Here's a collection of vero (stripboard) and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts that we have put together covering many classic and popular effects in growing numbers. Many of these have been posted on freestompboxes.org, so check that site out for great discussions on building your own effect pedals. Enjoy the builds and please also visit us on Facebook and Twitter
That's what I meant by twist of fate, I'd bought the wrong one and ended up with the UBE! I kept meaning to build the Red Llama but never got around to it, this seems a bit more up my street anyway.
Llama is one build i'll recommend. Really loud and has a tonal overdrive of it's own. Not a perfect OD/Dist, but you can drive any tube amp to new horizons with it. I need to build one more, as those are getting ripped from my hands every time i build one... Got 30 UBEs at one point.. BEs seem to be harder to find, but i got some of those through ebay as well... +m
Also so everyone knows, Dwarfcraft sells kits for these. If you can spare the extra dough to buy the kit, it would help support Dwarfcraft, who make pretty unique and interesting stuff.
Actually, after adjusting my resistors, 2 & 3 joined made no difference anymore (and it's all good now). So people with clock noises should check their resistors.
I don't know if Nicholas has already verified this but if not, it definitely is verified. And it sounds freakin' AWESOME!!! In the end I've decided to get rid of the starve pot and just connect up 9v, 1) because the pot stated smoking and was about to set on fire, 2) because it produces some horrible clock noise (this seems to be the bane of my life at the moment) if you dial it back to far.
This would sound great with a bandpass filter in front of it because the octave sounds seem to be really reactive to the frequencies put into it, if I dial back the tone on the guitar it leaves some of the octave sounds untouched but completely removes some of the higher sounds.
I was thinking about removing the starve pot as well it seems to sound best in the demo full up. I guess it should just be replaced with 2k. Throwing in the volume pot keeps it 3 knobs that way
So if I wanted to keep the starve control and not have it catch fire. What would I do? Throw a different value pot in there?
I've never had this issue with adding a voltage sag into a pedal, I've done it with a Boss DS-1 before and it's never done anything other than what was intended.
Another daft question - Is the CD4040 Buffered or Unbuffered? Built mine with the Unbuffered CD4049 and the Buffered CD4040 and it sounds different to the demo vid, but makes a great holy racket (helicopters and pacman mixed with sizzling sausages!)
1. Is there an easy mod to get an octave up effect? Perhaps a 3-way switch, for octave up, octave down, two octave down.
2. This thing is amazing, but is there a way to have the octaves be less gated? For sustained notes, it would be great if I could get them to ring out a bit longer. Not a big deal, but would be nice.
I just tried to build this and I had the same problem with the STARVE pot. It started glowing like an LED at the bottom 10% before I shut it down. Smelled kinda funny after that, I suspect it's shaken off this mortal coil. I am not getting any sound when engaged, but I finally got a day off so I'll look at it tomorrow. I figure I will bypass the Starve.
I would post mine, but its crammed into a 1590A and faced component side down. I'd really have to pry it apart at this point to get some photos. Unless you just wanted to see a finished pedal for some reason.
Here is my build. I left out the starve control as I found it did nothing interesting for the circuit. This has quickly become one of my favorite pedals ever. I've used it in a ton of projects already.
I just built this and after some tinkering I love it. Space Commandant, the dirt pot will actually turn the effect down until silenced. I'm a bit of a newb on here but my guess is a 100k would work fine but not sure you need it.
If I had it to do over I would add a 2nd foot switch to turn on/off the octave on the fly like the original has. Maybe I'll rebox it if I end up with something else to fill this enclosure.
Built it, sounds great... but I get constant oscillations when not playing, even when bypassed. The dirt pot will clean up the bypassed oscillation though. It's not related to starve pots, I didn't use one but went with a volume pot instead. Any ideas what could be wrong?
Any chance of anyone throwing up an offboard wiring diagram? I typically use the offboard wiring diagram posted on this site but the whole "two switches" thing is throwing me off.
I put this one to the side for a while because I couldn't get rid of the constant whine when bypassed. I took the volume pot out and added the starve, which solved the problem to a degree. I also used a new DC jack but still it whines when I have the starve at anything below full on. I can turn it down if I turn the dirt down as well to stop the whine. If I pull the 4049 it'll stop (when bypassed). Any advice before I scrap it completely?
Try running an alligator clip from the input to the board to ground while the pedal is bypassed. If that solves the problem then rewire your true bypass switch the way mark has done it in his offboard guide on this site. I imagine that will fix the problem assuming you dont have any other grounding issues ;)
Sorry it took so long for a reply. It helped somewhat but I added a 100uf cap between 9v and ground and that took care of everything. Thanks.
I also added the starve pot but used 25k instead of 2k expecting the same results that The Great Destroyer had. Nothing of note happens until the last 1/4 of the rotation, 2k works better, I need to get another one. What a crazy sounding pedal this is.
please tell me what the voltage should be the capacitor? Can I use capacitor 0.047 uF 100V? Accordingly 1uf 100V electrolytic? Ah Yes, which type capasitor 47 nF and 100 nF?
the voltage for the caps doesn't really matter as long as it's higher then the voltage you're going to use. i try to use the smallest physical size of a cap with the highest voltage.
Rolled up the sleeves and got to work. Swapping ICs did not help. In the end, I fixed the clock noises by adding a 330uf cap between 9v and ground (smaller values did not clear it up) and substituting the starve pot for a 4.7K resistor. Simply eliminating the starve pot and going right into the circuit did not fix the problem. I also tacked on a 100K volume pot. Hope this helps someone. Very cool circuit - thank you for the layout!.
Same here from testing on a breadboard. If you're bypassing the starve however, it's probably a good idea to put a resistor (try 1 to 10K) or the it will get noisier than with the pot
Yeah I put a 330uf electro with + on the power rail, and - on ground rail, and it cleared up the timer noise completely. I also can't really tell any difference at this point with starve in any position ..
Thanks, but it's not only that, my octave knob also barely makes any difference. I'm guessing it's bad ICs. I hope the buffered CD4040 (BE) is OK to use like someone else mentioned.
My octave knob works quite well, all the way 'up' basically turns it off, so I may have 1 and 3 swapped, but in the other direction it's basically all octave signal. I used the cd4040 from tayda, works great. I'm going to try a 5k and 10k for the starve and see if that's any different.
Hi, I'm new to this, I hope you do not say nonsense, but I think the problem with the Starve is that it does not regulate the input voltage to the VSS, of the CD4049UBE, it seems that the 4049 oscillates depending on the voltage generated by the intensity at Playing the strings similar to the Fuzzhugger phantom octave, as I read, to achieve the regulation of input voltage would require a circuit feedback loop, hopefully this will serve for someone with more knowledge and help us the solution.
Built this yesterday including some mods that may be helpful:
I dumped the starve pot, as it didn't really prove all that interesting when I had the circuit breadboarded. It really only changed it from sounding cool and glitchy, to sounding way more glitchy and chirpy. I suppose one could experiment and find a sweet spot of starvation and put THAT on a switch.
I added a 500K Audio pot as volume. Output => Vol3, Vol2 to Out, Vol1 to ground. I think this is necessary for practical use.
I also added an output cap, 1u, just before the Vol pot. Probably not strictly necessary, but it doesn't hurt and keeps any stray DC inside.
I also decided to ignore the convoluted octave wiring and just keep it simple. The original allows you to play one or the other of the octave or sub octave. I chose to add a further sub sub octave (pin 6 of the 4040) and some padding for those signals, each going to an individual 100K pot for each octave. Circuit is: pin => 100K resistor (or to taste) => lug 3 of pot, lug 2 of pot => 100K => output.
So now the panel has 1 pot for fuzz, 1 for Octave, 1 for sub octave, 1 for sub sub octave, and one for volume.
Switch-wise, I chose to get rid of the octave switch and just allow the octaves to be dialed in as desired with their respective pots, with one, simple, effect on-off footswitch.
I think this is all an improvement and I think that having the fuzz playing with all three of the octaves I have available is awesome sounding. Like a pipe organ plying under your notes.
I did have one problem that didn't appear on the bread board, but did when made and boxed: There was a constant sort of motor-boating oscillation going on when playing or not. This may be what some in this thread have complained of. There is a solution.
I remembered reading something in the context of the Read Llama circuit about having to deal with the unused amplifier stages in that 4049 chip. As in the Llama, this circuit only uses two of the six, the bottom two of three on the left side of the chip. The motor-boating was being caused by the top, unused, amp on that side. Grounding the output eliminated the problem, so that's what I did. It may slightly clean up further by dealing with the three amps on the other side of the chip as well, but this was the one causing the obvious problem on mine, so I'd recommend grounding that from the start, and maybe the other unused ones as well for good measure.
