bobbass4k

It can be done but it depends what you're trying to achieve - raising the max frequency to something like 4khz but keeping the low end at 20hz is certainly possible, but the sweep range of the pot would become extremely wide and it would be very difficult to dial in specific frequencies in between. You could counteract this by using a larger pot value or raising the lower end of the range as well - a 2kHz to 4kHz for example - but as others have said that doesn't seem particularly useful.

There's 4 components you would have to change, 5 if you change the pot. The cutoff frequency is defined in this specific case by this hastily scrawled formula - 

You'll have to do 2 calculations, one for the minimum pot sweep (where rv1 and rv2 are 0) and one for the max where they're 100k. This formula requires the resistance values to be in ohms and the capacitance values in farads - see if you can calculate the cutoff values of the circuit as it is (spoiler alert - the max isn't actually 200hz). If all this sounds like Greek and you don't understand the formula or how to calculate it I can point you in the direction of some good beginner resources. 

They're intended for running direct into a recording interface or a desk, as part of a DI setup, which is why many of them integrate an XLR output for DI. They're also becoming very popular for home practice, there's a lot of models now with integrated headphone amps and outputs. 

It's amazing how many people don't really understand what a necessity they are, especially if you're using pedals. Pedals are, by and large, designed and tested with an amp and cab setup. Cabs have a huge impact on the the sound in terms of what frequencies are present and how they respond, so if you just plug a distortion pedal directly into an interface, you're not hearing it as it was designed to be heard, and in all likelihood it will sound absolutely terrible. Even if you're running a preamp or a DI box, cab simulation is a crucial stage of the process to get to how it was designed to be heard. Many modern cab sims will also include power amp simulation, so along with a preamp pedal you can have a complete setup.

Many of the early pedal ones were just very specific EQs that did a passable job, but the modern approach is something called Impulse Response loading (IR) - the physics is kind of complicated but basically they can digitally "sample" the way real cabs, mics and power amps affect the sound going through them, as an impulse response file. These are then loaded into software in the pedals (or a plug-in) and applied digitally to your signal, emulating the way it would respond. Most major cab and amp manufacturers now sell IR files for their cabs, that are compatible with basically any IR pedal. It's only in the last 6 or 7 years that the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology required to do this has become affordable and mass market enough to enable this - the Mooer radar costs about £100 and does a good job with limited features (no DI out).

35 minutes ago, Alfie said:

A couple of LEDs I ordered recently are white rather than purple, is this likely to be a problem with the manufacturing/stock or is there some electrical wizardry I am missing?

Are you powering it within its stated voltage range with an appropriate limiting resistor?

If so then I'd say it's a lot more likely to simply be the wrong LED.

- accidental double post and apparently I can't delete posts anymore?

On 14/02/2022 at 08:36, velvetkevorkian said:

Sounds like I might have underpriced the HD1000 I sold on here last year 😅

 

What effect are you trying for here? Delay with feedback that accents the high frequencies?

As the guy who bought it I say absolutely definitely not.

Having played with the hd1000, it was a fun unit, but tone wise there's nothing it did that can't be done be better by modern effects. The unique features for me were that you could set the harmony pitch in 5 cent intervals so you could get completely atonal ring mod sounds out of it, and the delay had an fx loop on the feedback path, which is still a very rare feature on pedal delays. But the tone, tracking and delay time were very much "of the era".

As people have suggested, a good cheap multi will get you there, or separates if you want a bit more flexibility.

15 minutes ago, ped said:

It should also not take batteries, because you're going to plaster it with velcro and use this with a humungous pedalboard right, and batteries are for old guys. Oh wait let's say it for the EnvIroMenT! Actually let's make it need 18v for 'headroom'

Maybe I'm too deep in the hole but all those things seem very reasonable to me.

Still here, open to sensible offers

On 13/01/2022 at 20:02, KingBollock said:

You’d hate some of my home made pedals then, they have really pretentious names.
Such as: Dank And Fetid Earth Beneath A Doom Coloured Sun, which is two different modded Big Muffs (a Musket and a ‘73 Ram’s Head. Both further modified by me) in one box.

And: The Scent Of Red Ruin Borne Upon A Mourning Breeze, which is a heavily modified Body Rot II.

 

Half the fun is coming up with names for them!

I respect a strong DIY theme. Most of my DIY stuff doesn't have a name but I tie the pedal to a theme through logic that only usually makes sense to me but is entirely dependable in my own head.

The one decorated with Londo Mollari, ambassador of the Centauri from Babylon 5? That's the klon centaur clone.

The one decorated with the black metal cat? The katzenkonig clone, obviously.

The one with Julio from the Simpsons? Naturally the walrus Julia clone.

What is life without convoluted inside jokes?

WMD Geiger Counter Civilian Issue. Amazing little noise box but it's just not getting enough use in my current set up and i need new guitar pickups so unfortunately it's on the chopping block.

Very good condition, some light scuffing and scratches on the side but otherwise great, with original box.

Looking for £125 posted 

Withdrawn - sold elsewhere

Walrus Audio Monument with tap tempo - amazing feature set for the size and price, I'm just not using it enough to justify it.

I've had it from new so it's in great condition with the original box, some very light scuffing on the sides with velcro on the base but otherwise perfect.

Asking £145 including postage - 

3 hours ago, CJPJ said:

How do you get on with that Ripply Falls? I with someone did a simple pedal with ‘just’ chorus, delay and reverb all in a compact pedal.

The zoom ms-70cdr can be as simple or complex as you make it and is a very compact footprint.

26 minutes ago, bobbass4k said:

The latest iteration of my beautiful half DIY disaster-

 

 

C+p explainer - 

Important things first - the tuner lives on the desk on an output from the mixer. Obviously this isn't remotely designed for gigging so i've tetrissed on as much as I can but in socks it's surprisingly stompable. 

There is logic to the overstuffed chaos - I know myself and if I set things up as I need them my floor and desk will be a pile of pedals and cables within 10 minutes - getting 90% of what I know I'll need on a board keeps things neat. This is for a very noisy progy/mathy/metally project so it's designed to cover ambient/delay cleans, bread and butter OD/Dist and tongue-in-cheek silly synth stuff for guitar and bass.   

Probably easiest to just run through the whole signal and explain the DIYs as I go -

Bass Whammy - Fairly self explanatory, I'm principally a bassist and I prefer the harmony options on the bass version anyway

Scratched Silver - Compressor from a kit - my very first experiment with acid etching (I couldn't print a design at the time so it's just scratched in with a screwdriver)

Black with yellow knobs - EQD arpanoid clone - in conjunction with stuff later down the line does a decent synth arp. impression

Boss OC-2 - Nothing like it for bass.

Boss LS-2 - All the dirt pedals sit in the loops so the lighter ODs/Dists can be blended with the silly fuzzes.

Loop A >   

Londo - Centaur Klone (basically VFEs clone) - I was a late convert to klone's but I couldn't be without it now

AMT Slap Bass - I've had this for over a decade and I've never seen another one. It's a very compressed, heavily EQd OD with cab simulation at the end - I hate the term secret weapon... but it's amazing for guitar and bass

Perry the platypus - Nobels ODR clone

Superman Values Teamwork - Catalinbread SFT clone with 18V option

Loop B>  

Fab Tone - Cheesy? Yes. Versatile? No. Amazing? Absolutely.

Homer - Big Cheese clone

WMD Geiger Counter - For the aforementioned silliness

Massive bastard on the bottom left - Schumann PLL clone. For ridiculous synthy nonsense it has no equal - worth every mm² of board space

LS-2 Outputs to the gold duck tales one - Frostwave funk-a-duck clone. Best filter I've ever had, it's an absolute bugger to dial in, but it's amazing.

Julio from the Simpsons - Walrus Julia clone. I was sceptical, but I've got 2 other choruses and I haven't used either of them since I built this.

Korra - Lovetone doppelanger clone (Phaser) - It takes some getting used to but the options justify the space - by putting resistors onto jacks and into the exp jacks you can lower the LFO speed to I think about 0.003Hz - i.e a 5 minute sweep. Useful? no. Cool? Also no, but interesting.

Moog EP-1 - Currently controlling the rainbow machine clone

She-ra - EQD rainbow machine clone. What can I say, I like the silly noise it makes. The eagle eyed may notice it's not currently connected - I found 5 dead patch cables while hooking up so I'm waiting on parts to build more.

Catalinbread csidman - A really unique effect, not very versatile but really effective.

Zoom ms-70 - I've gone to the dark side. I'm amazed by this thing, I've currently got it doing some one trick pony emulation (generation loss, ct5 etc.) and textural tremolo picky stuff but with more time it might replace a lot more.

Walrus monuments - Bought on a bonus induced whim and while I like it, I'm not sure if I love it.

Boss DD-20 - This year we celebrate 13 beautiful years together and I can only hope for 13 more.

Cab Sim - DSM omnicabsim, for going direct into the interface.

​

I guess that's it? Powered mainly by a Walrus Phoenix with a couple of daisychain cables to maximise the outputs. The PLL, filter and zoom all need their own supplies.

13 minutes ago, Daz39 said:

*Homer Simpson-style drooling*
What’s the monstrosity in Coral at bottom left?

Schumann PLL clone - nothing like it for synthy woo-woo nonsense.

Give me a second and I'll edit in the spiel I wrote elsewhere.

The latest iteration of my beautiful half DIY disaster-

You could look at the Wooly Mammoth or Mastotron as bass friendly fuzz face type circuits, plenty of good layouts/project PCBs available for both.

Good bass overdrive circuits tend to be bigger and more complex, as a rule fuzzes are the easiest and a good place to start.

Are you building on stripboard or buying PCBs? What kind of pedals are you most interested in?

Interesting, the site says it's fundamentally a blower box, which itself is fundamentally a rat clone. 

Yeah the sonic maximizer is basically a 3-band filter, each band gets split and processed differently then blended back together. The extra gain control could be the gain of the preamp stage in the sonic maximizer part (which would normally be fixed) and maybe the volume is some sort of blend? 

Interesting idea, surprised they haven't pushed it more considering the current popularity of aggressively eq'd distortions (after so many years of the metal zone being a punchline...)

10 hours ago, bassman7755 said:

Given theres been a lot of talk about split signal setups I wonder if anyone has (or could) designed something like this:

 

A box with 1 input, 2 "sends" and 2 "returns" mixed back to a single output. For bonus points the signal for the sends would be highs on one and lows on the other, for further bonus points the crossover/splitter frequency would be adjustable. 

 

The most complicated circuit I've ever designed myself was a single stage op amp pre amp for one of my guitars so the splitter doo-dah is well beyond my knowledge.

 

Adjustable crossovers adds a fair amount of complexity/physical size. Certainly not beyond a DIY designer but as bloke_zero has pointed, when there's a decent kit that covers everything you're after that's always going to be the easiest option. 

Messy new setup for recording a new project, home use only hence the very tight spacing - intended for bass and guitar. Few brandeds creeping back in but still largely DIY

Someone mentioned the dimension-c earlier. If you're intrigued, TC do an almost perfect clone of it in their "how-is-this-making-a-profit" £30 odd quid range (3rd dimension). Pretty much a risk free gamble at that price I'd say. 

Looks like a muff with an active 3-band EQ, should be interesting for bass and go beyond traditional muff territory. 

12 hours ago, Passinwind said:

Just in, some two band Bass/Mid preamp boards from a new US small run circuit board prototype vendor, DK Red. The DK = DigiKey, one of our biggest parts suppliers. Quality looks good and the pricing is just slightly better than OSHpark's basic service, but with far fewer options and a four board minimum as opposed to OSHpark's three. Many of us are hoping that DigiKey will go the next step and integrate parts supply, modeling data, PCB footprints, bill of materials management, and assembly into a one stop shopping experience. I'm nearly certain that they are shooting for that, and sooner than later.

I spent a lot of the time I worked at Farnell trying to convince them they needed to offer a prototype/small run service like that and was repeatedly rebuffed... Should have emailed my digikey contact... 

4 hours ago, paul_5 said:

You might be correct; true 'bit crushing' is only possible using digital audio, so it's probably the most recent invention.

Though "true" bit-crushing is digital you can do a decent impression of it with an analog circuit, though I actually don't know which came first, it could very well have been the digital.

As martin said, there's only so much you can do to a soundwave from a physics perspective. We've hit the limit on actual unique effects, don't forget none of the are particularly new  - everything now is about the boundaries of digital - combining the effects and controlling them in ways that weren't possible before.

Look at something like the Rainbow Machine - it's fundamentally a delay and a pitch shifter, but the way they're combined and the controls you're given makes it sound completely unique.

In case you haven't discovered it, you can wedge the switch between mode 1 and mode 2 to run both in parallel and get another sound out of it. Obviously it's not designed for it, but it's a delightful upside of behringer using the cheapest switches possible.

Melissa Villasenor from SNL is an insanely good singing impressionist. The sketches may not be to everyone's taste here ("American rubbish!" I hear you cry already...) but it's hard to argue with her pipes - 

6 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

I have tried 46 & 2 but when it gets to the variation of first riff where the drone note moves from the open D to the A#(?) I just can't get my left hand around that. 

It's been a while but I think i know what bit you mean (2:40ish?) - he's not shifting the drone note of the original riff, he's basically playing fifths, letting them ring and throwing in a few hammer ons to give the feel of the original riff shifting up, but in a way that he can actually play. 

Justin chancellor is a brilliantly creative bassist, a virtuoso he ain't. Many of his lines can sound intimidating, but tend to be based around one or two tricks and can sound hard because of the time sigs/rhythm tricks but they just need a bit of work. Lateralus, jambi and the grudge I remember as being fun ones to play.