No 20 – Chorus

A Little Angel Corus. Made for my niece for her 14th birthday.

I used the birthday edition, which includes:

1. Latch up fix. The PT2399 chip, on which the Little Angel is based, is known to lock up. This small circuit takes care of the problem. However, I have some chips that keeps locking up no matter what. If you are struggling with this – try to find another batch of PT2399s.

2. Capacitors between pins 9-16 are increased (3- to 10-fold). I used the original 1 and 10 nF initially, but got a nasty distorition and hiss. Increasing the values solved this issue, but the wet signal was also a bit darker.

I also made some small modifications:

1. Decreased R18 (10K from pin 14) to 4.7K to have a bit more wet signal in the mix.

2. Pots decreased to 100K and 50K for depth and speed respectively. This gave, in my opinion, more control and a more useful range.

3. A chorus/vibe switch. Cutting the dry signal gives a vibe-sound, although a bit dark (as mentioned above).

The PT2399 chip is known to have some lock up issue. I included mictesters fix for this, but it didn’t solve the problem. Waiting for new chips, which might be a solution.

The 1590B enclosure was etched (press’n peel + NaOH) . It got a bit crowded – gut shot.

No 19 – Tube Overdrive

A LPB-1 Booster and a Valvecaster.

I settled for the LPB after having tried a Java boost. The noise level was high for the latter, a problem I couldn’t solve. Apparently I’m not the only one: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=33180.0.

With the stock 2N5088 transistor the gain was a bit too high making the boost difficult to control. I finally included a switch to select between 2N5088 and 2N2222A (lower gain).

The valvecaster was made without modifications.

The box was designed by a artist friend, who knows what I like. 🙂

No 18 – Overdrive

The legendary Klon Centaur.

Just one modifcation: a switch to select between silicon or germanium diodes for two clipping sounds.

I like it, no dout, but I keep hearing myself asking; What’s the fuzz all about?

This box was a nightmare to paint as the paint kept wrinkling for some reason. I had a pickguard leftover lying aroud which made a nice face plate. The knobs were labelled with professional rub-ons and clear coated. It all turned out quite OK in the end.

No 17 – Delay

An Echo Base with all mods I could find.

Modifications:
– Infinity: When pressing the second foot switch the echoes increases infinitely with a nice distortion.
– Tails: If turned on the last echoes rings out even after stomping the bypass foot switch.
– Mod: The effect has a delay modulation feature, which makes it possible to vary the delay time and depth even more and to dial in some really weird sounds. The switch turns the modulation off.
– Shape: Lets you change the wave form of the low frequecy oscillator (LFO) of the mod part – from triangle to square.
– Humbucker/single coils: Two switches are mainly for reducing the risk of distortion when using humbuckers.

The enclosure was built from scrap, painted in transparent red and labeled with custom made rub-ons.

No 16 – Delay

Rebote delay.

Some one wanted something special for a birthday gift (one year late).  The birthday boy turned out to be quite famous. Guess who!

Didn’t have time to try out any mods except for an inifinity foot switch. Liked the orignal a lot though. Simpler than the echo base – in a good way.

Photo etch and transparent red again. It’s addictive!

No 15 – Overdrive

Formula 5 – tweed sounding overdrive.

No mods on this one. But I must admit it was supposed to contain a blend circuit (wet/dry), but I had to throw it out. Sounded awful.

The enclosure was etched (press-n-peel + NaOH), etched areas were painted black and then I sprayed the whole enclosure with transparent red. I’m quite happy with the result. Very candy apple-ish. I think I’ll never do anything else from now on.

No 14 – Booster

A Rangemaster style booster. Based on a genuine Mullard OC44 transistor. Modifications: Pull down resistors added to prevent popping when switching the effect on and off. Tone control. A six way switch selects different input capacitors. Goes from extreme treble to full range, with the original rangemaster setting in the middle.

No 13 – Booster

 A Rangemaster style booster. Based on a russian germanium transistor (GT308V), well known for its extremely low leakage. Sounds great. Modifications: Pull down resistors added to prevent popping when switching the effect on and off. Tone control. All the way to the left it is a treble booster as the orginal Rangemaster. Moving clockwise widens the range (more bass).

No 12 – Overdrive

A BSIAB 2. Made for a friend with marshall stacks in mind.

Modifications:
Contour knob. For some more tone variations.
The mode switch changes these variations even more, by replacing and jumpering capacitors after the tone control.
Couldn’t choose between J201, MPF102 and 2N5457. Ended up with a switch. Stage 1: 2N5457s, stage 2: 2N5457s or MPF102s and Q5: J201.

My best etch. This was done with postive photo resist spray and I doubt I could ever have done it this clean with press-n-peel.

No 11 – Fuzz

Big Muff (green russian version).

Modifications:
Mid control. Allows me to take more control over the mids, but the characteristic mid cut sound can still be dialed in.
Gain mods. Two switches allowing jumpering emitter resistor and increasing 10K resistors to 15K. That’s the creamy dreamer mod.

The enclosure was first etched and then sprayed painted black. The inititial idea was to dull all but the etched ares with 3000 grit sandpaper. Hovewer, since I used FeCl3 to etch this one, the etched areas were too uneven for it to look good.