I also added minimal power filtration and an LED+ circuit to the board, and with all my mods it came out to 20x20.
Wow by some strange twist of fate I actually have both these ICs, one left over from the Great Destroyer. I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow :D
ReplyDeleteGotta love Dwarfcraft for the noise boxes!
That's not the same chip as in TGD. Here, it's the UBE like in Red Llama.. TGD has BE in it.
Delete+m
That's what I meant by twist of fate, I'd bought the wrong one and ended up with the UBE! I kept meaning to build the Red Llama but never got around to it, this seems a bit more up my street anyway.
DeleteLove it when things turn out good :)
DeleteLlama is one build i'll recommend. Really loud and has a tonal overdrive of it's own. Not a perfect OD/Dist, but you can drive any tube amp to new horizons with it. I need to build one more, as those are getting ripped from my hands every time i build one... Got 30 UBEs at one point.. BEs seem to be harder to find, but i got some of those through ebay as well...
+m
Also so everyone knows, Dwarfcraft sells kits for these. If you can spare the extra dough to buy the kit, it would help support Dwarfcraft, who make pretty unique and interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap such a simple build and it sounds amazing
ReplyDeleteWhere does starve 1&3 connect?
DeleteStarve 3 probably goes to 9v+
ReplyDeleteStarve 1 probably goes to nothing or is tied to lug 2
Starve 1 is connected either with lug 1 or 3. The other one goes to ground or is left unused.
ReplyDeleteGreetings,
Chris
Figured but usually they put them down. Another awesome note tayda has both chips :-)
DeleteDamnit. I'll add the note once i get back home... Yes, it is +9V to Starve 1.
Delete+m
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteActually, after adjusting my resistors, 2 & 3 joined made no difference anymore (and it's all good now). So people with clock noises should check their resistors.
DeleteDammit I´m an Idiot. Wanted to say stare 1 is connected with +9V !
ReplyDeleteSorry
I don't know if Nicholas has already verified this but if not, it definitely is verified. And it sounds freakin' AWESOME!!! In the end I've decided to get rid of the starve pot and just connect up 9v, 1) because the pot stated smoking and was about to set on fire, 2) because it produces some horrible clock noise (this seems to be the bane of my life at the moment) if you dial it back to far.
ReplyDeleteThis would sound great with a bandpass filter in front of it because the octave sounds seem to be really reactive to the frequencies put into it, if I dial back the tone on the guitar it leaves some of the octave sounds untouched but completely removes some of the higher sounds.
Noise freaks need this in their lives. Fact.
One other thing, this thing is earbleedingly loud so it may be an idea to send the output to a volume pot.
DeleteI was thinking about removing the starve pot as well it seems to sound best in the demo full up. I guess it should just be replaced with 2k. Throwing in the volume pot keeps it 3 knobs that way
DeleteYou won't need the 2k resistor, just connect 9v directly to hole marked 'starve 2'.
DeleteHa! Thanks guys! I'll tag it right away...
Delete+m
So if I wanted to keep the starve control and not have it catch fire. What would I do? Throw a different value pot in there?
DeleteI've never had this issue with adding a voltage sag into a pedal, I've done it with a Boss DS-1 before and it's never done anything other than what was intended.
I should also mention that I usually use 10k lin pots for starve controls.. I'm still a noob though and have no idea if this makes a difference.
DeleteI believe Madferret had a faulty pot. :) I've never got my starve pots to heat up..
Delete+m
Definitely a faulty pot, it was a cheapo one I got in bulk.
DeleteCan i use the C4049 U?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.banzaimusic.com/CD4049-U.html
Than x
That one will work fine, just make sure you don't order the buffered one.
Delete...Or maybe you should get those too, as those go nicely with The Great Destroyer :)
Delete+m
Can I use a CD4040BD for this??
DeleteYup. Should work just fine.
Delete+m
Just a quick question, why is the SW/2 Octave 3 wired to the board as it doesn't connect to the IC?
ReplyDeleteDummy connection. Replaces "SW2 to Octave 3" note, thus eliminating a need for daisy chaining offboard components. I do those some times...
Delete+
Thanks Mirosol , looking forward to building this
DeleteAnother daft question - Is the CD4040 Buffered or Unbuffered? Built mine with the Unbuffered CD4049 and the Buffered CD4040 and it sounds different to the demo vid, but makes a great holy racket (helicopters and pacman mixed with sizzling sausages!)
