complete ground-up designs, albeit with Design Pointers from Empires himself.

Noirie. · Post by **Noirie.** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:36 pm

So modded saltbooster? looks sweet. What does the toggly do?

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:45 pm

It's actually an Overdrive/Distortion using the Saltbooster as a building block.

The toggle switch selects between Silicon and Germanium clipping. I would totally make a demo but it's getting on and I'm knackered (drove to and from my folks' for Father's Day today, did a bunch of work and finished this pedal) so I'm just wanting to CHILLAX. It sondz cool though, I'll build another and make a demo of it at some point.

The circuit topology is:

Salt pot as pre-gain control
Saltbooster
Clipping stage
Tone Control
Saltbooster
Master Volume control

I did an evening of work hashing out the design and getting it how I like it, particularly in Germanium mode it sounds pretty great. It's a vintage styled Garagey overdrive sound.

filtercap · Post by **filtercap** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:14 am

it's... it's... It's BEAUTIFUUULLLLL! >face melts off<

Mike.

MIKE.

I came home from another crushingly long day @ work, to find this waiting for me. Absolutely amazing. After ogling the finish, I went down to my half-lit basement to try it out. I... I think I ionized something. I can throw shadow puppets on the ceiling when this is on. LED sourced 100% to spec.

As for the rest -- with OD/distortion boxes it's generally a wrestling match to get them to sound anywhere in the neighborhood of what I'm after... with this one I had THE SOUND dialed-in in seconds. It'll take me a while to explore the range of sounds, not to mention combinations with different other pedals, but the 4-knob setup lends a lot of flexibility without even a "traditional" tone control... Tremendous job, sir. Looking forward to burning holes in things with this. Yeh.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:20 am

hahahaha

those pictures made me roffle at work. You spec'd bright as hell so that's what you got. Expect VISTORS FROM OUTER SPACE.

I'm really glad you like it, I was chuffed with that one, great design work on your behalf and that FuzzFace design is so great sounding.

filtercap · Post by **filtercap** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:45 am

Mike wrote:You spec'd bright as hell so that's what you got. Expect VISTORS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Indeed I did, and you did not disappoint! If the fuses blow late at night when I'm way way down in this labyrinth of a basement, I need no longer fear, for I HAVE MY FUZZ FACE TO LIGHT THE WAY. Between the metalflake, the art and the maaad light, madame filtercap thinks I'm a genius, which is exactly what you want to have happen when you acquire new gear. Chicks dig big diodes.

And thanks again to Benecol for setting me up with the template!

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:45 am

Mike wrote:It's actually an Overdrive/Distortion using the Saltbooster as a building block.

Tone Control

Sounds like a really interesting build. What exactly is/does the tone control do? I'm still a massive noob at using caps to shape tone.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 8:01 am

filtercap wrote:
Mike wrote:You spec'd bright as hell so that's what you got. Expect VISTORS FROM OUTER SPACE.
Indeed I did, and you did not disappoint! If the fuses blow late at night when I'm way way down in this labyrinth of a basement, I need no longer fear, for I HAVE MY FUZZ FACE TO LIGHT THE WAY. Between the metalflake, the art and the maaad light, madame filtercap thinks I'm a genius, which is exactly what you want to have happen when you acquire new gear. Chicks dig big diodes.

And thanks again to Benecol for setting me up with the template!

haha.. female appreciation of a new gear purchase is always great. Joanna thinks the Tiny Terror "looks cute but is stupid loud".
Benecol also got me to start building these FuzzFaces in the first person, so he's a lot to thank for.

Tim, I just messed about with a few tone control designs until I got one I liked, there are a few really good ones around, the Big Muff tone control is a good start point, and you can bring the mids back easily, there's 3 band EQs from various Amp designs, which you can tweak, this thing called the "Stupid Wonderful Tone Control" which has various different versions, I just breadboarded until I got something I liked. The caps and resistors are forming a series of filters effectively, try googling some of this stuff and I'm sure you'll find some decent reading material. In coupling, caps are basically just passing and blocking various parts of the signal, and similarly when dumped to ground are ditching elements of it, but things get really interesting when you combine them in tone filter networks.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 8:03 am

Check out these articles:
http://www.muzique.com/lab/main.htm
http://www.muzique.com/lab/dtone.htm
http://rkerkhof.ruhosting.nl/Taas/Mods/Big%20Muff.htm
http://amps.zugster.net/articles/tone-stacks
http://www.muzique.com/lab/swtc.htm
http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/I ... trols.aspx
http://www.pentodepress.com/tonestack/introduction.html

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 8:22 am

Awe-some! Fanks for those.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 8:23 am

No worries, it's just basically understanding the three different types of filters; low-pass, high-pass and notch and then their combination. I'm definitely not an expert by a LONG stretch and most of my stuff is picked up from experience with various circuits.

filtercap · Post by **filtercap** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:45 pm

They use the Stupid Wonderful for the "Filter" control on the Rat pedal, dunt thay? Or something like it?

haha... I actually typed liek instead of like. I have arrived.

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 4:22 pm

Mike, Saltbooster arrived to work today! Gonna give it a spin at practice this weekend adn I can't wait.

BTW, the Fuzzface you built sounds killer through this Princeton I've been playing with...like really amazing. So I'm gonna do some stacking with the saltbooster and fuzz.

This can run off the normal supply chain from my TU-2 right? I've been runing the Rangemaster by itself, but can it pair up in a chain with anything for power (fuzzface has it's own supply as does the TU-2)?

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 3:27 pm

The Saltbooster is a regular pedal and can be run with the TU-2 and any other "normal" pedals, and the FuzzFace and Rangemaster can be chained to EACH OTHER but to no other pedals.

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 3:37 pm

Mike, the Saltbooster is top notch man! It really kills.

It's actually made my Princeton my main practice/gigging amp for now. It pushes the the 10" hard and gets some awesome garage rock tones and when you stack the fuzz with it you get some just nasty stoner rock sounds.

Many thanks to you brotha!

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 3:39 pm

Nah thank YOU mate, I'm chuffed you like it. I'm going to build an identical one for my board shortly

Chicago Mike · Post by **Chicago Mike** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 3:42 pm

Definatley my most funcational pedal behind the old rat on my board.

Is it a clone of anything or just an original take off something?

Post by **Mike** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:46 pm

It's a mildly modified Electro Harmonix Linear Power Booster (LPB-1)

Empires · Post by **Empires** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:53 pm

Finally got the chance to plug in the Saltstorm tonight and it's more than I hoped for

The Si/Ge switch is a fucking delight

More people should have this pedal, not too many though

Well done, sir... Mission accomplished