Effects Bay

Looking over various Pedal Line Friday submissions and many pro pedal board breakdowns, I’ve seen multiple ways to mark and record the settings on pedals. Usually, you see good old masking tape or gaffers tape on the pedals themselves. Sometimes you see mailing labels like Avery labels, etc. Often the tape leaves gunk behind and or tears depending on the age of the tape on the pedal. Avery labels are really hard to remove and can damage your pedals, etc.

I wanted to create something that guitarist could use but address these problems. I went in search of a sticker that sticks… but removes easily. It was a challenge to find something that once applied won’t move or shift on the pedal, but as soon as you want to remove it or replace the label with new setting values, would come off very easily. I believe we found a great solution to this problem.

I also wanted something that looked good. Not just hand drawn circles or simple check marks next to the knobs, etc. like you often see, but something that complimented the pedal nicely.  I created pre-defined formats that could be applied to various pedals including boutique styles, etc.

The label system is super easy. Look at your pedal and note how many knobs and if there is an appropriate label for that manufacturer. For example there is a Boss 4 knob version. You would use a Sharpie (or other permanent marker) and draw a line from the center point out to the edge (ruler makes it tight!). After your settings have been marked on the label remove it from the sheet and apply it to the pedal. If it’s not straight, no worries, it peels off, then re-apply.

If you have an odd-ball pedal, no problem, you can use single knob labels and apply those, or use another style. For example, MXR 3 knob will work for many of the 3 knob boutique pedal enclosures out there.

Another great feature is the ability to set multiple settings. You might need to track multiple settings on a single knob. Color markers could be used to identify the different preset needed.

So you’re thinking of labeling some pedals – how do you get your hands on these? I’m offering a label pack that will get you the following labels:

3 Ibanez 4 knob labels
3 Ibanez 3 knob labels
3 MXR Wide 2 knob labels
3 MXR 1 knob labels
9 MXR 2 knob labels
12 MXR 3 knob labels
9 Boss 4 knob labels
9 Boss 3 knob labels
6 Toggles labels
54 single knob labels

This should cover many of the average boards out there, and still have extra labels in hand. Having extras is the whole point. Next month, you don’t like your previous settings.. peel off the label add a new one. Simple.

You get all 111 stickers for only $9.95 + shipping! You can order by clicking the ‘Buy Now’ below. Shipping will be calculated via PayPal.

Looking forward to seeing some of these labels on upcoming Pedal Line Fridays!

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@mojosarmy sent me a tweet letting me know he posted a video where he modified his Dunlop GCB-95 Cry Baby to be true bypass. This is a great 2 part modification that I did to my wah a couple of years ago (I also changed the inductor, changed the pot to an ICAR taper pot and added a LED).

For those of you interested in tweaking pedals, this is a great project that covers a lot of the fundamentals and something that will definitely get your hands dirty. The first part of the modification is to replace the footswitch with a 3PDT footswitch. That will get your switching ready for the true bypass, but you must follow that up with the PCB mod. Changing the footswitch alone will NOT make this true bypass. That is because the signal is buffered in the circuit after the input signal. The goal is to route the input signal to the footswitch then back to the circuit. That is the second mod. The second modification involves cutting a trace on the board and hard wiring a lead from the board to the footswitch.

Mojo did a great job showing all the steps as well as explaining what all needs to be done. For further information, especially if you’re PCB board in the wah doesn’t look like Mojo’s, check out this GREAT page – True bypass for the Dunlop GCB-95 Crybaby That pages shows the trace cut on various revisions of the board (Rev F, G, H & I). Thanks Mojo for letting me know about your vid!

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The following is a guest post by Nick Williams of IHateBarreChords.com. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Guitarists from many musical genres – perhaps most notably the rock scene – have used to various effects to give their music a unique sound. Simple effects like distortion give rock music its distinct “crunching” sound – a non-musical friend of mine describes it as grinding metal – while “wah-wah” (popularized by Hendrix) and other odd effects do strange things to an electric guitar’s sound that can’t really be put into words. Finding out what the various effects sound like is easy enough, with some help from YouTube, but typically you need an electronic device called an effects pedal (or distortion pedal or some other variant) to achieve these sounds through your own playing

These pedals are often – though not always – pretty expensive. Their prices can rival that of the guitars themselves and this can make them seem somewhat inaccessible – at least in the short term. Being in such a situation personally, I was determined to find a way to experiment with all the possible effects while I saved up to buy a proper pedal and did quite a lot of digging to find a way to do so – though it wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected.

The first thing I needed (and that you need if you want to use a computer to mess around with effects) is a 1/4 inch to 3.5 mm jack – aka a little connector that lets you put the end of your guitar cable into one end and plug the 3.5 mm extension on the other side into the mic jack of your computer. In short, you’re routing your guitar signal directly into your laptop instead of running it through an amplifier*.

Next you’ll need a software application called Gnuitar. I’m a Linux user so I went looking for a cross-platform solution that works on both Windows and Linux (and I think Mac as well). It’s free and it requires no setting up whatsoever (other than selecting your effects). You just need to connect your guitar to your laptop (or any computer) as explained above and run the application. You’ll see a start button that will trigger the program to start outputting the incoming guitar signal through the speakers. Finally, you’ll notice a very diverse set of effects to choose from : (i)  two different distortion settings (ii) tremolo (iii) whammy (iv) wah-wah (v) reverb (vi) chorus and so on – plus some filters to help weed out any unwanted noise.

That’s it! Your computer now works as a distortion/effects pedal and all you need is a little 1/4 inch to 3.5 mm adapter that costs about one dollar and maybe an extra cable (see below). You can now mess around with all the cool effects you’ll be able to rock out to with an actual pedal (and hopefully be more motivated to save up and invest in one). I should point out that the software effects sound great but they don’t compare to an effects pedal dedicated to the purpose and it does sound pretty artificial when compared side-by-side with an authentic piece of quality gear. Still, it’s great for experimenting with different sounds and practicing when an actual pedal isn’t handy.

* You might need to run it through your amplifier before running it into the mic jack on your computer (thus requiring an extra guitar cable) depending on how strong (or not) the signal from your guitar pick-ups is (and the thickness of your strings). If you have to do this, be VERY careful to turn the amplifier up only as much as necessary so the software can pick-up the signal and process it. It’s very possible to damage your sound card by feeding it too much signal from the amplifier so use only as much as you need and you’ll be fine. You probably won’t even need to run it through your amp though.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it – and I hope my guide works for you. If for some reason you have trouble, you can email me at adminihatebarrechordscom and I’ll do my best to help you out. On that note, I’d love it if you visited my guitar forum or just checked out my website.

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For a while there, I was REALLY into working on pedals. Unfortunately, my work has really consumed my available pedal time, and that is something that is getting on my nerves, and something that will hopefully change soon. My bench is right next to my office, so I’m always reminded about how much I enjoy working on pedals for my music buddies out there. Working on pedals is very empowering. It’s a good feeling to ‘fix’ something … in this ‘throw away’ mentality these days. Once you know how to fix things, the requests start pouring in from friends with broken footswitches and wiring.

Then the next logical step is to build something. Probably from a kit but you might be get into breadboarding, etc. Playing with circuits is fantastic. Seeing cause-and-effect and being able to manipulate it by experimentation. Very cool. When you work with pedals one of the big challenges is sourcing parts. It can be a pain, especially if you’re working on vintage circuits and trying to find compatible values to those older schematics. Availability and pricing can be an issue too. Personally, I’ve been buying parts from several electronic sites, but it was really great to see Mammoth Electronics.

Mammoth Electronics is a great new site for providing pedal parts out there. They also offer kits and offer some services such as silk screening and enclosure drilling. I had a chance to send some questions to Blake, President of Mammoth Electronics:

What inspired you to start Mammoth Electronics?
Playing in numerous bands and the local studio scene, I was a gear-head and effects-junky from pedals to rackmount gear, and began trying to build my own pedals with alot of trial and error. I found that there was a tremendous amount of knowledge out on the web and in forums and blogs, but it was hard to find a parts source that was reliable, consistent and easy to navigate so I thought, “maybe i should do that.”

How long has Mammoth Electronics been in business?
It will be 2 years this December.

Where are you located? Is this a web shop only? Or do you have a brick and mortar presence as well?
We are centrally located in Oklahoma USA and we are not currently open to the public, but possibly one day. We shall see?!

What separates you from the other electronic component or pedal part outfits out there?
There are some great companies that are out there and each offers a unique selection of parts and knowledge. What we offer is a seamless and easy-to-navigate shopping experience with a large selection of enclosures, colors and drill-layouts as well as great sounding DIY pedal kits and all the supplies necessary to build high quality and great looking pedals. While we are geared toward the DIY guys and small-run manufacturers, we have a deep inventory to efficiently supply larger pedal, audio and amp manufacturers.  Consequently,  because of our bulk purchasing with suppliers, weare able to pass on the price savings to our smaller customers so everybody wins.

How is the world of DIY/MIY and boutique builds? Is the field growing and the demand rising?
The demand is there and growing. With knowledge and parts becoming more available, we are seeing a large number of new-to-the-market customers. Alot of guys want the experience of literally “building” and “crafting” their own sound. They want to put their signature audio circuit into a box that they can customize with paint color, knobs and artwork and put on display for others to see and hear. It’s a satisfying experience to hear another performing musician play a lick through an effect pedal that you built and to know you had a piece in that. Some customers have the ambition of selling thousands of units a year and others simply want to build a few units a year. I think the other driving factor for the DIY community has been the downturn in the economy and the subsequent effect on peoples wallets.  Why pay $200 for an overdrive pedal when you can easily build it yourself for 1/3 of the price and as a plus, you get the ability to choose the size of the enclosure, color of enclosure, color of LED and the type of knobs? The DIY effects market just makes sense in a cash-strapped economy.

Do you offer some vintage NOS components?
We have some vintage NOS stock. We have been asked to carry more and from time to time we will bring in some vintage parts, especially chips. We get alot of requests for old Bucket Brigade chips, but since there is a surplus of counterfeits out there, we are careful what we bring into our stock.

With the limited supplies of vintage transistors and capacitors, etc., are there *really* comparative components that can achieve same/similar tones?
Absolutely. To the average consumer, most wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in vintage transistors and caps. It is sweet every once in a while when you hear a vintage mullard yellow-jacket OC44 next to a clone or cross-part. Nothing really compares to the old stuff and if price is not in the equation, then by all means, get the old stuff. But, we’ve tried to do our best to partner with manufacturers that are still making replicas to the same specifications of the old stuff. We carry the CoolAudio Bucket brigade delay chips that have replaced the old Panasonic BBD. We also carry a line of germanium and silicon transistors that are made to the original mullard spec by a North American military transistor manufacturer.

What are the components you see flying off the shelf at a regular basis?
Our customers really like our 3PDT (true bypass) foot switches as well as our micro toggle switches. Alot of the switches out on the market are China junk, but our supplier, 4Site Electronics, makes some high quality switches. Our enclosures are a big seller as well. The ability to customize drilling and powder coat and still ship same or next-day makes it really favorable for our customers that want a high quality enclosure with a quick turnaround. Consumables are another big one. We sell alot of wire, solder and bare circuit boards.

What is the most popular enclosure out there in demand? Any reasons why?
The 4S125B, 4S1590B and 4S1590BB are the big sellers and recently the 4S1590BBT (Taller version of the 1590BB) are selling very consistently. Some builders want to maximize real estate on their pedal boards so they opt for the smaller 4S1590B, some want the ability to put 10 toggles and potentiometers in a single box so they will stuff them into a 4S1590BB or 4S1590BBT. For alot of our beginner DIY guys, we recommend the larger enclosures (4S125B and 4S1590BB) simply because it is easy to maneuver the components and wire inside the enclosure.

Do you offer enclosure painting.. or silkscreening?
Yes. We do offer powder coating and silkscreening.

Do you offer pre-drilled enclosures?
Yes, we have a huge selection of pre-drilled options and are always adding more at our customers’ requests.

For people interested in pedal building, kits are a great way to get started. Do you offer any kits? If so, what kit do you recommend for someone interested in building?
For a first-time / beginner build, the Stage 3 Booster is very simple and sounds incredible. After that, the Hot Chilicon Fuzz, the ODC Overdrive and the EA tremelo are very simple builds with dynamic audio quality.

Do you offer any give aways (ie: components, enclosures, kits, etc?)
Multiple times a week, we have awesome giveaways, from effects pedals and kits to parts and enclosures. Our facebook page is the place to be to find out about the giveaways and its super easy to win. We also have daily deals that occur multiple times per week and its a great opportunity to pickup some great parts at a ridiculously low price.

Anything new coming down the pipe that you’re excited about?
The pipeline is definitely full with new and exciting products.  We have some new kits that are coming in the next few months, including a delay. In response to our Amplifier guys, we are going to be bringing on a full line of caps, transistors, resistors and pots as well as the hardware, boards, sockets and consumables. There are a few other irons in the fire that I’m not at liberty to discuss, but I am certainly excited about the direction Mammoth is heading and the community of engineer-artists that we get to partner with.

Please check out Mammoth Electronics at their website and like them on Facebook!

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So, I just got an email letting me know that Amazon is having a sale… 25% off soldering equipment. So I figured there were a few guitar effects nerds like me out there, that may need to upgrade a soldering iron or score a new tip or two. Looks like they have a few soldering irons (Weller, Sinometer, Mastech, etc) and a few other items like Heat Guns, Desoldering Wicks, Tips, Stands, etc.

If you’re needing some gear, check this page out.

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The following is a guest post by Christian Moraga (@cubisteffects). If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

Welcome to Part 3 of the Mod.It.Yourself series where we have previously looked at the basics of Tools and Techniques in Part 1 and how to mod the Diode Clipping in a pedal in Part 2. Part 3: Switches will look at an important component in the pedal modder’s toolkit. Switches are mechanical devices that allow an instantaneous flip to either turn part of a circuit on or off (break the circuit), or introduce a new part to the circuit. The latter function is useful in doing reversible modifications, or mods that use the original stock component. This part of The M.I.Y series will explain a bit about common switches and some ideas on how to use them in your own pedal mods.

The two most common mechanical switches used in modifying pedals are the push button switch and toggle switch.

Both of these switches use common nomenclature for their components that must be understood before selecting them for your next project. Below is a look at some of the more common names of switches that are used for pedal mods and an explanation of their specs.

Each switch is named with respect to the functions of their contacts, i.e. the part of the switch that is in contact with your wire, component, PCB etc. Also called a lug or pin. The two terms are poles (denoted by P) and throw (denoted by T). A pole is the number of switch contact sets of pins/lugs, and is labelled SP- for single pole, DP- double pole, 3P- for triple pole etc. The diagram below shows the poles of a 4PDT switch.

Most switches used in pedals have three pins per pole. The center pin is common i.e. is always connected to either outer pin of the three. Moving the toggle either up or down selects (as shown in the photo below) between these two connections or conducting positions. These positions are known as throws and are denoted -ST for single throw or -DT for double throw. A single throw switch only has two pins with the third pin shorting to ground, thus having only one position.

Common switches used in modifications are single pole double throw (SPDT) or double pole double throw toggle (DPDT) switches, and true bypass foot switches are known as triple pole double throw (3PDT). Using this knowledge of switches, here are a couple of mods you can try on your next pedal designs or mods.

KILL SWITCH

To get a stuttering effect made famous by guitarists Tom Morello and Buckethead in stompbox form, you can make use of a type of push button switch called a momentary switch. By using a push-to-make momentary or “normally open”, when pressing the switch you are breaking the circuit thus creating a staccato effect. To do this, all you need to do is cut the wire that goes from the output of the PCB to the bypass switch. Wire each of these two ends to a normally open SPST momentary switch and you have a momentary kill switch. The effect signal will stay on until you step on the switch, cutting all volume of your signal. By pressing at rhythmic intervals, you can create unique guitar rhythms heard in many RATM riffs. Momentary switches are great for these “stab” like effects and can be used for feedback loops, or wiring to a potentiometer in a delay pedal to get that spaceship, oscillation sound.

DIODE CLIPPING SWITCH

As previously discussed in Part 2 of the M.I.Y series, we can mod a pedals’ clipping diodes to create a different tone of the distorted sound. We could use different diode material, symmetry, combinations etc to get our desired sound. But what if you liked two diode sounds and wanted to switch between them? Using an SPDT switch, you can do just that and is a common feature on many effects pedals.

The schematic below [PIC 5] shows the clipping diode structure of many distortion pedals – a hard clipping pair at the output of the IC.

One end of the pair shunts to ground, while the other end is in the signal path. If this end on the signal path (A) is wired to the common pin of the SPDT switch, we can then switch between two differing pairs of diodes. Wire the end of two pairs to ground, and the other end to (B) and (C) of the switch and you can select between your favourite clipping tones. The symmetry of the clipping can be controlled using this switching layout as well – just use different symmetrical pairs for (B) and (C).

You can also use this principle to switch between two components of differing values i.e. the output capacitor to provide more/less bass in the circuit. Remove the initial capacitor from the PCB where one pad will have one wire running to (A) and two wires from the other pad to one end of either capacitor you wish to switch between [PIC 7].

Hopefully this information and diagrams will give you ideas on how to mod your next pedal, or to modify your next pedal build. Also, I would suggest getting a multimeter with a continuity test function. By putting either probe on any two connections, a beep or sound should be heard. This is very useful to test your new connections.

Happy modding,

C.

About the author.

Christian Moraga is the owner of CubistEffects.com located in Sydney, Australia. Christian repairs and mods most brands of pedals like BOSS, Ibanez, EHX , Arion, MXR, Danelectro, Marshall, Dunlop, VooDoo Labs, Digitech, DOD etc and specialise in Big Muffs and ProCo Rats. He also makes custom switching and loopers for your pedalboard needs. A/B, True Bypass, Tap Tempo etc.

A note from EffectsBay.com
I found Christian while doing some research on the Line 6 DL4, where Christian has some great mods available!

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