DIY Effects Pedal Webpage Updated....

[duhvoodooman]

Just an FYI, for those interested in DIY pedals, I've updated my web page with the pedals I've made recently. The link opens a page with thumbnail photos that will display a larger version below when you "mouseover" them. If you click the thumbnail, it will open a separate page that gives a description of that particular pedal, along with the larger photos. Almost all of these are built directly from or based upon a commercially available kit. Give one a try!


http://www.duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/diy_effects_image_select.html

[Robert]

Wow, you've been working hard at documenting this! Awesome info!

Now, which pedal is YOUR favourite?

[Tone2TheBone]

Very slick my friend. Great effort, and the information on your pages will come in very handy.

[stingx]

Nice!

If you take requests I would love to see a cheaper build of this pedal. :pancake:

[duhvoodooman]

Now, which pedal is YOUR favourite?
Tough question! I'd eliminate the ZYS from consideration, since I sell those from time to time and my comments (though sincere) would be suspect because of my vested economic interest. Besides, I'll just let the endorsement of my ZYS customers speak for themselves--yours included, Robert. :AOK:

That one aside, I'd say it's probably a tie between the "Tone Triage" triboost pedal and the "Rabid Rodent" souped-up Rat clone. The Tone Triage is just such a flexible boost pedal, with 5 different boosted tones available. As I've said on the webpage, I'd never realized the full potential of a boost pedal until I built this one. And that tri-color LED is just too cool! :dude:

The Rabid Rodent is also very flexible, with the combination of two distortion modes, an overdrive mode, and even a "diode-lift" boost mode. So lots of tones on tap there, too. But its strongest feature is just that smooth, goes-on-forever sustain in the stock mode. This is may favorite tone among all my various distortion & fuzz boxes. Roll back the treble on your neck p'up and kick this puppy in, and you'll get that legendary Clapton "woman" tone like you can't believe. :rockon:

[sumitomo]

Oh No I feel some serious pedal G.A.S. comming on! Sumi:D

[SuperSwede]

Nice site DVM!

That rodent pedal would be my #1 choice too, I love rats.

[Bloozcat]

Great job, DVM...:AOK:

Now, that's a professional looking site!

Tell me about the E-Z Squeezy pedal. Do you like the additional features over the straight Ross Compressor clone?

There's only about two pedals that I feel I need to complete my board - a good phase 90 based on the MXR Script Logo model, and a good, clean compressor that adds as little coloration as possible to the tone (like the Ross or the Barber Tone Press). Of course, there's always the odd distortion/overdrive pedal if it has a unique sound, but that's not a priority with two OD pedals and a tube distortion pedal already on the board.

Anyway, excellent work DVM, both the site and the pedals you've done. You've come a long way in a short time. You deserve kudos for your efforts...big time!

[duhvoodooman]

My E-Z Squeezy is definitely a more subtle sounding compressor, very much in the Ross tradition. Not super-squishy, like some are, and not prone to introducing distortion, as many of that type apparently do. The Attack knob lets you control how quickly the compressor circuit does it's thing, both initially kicking in and then releasing as the note fades. Seems fairly useful. I haven't tried one of the new 5-knob versions, but I've heard the Blend contrlo (ratio of wet vs. dry signal) is pretty cool, but that the Tone control doesn't do all that much.

BYOC makes a nice script Phase 90 clone, BTW. I souped mine up, but I use it in script phaser mode about 95% of the time. Between that & the compressor kit, you could fill those two holes in your board. He also offers an "optical compressor" that's supposed to be even more transparent than the Ross clone. Haven't heard that one, though.

[Bloozcat]

That Phase 90 clone looks like exactly what I'd want. The script logo effect, with a little extra. Simple & effective.

The Opti-Comp sounds about right too. I'm really looking for the evening out of the volume without any excessive coloration. On the site they say this pedal does this well, if not better than the others out there, but it can still generate some squish should I desire that.

Well, I have enough projects for the time being. But, when the sleigh bells start ringing later this year, maybe the long suffering Mrs. Santa will step up and deliver them. :)

[mrmudcat]

Looks almost like ya know what your doing;) :whatever: :beer: :master:

[tot_Ou_tard]

The optical compressor sounds similar to the Diamond Comp. I got a good deal on an old spec Diamond Comp. It's very transparent.

The killer is the the tilt EQ on it. Very musical.

http://www.diamondpedals.com/products/compressor.html

Vood, the mousing over thumbnails is cool, but I have a hard time not dragging my mouse across other thumbnails as I try to get to the scroll bar to look at the larger picture. I gave up trying to look at the pedals.

[duhvoodooman]

The optical compressor sounds similar to the Diamond Comp. I got a good deal on an old spec Diamond Comp. It's very transparent.

The killer is the the tilt EQ on it. Very musical.

http://www.diamondpedals.com/products/compressor.html

Vood, the mousing over thumbnails is cool, but I have a hard time not dragging my mouse across other thumbnails as I try to get to the scroll bar to look at the larger picture. I gave up trying to look at the pedals.
Yeah, I love the mouseover effect, but it can be tricky to use for the reason you state. That's why I set it up so that you can also click on the thumbnails and open a separate page with that pedal. Give that a try, Tot...

[Ch0jin]

You've got some cool stuff there!

I've only built four to date, with a couple more about to get started soon so I dont have the build bug anywhere near as bad as you clearly haha.

I noticed (i think) somewhere you mentioned you start with BYOC kits. I've had to ban myself from looking at their kits (I still stalk the forums though) as they dont sell outside the USA so I can't get them. I REALLY wanted their BMP clone, the one with the rotary switch. Ah well, at least GGG and smallbear ship to us, so thats where my current kits came from :)

[duhvoodooman]

I noticed (i think) somewhere you mentioned you start with BYOC kits. I've had to ban myself from looking at their kits (I still stalk the forums though) as they dont sell outside the USA so I can't get them. I REALLY wanted their BMP clone, the one with the rotary switch. Ah well, at least GGG and smallbear ship to us, so thats where my current kits came from :)
The BYOC kits are very, very good, if a bit on the expensive side. However, I've only built a couple of their full kits. The original ZYS (the yellow one) started as their Overdrive kit, but then I modified the design extensively and had to go to a bigger enclosure. The ONLY pedal on that page built straight from a BYOC kit is the Tone Triage tribooster.

What I usually do is buy the PCB from the kit maker and then source my own parts directly from Mouser, Small Bear, Pedal Parts Plus, etc. The Rat clone, phaser, compressor and Banshee Plus overdrive were all built that way, using BYOC boards, which are super-high quality. This method typically reduces the total cost by about 30% or so, as long as you order parts for multiple pedals at the same time, to keep the shipping cost impact down.

I'm very familar with GGG as well. Most of the 2nd row of pedals on my web page are based on their products. The What Brown Can Do for You pedal is a direct build of their BSIAB2 kit, and the Fuzz Farm, volume swell and octave-fuzz pedals are all built on GGG PCB's with parts I sourced directly.

Both BYOC and GGG are excellent about making build info (bills of materials, schematics, assembly instructions) publicly available, which is great. I certainly wouldn't have the electronics knowledge to build these from scratch without that critical information.

[tot_Ou_tard]

Yeah, I love the mouseover effect, but it can be tricky to use for the reason you state. That's why I set it up so that you can also click on the thumbnails and open a separate page with that pedal. Give that a try, Tot...
Ah yes, very cool. Thanks!

[M29]

Man that is awesome how you have that setup and thank you for your time and effort to share your insight with us.:AOK:

M29

[jpfeifer]

VooDooMan,

That's a fantastic site!
I have tried to build some of my own effects in the past when I had more time to work on stuff like this. I bought a book by Craig Anderton many years ago that had some instructions for building a few things like this. I love this kind of stuff.

You did a first-class job of documenting all of these. Maybe this will be your new career, building high quality effects!

I also like your website.
How do you like that Nashville Telecaster? I've been thinking about getting a real Tele someday.

-- Jim

[duhvoodooman]

Thanks, Jim. I appreciate you--and everybody else's--kind & encouraging words. It's safe to say that I have more than a few hours invested in my website, so always nice to see that the effort is noticed.

Re: the Nashville Tele, I like it very much. Tele tones with Strat flexibility is how I'd describe it. About the only thing missing in stock form is that characteristic Tele bridge-neck combo sound, but with a push/pull pot installed that lets me add the bridge pickup in parallel with any combination of the other two, that's only a knob-pull away now. :rockon: