Invading Cannibal Ladybirds - Fuzz/Distortion/Delay

Is it a fuzz? Is it a distortion? Is it a delay? No it's an Invading Cannibal Ladybird..... Hmmm.

Here is the schematic for a crazy device I knocked up on breadboard. It's a Cannibalization of the Parallel Universe from eaced.com, the big muff tone control and the lofi delay created by Allesz for last months circuit competition. It's a truly unholy circuit and creates all sorts of screaming, oscillating, feedbacking (is that even a word!?), beeping, buzzing and whooshing sounds.

Some of the values need tweaking and it could do with an output buffer but for what it is it's great, just pure fun noisemaking - it's almost a synth. The gain control for the fuzz section is the volume knob on your guitar  Add some modulation to the delay time (sequencer? LFO?) and you have a really crazy beast..

Build it up and have some fun - just don't expect any Stevie Ray Vaughan tones from this thing, cause it eats tubescreamers for breakfast

The circuit name comes from this thread/article I found the other day: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=15718

Mad Professor - Deep Blue Delay

Here is another Mad Professor pedal, one of the designs which has garnered the most interest around it. Well, it's been gutted and reverse engineered. Unfortunately there is nothing new in the design - it's a pretty standard PT2399 design based off the Rebote Delay 2.5 but it does sound very good.

Here is the schematic and project file (http://www.madbeanpedals.com)

Here is the ProGuitarShop youtube demo of the Deep Blue Delay;

If you fancy a challenge here's a vero layout by Nocentelli, go on - have a pop!

Here is the thread at freestompboxes.org - http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=713

How did you make that Reverb?

In my previous post HERE I showed how I'd turned a Behringer RM600 Reverb Machine from useless to great. After multiple requests; here is the schematic that I used for my switching and mixing sections:

As you can see I used a Super Hard On for the PreGain circuit and to buffer up the front of my mixer, three other opamp buffers are then used to isolate various parts of the signal chain with the final op amp being used to provide a stable 1/2 V bias point. Series low pass filters on the output of the reverb line help to greatly soften any noise produced by the reverb circuit (Which is running 100% wet). By running the preGain control high and using the two mix controls effectively there is basically no increase in noise while using the circuit at all (A great improvement). I'm very happy using this circuit for other projects as well, I'll be using it on a Behringer EM600 Echo Machine in the future. Have fun using this while rehousing all those bargain pedals into super cool (USEABLE!) effects :-)

How to turn a poor reverb into a very useful reverb.

FOR INFO ON HOW I DID THIS CHECK HERE!

I've been working on this for a few days now. I purchased one of these: http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/RV600.aspx, a Behringer RV600 Reverb Machine for a couple of quid. It's supposed to be a replica of the Line 6 Verbzilla pedal (more info on that one here: http://line6.com/tonecore/verbzilla.html) and it does a pretty good job of emulating it too. There are ton of very useful reverb tones to be had here. However, there was also 3 major problems with the stock unit:

1) The case was plastic and definitely not up to being trodden on for long!

2) The stock switching was useless. If you had trails on and the mix set below about 80% there was serious tone suck, if the mix was 100% wet and you turned the thing off it didn't pass your signal at all!

3) There was a noticable noise increase while using the pedal.

OK, so simple. A rehouse was in desperate need! I also decided to build up my own switching and mixing system around the pedal instead of trying to adapt the stock unit to perform how I wanted (It's all SMD so not ideal to take a soldering iron too!). 

The switching/mixing system I designed allows you to have trails on the switching but also to true bypass the unit. I added independent wet and dry level controls and a preGain control (I used a Zvex SHO as the preamp circuit) which controls the boost of the signal before it hits the front of the 'verb. The set up I produced, with the separate wet/dry level & preGain controls in combination with a few sneaky low pass filters, allows much lower noise operation than the stock single "mix" control present on the Behringer RV600. There is no distinct increase in noise between on and bypassed!

Below you can see what I eventually produced. Controls from left to right: PreGain, Wet Level, Dry Level, Tone, Decay, Delay, Mode.

Check out the neat custom Hammerite & Jackson Pollock paint job :-) On the left of the internal gutshot you can see my custom switching/mixing circuit. I'll be posting a schematic of my switching/mixing circuit soon so stay tuned if your going to be embarking upon any Behringer rehouses....

Next up the Behringer EM600 Echo Machine ;-)

P.S Thanks to SuperVelcroBoy for his heads up on things to look out for while rehousing Behringer stompboxes.

Way Huge - Aqua Puss Analogue Delay

Woooooo. Thanks to FSB we once again have a fresh project over at freestompboxes.org. The Way Huge Aqua Puss has, for a very long time, been the holy grail for analogue delay freaks. Well Joe Gore was kind enough to donate his to the cause and took some great gutshots which allowed a schematic to be formed......

It seems there is nothing new inside. It's a standard Boss DM-2 clone with top quality parts! Still a great project to get involved in though. Check the thread out here: http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4216

For a schematic, PCB and layout (Much thanks to Bajaman :-) check out his little project folder: http://freestompboxes.org/members/bajaman/Baja/Baja%20Wet%20Cat%20Analog%20Delay/

He calls his version the "Wet Cat" - build it, if you can find the ultra rare MN3005!

P.S On FSB right now there is a buy in of MN3005 chips so if you want one get down the freestompboxes forum and post up :-)

Delay Probe - Proximity Controlled Delay Pedal!

Yes, a proximity controlled delay. It is basically a Zvex probe circuit hooked up to a modified Rebote delay circuit - the vactrol from the probe circuit is hooked in parallel over the rebote's delay time control pot allowing you to take crazy control of this parameter!


Above you can see the prototype boards bundled together and wired up rather messily! Towards the bottom of the picture you can see the copper PCB antenna :-) You can get all sorts of sounds from it just by waiving your hand/foot/other auxiliary organs above the copper pcb board. Anything from wild pitch bends through to a soft chorus-y effect. It needs some tweaking but it's getting there! Expect more updates soon :-)