random projects: part 1

Pickup Simulator:

This little "pedal" was made to help me create and tweak new circuit designs. It allows me to plug in an ipod to it with clean guitar riffs and rhythms and this unit changes the tone and impedance to make it sounds like it's coming from a guitar pick up. So now I can tweak and create without having a guitar on my lap with one hand strumming and the other swapping parts. Hopefully it will expedite that very time-consuming part of building effects.

Circuit Design Rig:

This unit is essentially all that I need to create and modify effects. I build the circuits on the 'breadboard' and then the pink unit is basically a pedal without an actual circuit so I plug my guitar into the input, it goes through whatever I have on the breadboard, and then the output goes to an amp.

the crunchy creme

So this is a pedal I built for my band mate, Steven Wesley Guiles. The name idea came from a moment of inspiration at the NAMM show last year. I was walking around with a friend and we passed by a Krunchy Kreme ice cream vendor. For some reason it popped in my head that Krunchy Kreme would make a cool pedal name. Fast forward to now... done.

The Crunchy Creme.

This pedal has a ton of "flavors". (pun intended) There are technically (3) different effects in this beast. The 'crunch' is a circuit modified from a Fulltone OCD. The 'creme' is a modified Ibanez Tube Screamer TS-808. And the 'boost' is a MXR Microamp Clean Boost. The OCD has its stock LP/HP filter switch and the Tube Screamer has an additional 'fat boost' switch as well as a diode clipping switch that yields (4) different colorations of distortion. There is also a DBS (dying battery simulator) knob which allows the user to dial down the voltage to simulate a dying battery. This was a common "mojo" trick back in the 60s/70s. Some guitar guys like Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman swore by almost dead 9Vs. They claimed the dying batteries 'sweetened' the tone. Lastly, on the back is a bypass buffer switch so the user can toggle between true bypass and a buffered bypass.

customary guts shot. :)

You'll probably notice the little "thing" by the word "Ice". This was a courageous but stupid bug that decided to check out my artwork while the epoxy clear coat was drying and curing.

billiards and lap steels

This is a project I did about 6 months ago. I saw a little tutorial online at Instructables, and I knew I had to do it. In fact, between my pedal parts stock and old stripped down guitars, I had everything I needed except the actual case.

So here it is... a lap steel guitar made from a pool cue case.

closes up nicely, just like the original case did. The only difference on the outside now is addition of the tuners and a few screws.

Between the two bridges (nut/saddle) is a piece of MDF board that I painted black and then painted on measured fret markers to make it easier to find accurate pitch.

tuning machines. I only used (3) strings because I feared that anymore would create too much pull tension and would cause intonation problems at best and potentially cause the whole thing to eventually fold in on itself.

I used a bridge pickup that I no longer use from an old Fender Tele'. the nut and saddles are pieces of dowel rod with a fret that I dug out from an old cheap guitar.

I ended up using mandolin strings because they were perfect for it. The length was a better fit than guitar strings and the loop at the end made it easy to mount them to the bridge with a couple screws.

strength, frustration, and patience (re-post from my facebook note)

"... guilty people, who's own strength is their God." Habakkuk 1:11b

That verse resounded in me this morning. I feel like this is a problem that I struggle with at a very root level of my psyche. The habit has been so engrained that I often don't even think about it. I should be using God as my own strength, but instead my own strength serves as my god.

I feel like I have so much and so little to write about. This is the first journal entry since coming home from summer camp. It's funny cause I was so motivated to come back and talk to people about what I learned and how God was working in my life, but at the same time, I wasn't motivated to continue writing and staying vigilant with daily devotions. I suppose I could throw out the excuse that camp gives people the unique freedom of spare time which seems to be becoming more and more of a commodity these days. But that excuse is filled with laziness and self-seeking. It's not that the "daily grind" voids us of spare time. It is simply a matter of priorities.

"though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crops fail and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The sovereign Lord is my strength." Habakkuk 3:17-19a

Habakkuk is sort of my "goto" passage when I'm feeling frustrated with my lack of wisdom in knowing God's plan for the world and for my life. I think every Christian, at some point, needs to be reminded that God should be praised at ALL times, even in times of peril. Those times of trial and tribulation are for a purpose. God tells us in 1 Peter that

"in all this you greatly rejoice. though now, for a little while you may suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

I want to jump to the conclusion and throw out the "everything happens for a reason" statement, but I feel like it's not that simple. That there is another element to this. Not everything has a purpose, but everything, good and bad, is the result of the choices that we, as humans, make in our God-granted free will. But furthermore, we shouldn't just take these trials in stride, but should learn from them.

Simply put... something can be learned from anything.

fun with guitar mods

Along with building stuff, I like to modify things too and see if I can make them better (or cooler looking).

Like these guitars, for example...

I call this the 'burn victim mod'. Tried to simulate what it would look like if I made it out of a burning building, but felt the urgency to go back inside for my guitar.

some toggle switch wiring for different tonal changes.

This is the guitar that my friend, Drew (Walsh Guitars) built for me. He did all the construction of the guitar and I did the electronics. You can see more of his work at Walsh Guitars -or- Walsh Guitars Blog

the O.G. multi-FX pedal board

Part 1: the beginning

So this project started out as (2) effects in a 5" x 4" aluminum enclosure. It was going to be a Red Ranger EQ Booster and Green Ringer Octave pedal. I was going to do one side red and the other green and call it the 'Christmas Bonus'. Then I found an old car stereo amplifier that I no longer use and started dreaming up something a little bigger with (4) effects: Delay, Tremolo, Chorus, and Overdrive. That model remained nameless. Then I found an old single space audio rack EQ that my friend Pete gave me to gut for parts. The dream got slightly bigger. Now I had room for (3) different distortions and (3) modular effects.

... then one day I was staring off into space looking at my audio gear rack and the steel pull out shelf caught my attention. I pulled it out, removed the rails, and set it on the ground. What I had in front of me was something that sort of looked like a pedal board but was made entirely out of steel. Sparks started to fly in my head and light bulbs were turning on like floodlights. "I could fit so much stuff in this thing." My thoughts were racing. Eventually, I ended up with (4) overdrive/distortions, (4) modular effects, (4) secondary effects, and several other bells and whistles.

Part 2: the journey

I knew this project was going to need a lot of planning. I never imagined it would be as much as it was. The whole project took approximately 8 months to complete, working most weekends and evenings that I didn't come home dog tired from work. probably 5 of those months was in planning and preparation. Figuring out which effects to use, making all the PCBs, putting together parts lists and ordering all the parts, doing the graphic design work, etc, etc.

The board you see in these photos is actually Version 2.0. Version 1.0 looked pretty much the same, except the main part of the enclosure was black instead of silver and there were some significant changes in the guts. After much trial and error with the graphics and paint, I eventually ended up hard sanding all the paint down to the bare steel which is what you see. The graphic adhesive paper stuck much better and the clear coats came out much cleaner.

Once I had Version 2.0 completed, it still needed something. It still looked very much like a DIY project. It was at this point that I decided to make the wood siding piece. They were simply cut from pinewood and stained with a Pecan wood varnish. I also add the steel "U" rings on the front and when all was said and done, it looked pretty legit.

Part 3: the present

Even though I'm still building pedals and using them in my rig, this unit remains the staple of my setup. It has served me quite well.

The O.G. in completed form.

(4) modular effects: Delay, Tremolo, Chorus, and Phaser

(4) Distortion Effects: Tube Screamer, EH Big Muff, Fuzz Face, and ProCo Rat

(4) Secondary Effects: Red Ranger EQ boost, Green Ringer Octave, Orange Squeezer Compressor, and MXR Microamp Clean Boost

Graphic Logo. Because of the name, I wanted to put some of the original gangsters on the logo. So making their way on to the beat up old strat are Al Pacino as Tony Montana, Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro from Goodfellas, and John Dillinger.

The Guts. Not nearly as pretty as the outside. Although Version 2.0 is much cleaner than 1.0 because in 2.0, I made the little PCBs for each of the stomp switches and I re-did the wiring in a way that was cleaner both visually and aurally.

This is the Orange Squeezer Compressor PCB. Each circuit has a modular wiring harness so all I have to do is unscrew the knobs and disconnect the harness and I can remove it for troubleshooting or replacement with a different effect.

I added a standard A/B Switcher for an external tuner. This keeps the tuner from adding any color or noise to the signal chain.

This is the output mode switch. Live mode routes it through the main 12 effects. Studio mode route the final output through an amplifier simulator circuit so you can plug it into a computer for direct recording. Silent mode routes the signal through the amp simulator and then through a headphone amplifier which then send the signal to a separate 1/8" headphone jack on the back of the board.

Each effect has a separate input and output jack which are arranged on the back like a patchbay. This allows the user to put the effects in whatever order they want as well as opens the option to add in external pedals to any point in the signal chain. Also, if the user has an FX loop I/O on their amp, this setup would allow him to plug the distortion effects into the input and then run the modulation effects separately through the FX loop.

introduction

Hello. My name is Jeff. I like to build things. I also think about stuff from time to time. I setup this blog to share with you some pieces of my life in both of those areas. Hopefully you will find them interesting.