DIY Custom FX Pedal Board

[FrankenWashie]

Sounds like you have some interesting projects on the go there mate.

Yeah we have a lot on between she and me and little madam, it all keeps me out of trouble.

[Dedman]

I built a board today, somewhat different ................no completely different to yours Doc. I didn't have a plan, just a pic in my head that I'd seen online. I'll be sanding and distressing it tomorrow to match my speaker cab, will post pics then.

[DrNomis_44]

I built a board today, somewhat different ................no completely different to yours Doc. I didn't have a plan, just a pic in my head that I'd seen online. I'll be sanding and distressing it tomorrow to match my speaker cab, will post pics then.

Cheers, looking forward to checking out the pics of your pedal board mate.

[DrNomis_44]

A good mate of mine phoned me up earlier this afternoon to let me know that a few more of my pedals had been found at uni (they had been packed away during last year's Christmas Holidays), anyway my mate said that he'd drop the pedals off at my place, the pedals are my two Tonebenders, my Chaos Fuzz, and my Jimi Hendrix Wah, I'd go and pick them up from Uni this week but I'm out of money for a bus ticket or Taxi Fare, anyway, will be adding the two Tonebenders (a MkI and a MkII) to my Pedalboard after they've had a new paint finish.


I don't know if any of you know about it, but last year Dunlop, the makers of the recent Fuzz Face re-issues, released a new Fuzz Face model called the Band of Gypsys Fuzz Face, this model is based on the one Jimi Hendrix was using during his Band of Gypsys era, it's basically a Red Fuzz Face with white control knobs, but as far as I've been able to understand from what I've read online, the Band of Gypsys Fuzz Face uses a totally different circuit to the standard Fuzz Face, it is based on the Roger Mayer Octavia and Axis Fuzz, so, since I'm a big Hendrix fan, I'm seriously thinking of building one.


Just been doing some re-organizing of the block-diagram for my pedal signal-chain on my Pedalboard, and here's what I came up with:




I'm going to be building the FX Looper pedal this coming Tuesday after buying what I need from my local Jaycar Electronics shop, after I'm sure that everything is working right, I'll be using the Pedalboard to finish off doing the Doc's Blues demo I started earlier this year, the demo will be featuring the sounds I can create with the pedals on my Pedalboard and the Gold Strat.


The main purpose of the Blue Looper is so that when I'm switched to the Vintage FX path on the FX Looper pedal, I can switch out any pedals that have integral buffers in them, such as the Compressor Sustainer, Pitchblack Tuner, TS-808, and the Blues Driver, this ensures that there is an un-buffered signal going to all my vintage-style FX pedals in the Vintage signal path.

[keloooe]

Hey Nomis, why is the tuner in a loop when it will mute the signal when engaged?

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Nomis, why is the tuner in a loop when it will mute the signal when engaged?

It's mainly because the Tuner contains buffers in it, the Compressor/Sustainer also contains buffers, I was trying to figure out how to remove them temporarily from my signal-chain while I had my vintage-style pedals switched in, my Fuzz Face doesn't seem to like having a buffered signal going into it, putting both the Tuner and Compressor/Sustainer in a loop that can be switched in or out was the best solution I could come up with.

[Fretworn]

Wah pedal after the fuzzes, that's a bit unorthodox. They usually go right at the front of the circuit. And yes traditional fuzz circuits can't have any buffers in front of them. I think That Pedal Show did a whole show on pedal order and the effect of buffers on certain styles of pedals.

[DrNomis_44]

Wah pedal after the fuzzes, that's a bit unorthodox. They usually go right at the front of the circuit. And yes traditional fuzz circuits can't have any buffers in front of them. I think That Pedal Show did a whole show on pedal order and the effect of buffers on certain styles of pedals.

I had a good read of an article I found on the internet about Jimi Hendrix and the order in which he placed his fx pedals, as it turns out, Jimi Hendrix sometimes placed his Wah pedal before his Fuzz Face, and sometimes after his Fuzz Face, I found that when my Wah pedal was placed before my JD F-2 Fuzz Face (it's the round red pedal you see in the pics I've posted), I always got an oscillation effect when both the Wah and the Fuzz Face were on, I have tried modding my other Jimi Hendrix Wah pedal so it has an output buffer, and although it got rid of the oscillation, it changed the tone I got from the Fuzz Face, I have found that putting the Wah pedal after the Fuzz Face is a good compromise.


And yep I agree, putting a Wah after a Fuzz Face is a bit unorthodox and counter-intuitive, but I found that in my case it does actually work well enough.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


I finally got my Tonebender MkI and Tonebender MkII pedals back home from uni, plus my Jimi Hendrix Wah and another pedal called a Ray-Gun Chaos Fuzz, I'll definitely have to post a link to an audio Demo of it in the DIY FX Pedal thread for you guys cause the sounds it makes is a bit hard to describe, you really have to hear it to know what it does, might see if I can do a quick demo later on.