DeleteDoes not specify that on the schematic...
Delete+m
Just built this thing. Holy cow. Seriously awesome! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteTwo questions about this circuit:
ReplyDelete1. Is there an easy mod to get an octave up effect? Perhaps a 3-way switch, for octave up, octave down, two octave down.
2. This thing is amazing, but is there a way to have the octaves be less gated? For sustained notes, it would be great if I could get them to ring out a bit longer. Not a big deal, but would be nice.
Hi. A beginner question. There are any alternative to CD4040?
ReplyDeleteI cannot find it on sale.
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/cd4040be-cd4040-4040-ripple-carry-binary-counter-divider-ic.html
DeleteI just tried to build this and I had the same problem with the STARVE pot. It started glowing like an LED at the bottom 10% before I shut it down. Smelled kinda funny after that, I suspect it's shaken off this mortal coil. I am not getting any sound when engaged, but I finally got a day off so I'll look at it tomorrow. I figure I will bypass the Starve.
ReplyDeleteI bypassed the starve and got distortion but no octave. Which IC is creating the octave? Maybe I burned it up when I burned up the pot. Thanks
DeleteGot it working. Turns out I missed a link (there were only 11 after all) and it works great
DeleteDoes anyone have a picture of their build they can post?
ReplyDeleteI would post mine, but its crammed into a 1590A and faced component side down. I'd really have to pry it apart at this point to get some photos. Unless you just wanted to see a finished pedal for some reason.
DeleteHere is my build. I left out the starve control as I found it did nothing interesting for the circuit. This has quickly become one of my favorite pedals ever. I've used it in a ton of projects already.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-TcJDL1nMpE8/UYbW6QxGRuI/AAAAAAAAAdk/lZbK4FxmqPY/s512/octave%2520fuzz.JPG
I don't understand the SW connections.....what are they, halp.
ReplyDeleteOh, holy crap. I'm an idiot. It's for the octave volume. Sorry, errybody.
DeleteOkay I'm experiencing some goofiness. When I hook up an LED the pedal glitches out and won't make normal sounds. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteFrom where do you take the + for the LED?
Delete+m
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering what pot to use if I were to add a volume control... ?
ReplyDeleteI just built this and after some tinkering I love it.
ReplyDeleteSpace Commandant, the dirt pot will actually turn the effect down until silenced. I'm a bit of a newb on here but my guess is a 100k would work fine but not sure you need it.
If I had it to do over I would add a 2nd foot switch to turn on/off the octave on the fly like the original has. Maybe I'll rebox it if I end up with something else to fill this enclosure.
ReplyDeleteBuilt it, sounds great... but I get constant oscillations when not playing, even when bypassed. The dirt pot will clean up the bypassed oscillation though. It's not related to starve pots, I didn't use one but went with a volume pot instead. Any ideas what could be wrong?
ReplyDeleteAny chance of anyone throwing up an offboard wiring diagram? I typically use the offboard wiring diagram posted on this site but the whole "two switches" thing is throwing me off.
ReplyDeleteI came here looking for the same thing.
DeleteI put this one to the side for a while because I couldn't get rid of the constant whine when bypassed. I took the volume pot out and added the starve, which solved the problem to a degree. I also used a new DC jack but still it whines when I have the starve at anything below full on. I can turn it down if I turn the dirt down as well to stop the whine. If I pull the 4049 it'll stop (when bypassed). Any advice before I scrap it completely?
ReplyDeleteTry running an alligator clip from the input to the board to ground while the pedal is bypassed. If that solves the problem then rewire your true bypass switch the way mark has done it in his offboard guide on this site. I imagine that will fix the problem assuming you dont have any other grounding issues ;)
DeleteSorry it took so long for a reply. It helped somewhat but I added a 100uf cap between 9v and ground and that took care of everything. Thanks.
DeleteI also added the starve pot but used 25k instead of 2k expecting the same results that The Great Destroyer had. Nothing of note happens until the last 1/4 of the rotation, 2k works better, I need to get another one. What a crazy sounding pedal this is.
hi, in the end, you switched capacitor 1uf to 100uf 9v?
Deleteplease tell me what the voltage should be the capacitor? Can I use capacitor 0.047 uF 100V? Accordingly 1uf 100V electrolytic? Ah Yes, which type capasitor 47 nF and 100 nF?
ReplyDeletethe voltage for the caps doesn't really matter as long as it's higher then the voltage you're going to use. i try to use the smallest physical size of a cap with the highest voltage.
DeleteThank you, you helped me a lot)
DeleteAnyone else getting crazy clock noises? The circuit sounds so cool but is essentially unusable... :( will try swapping out the ICs...
ReplyDeletewhat resistors did you use? MF or CF ?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteRolled up the sleeves and got to work. Swapping ICs did not help. In the end, I fixed the clock noises by adding a 330uf cap between 9v and ground (smaller values did not clear it up) and substituting the starve pot for a 4.7K resistor. Simply eliminating the starve pot and going right into the circuit did not fix the problem. I also tacked on a 100K volume pot. Hope this helps someone. Very cool circuit - thank you for the layout!.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting, can you clarify the cap used and its specific placement? Thank you!
DeleteWhen you say the 330 uF cap was added between 9V+ and ground, do you mean the cap was placed in a manner such that its leads join rows two and three?
ReplyDeleteDoes the starve control do anything? Mine just makes a weird clicking noise.
ReplyDeleteSame here from testing on a breadboard. If you're bypassing the starve however, it's probably a good idea to put a resistor (try 1 to 10K) or the it will get noisier than with the pot
DeleteYeah I put a 330uf electro with + on the power rail, and - on ground rail, and it cleared up the timer noise completely. I also can't really tell any difference at this point with starve in any position ..
ReplyDeleteThanks, but it's not only that, my octave knob also barely makes any difference. I'm guessing it's bad ICs. I hope the buffered CD4040 (BE) is OK to use like someone else mentioned.
DeleteMy octave knob works quite well, all the way 'up' basically turns it off, so I may have 1 and 3 swapped, but in the other direction it's basically all octave signal. I used the cd4040 from tayda, works great. I'm going to try a 5k and 10k for the starve and see if that's any different.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi, I'm new to this, I hope you do not say nonsense, but I think the problem with the Starve is that it does not regulate the input voltage to the VSS, of the CD4049UBE, it seems that the 4049 oscillates depending on the voltage generated by the intensity at Playing the strings similar to the Fuzzhugger phantom octave, as I read, to achieve the regulation of input voltage would require a circuit feedback loop, hopefully this will serve for someone with more knowledge and help us the solution.
ReplyDeleteBuilt this yesterday including some mods that may be helpful:
ReplyDeleteI dumped the starve pot, as it didn't really prove all that interesting when I had the circuit breadboarded. It really only changed it from sounding cool and glitchy, to sounding way more glitchy and chirpy. I suppose one could experiment and find a sweet spot of starvation and put THAT on a switch.
I added a 500K Audio pot as volume. Output => Vol3, Vol2 to Out, Vol1 to ground. I think this is necessary for practical use.
I also added an output cap, 1u, just before the Vol pot. Probably not strictly necessary, but it doesn't hurt and keeps any stray DC inside.
I also decided to ignore the convoluted octave wiring and just keep it simple. The original allows you to play one or the other of the octave or sub octave. I chose to add a further sub sub octave (pin 6 of the 4040) and some padding for those signals, each going to an individual 100K pot for each octave. Circuit is: pin => 100K resistor (or to taste) => lug 3 of pot, lug 2 of pot => 100K => output.
So now the panel has 1 pot for fuzz, 1 for Octave, 1 for sub octave, 1 for sub sub octave, and one for volume.
Switch-wise, I chose to get rid of the octave switch and just allow the octaves to be dialed in as desired with their respective pots, with one, simple, effect on-off footswitch.
I think this is all an improvement and I think that having the fuzz playing with all three of the octaves I have available is awesome sounding. Like a pipe organ plying under your notes.
I did have one problem that didn't appear on the bread board, but did when made and boxed: There was a constant sort of motor-boating oscillation going on when playing or not. This may be what some in this thread have complained of. There is a solution.
I remembered reading something in the context of the Read Llama circuit about having to deal with the unused amplifier stages in that 4049 chip. As in the Llama, this circuit only uses two of the six, the bottom two of three on the left side of the chip. The motor-boating was being caused by the top, unused, amp on that side. Grounding the output eliminated the problem, so that's what I did. It may slightly clean up further by dealing with the three amps on the other side of the chip as well, but this was the one causing the obvious problem on mine, so I'd recommend grounding that from the start, and maybe the other unused ones as well for good measure.
I also added minimal power filtration and an LED+ circuit to the board, and with all my mods it came out to 20x20.
FWIW.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete