Boob Tube V1.5

There have been a few requests for tube based pedals and this is one I did previously.  Based around JuanSolo's 12V Boob Tube which is a Valvecaster variant, but here with a 33 - 40V supply via a charge pump.  Make sure you choose appropriate rated capacitors for the voltage.  This is verified and apparently sounds great.

Here's the tagboard layout:

And here's a charge pump, if you supply it with 12V you should get close to 40V from the 33V output point.  The ICL7660S can accept a 12V supply but that's the maximum for that IC, but you can't use the MAX1044 at 12V.

If you want to supply the charge pump with 9V and so avoid using a 12V adapter, you could use a 12V regulator off the 17V rail to provide the 12V required for the heater, or maybe even a voltage divider from the 25V rail.  In this instance you would only get around 33V for the plates though.

Here's the pedal built up and looking very nice, built by candletears7:

Catalinbread DLS

Manufacturers info:

The Dirty Little Secret is something we at Catalinbread have been harboring for quite a long time now and we’re finally ready after months of testing and refining to spill the beans...

In essence, the DLS is a ‘foundation’ pedal – a sonic platform to build the rest of your sound upon. It reacts to your playing dynamics and respects the character of your guitar’s pickups just like the classic British amplifiers it emulates. Use it to set your base crunch rhythm sound into a clean amp, roll your guitar’s volume back for cleans. Notice how treble boosters sound like shards of brittle glass or how fuzzes sound cheesy & thin into clean amps? The DLS seamlessly integrates treble boosters and fuzzes with clean low volume amps, delivering a thick cranked sound at reasonable volume levels.

What is surprising to people experiencing the DLS for the first time is that we’ve managed to capture the same dynamic interaction felt between a player and an amp but in a pedal. The DLS cleans up with light picking attack and volume knob changes – it reacts in the same way as those amplifiers do. It crunches when you hit it hard, cleans up when you play softly, and has that punchy cabinet ‘air movement’ thing happening even at low volume levels. By the same token the DLS respects your guitar’s characteristics. The result doesn’t sound like a typical ‘amp in a box’ pedal because it doesn’t feel like you’re playing a pedal – it feels like an amp.

The controls are simple and effective – Loudness governs output, Tone morphs from smooth and fat to crunchy and cutting, Gain goes from clean and clear to full crunch with harmonics, and the Rock/Rawk switch selects 60s - 70s JTM/JMP sounds (Rock) or ‘80s JCM tones (Rawk).

Since the DLS was designed to emulate two classic British amplifiers, let’s get into each mode setting and what they have to offer in variety of sounds.
         
Rock Mode:
This is your classic 60s - 70s rock sound. Chords are crunchy with lots of string definition and punch; single string playing is more clean than hairy and sounds clear and articulate. Picking dynamics are very apparent since there isn’t a ton of gain compressing your signal. The lowend “cabinet” resonance is at your chest, loose but NOT flabby.

Rawk Mode:
In Rawk mode, you’ll notice more gain and a more focused response – chords are thick, single strings have more smoothness and harmonic content. The cabinet feel is still there - tighter and more immediate. It’s quicker to decay into controlled harmonic feedback too.


Another aspect of the pedal we put a lot of thought into was how it reacts to different power supplies. There are significant differences to be had in tone and playing feel response based on what voltage is used – just like if you were running your amp with a Variac. Running the DLS at 18 volts, you’ll experience lots of dynamic movement happening – Kerrang! - there is a resonance to the sound giving the impression that you are playing through a 4x12 cabinet. At 18V you will get quite a bit more output than at 9V. At 9 volts, the pick attack is a bit more soft and smooth than running it at 18v but there is still plenty of punch and articulation. Using a battery, you’ll get a spongier playing feel and creamier sound.

We’re really proud of this pedal – it took months of critical listening to voice it just right and we think we’ve nailed it with the DLS. We hope it inspires you to do what you do best – make our music!

Video of Geiri's build:

Catalinbread Formula No 5

Manufacturers info:

The Formula № 5 was inspired by old tweed amps, most notably the 5E3 circuit. The character of the 5E3 is very unique. It has very minimal power filtering, low plate voltages, elemental tone stack, and does next to nothing to control the low end between gain stages, not to mention the under-rated output transformer and speaker. The entire system runs inefficiently resulting in a loose bass, greasy mids, cutting treble, and incredible grit – none of these qualities were ideal or intentional back in the day. In spite of this, over the past five decades the amp inspired some of the coolest, most sought after guitar tones ever recorded.

We’ve captured the unique qualities of these amps in the Formula № 5. For this circuit we felt cascaded JFET gainstages yielded the best result. They have a softer sound than MOSFETs. JFETs also have much more natural attack/decay than diode clipped rigs which are pingy on the attack and fizzy on the decay. We chose capacitor types that enhanced the midrange and burnished the treble.

This versions has been modified slightly to make one of the stock resistors switchable.  With the 2M2 in circuit you have "Formula No 5 mode", with it removed you have higher gain "More mode".

Box of Hall Reverb - culturejam

A nice little Belton Brick reverb build here.  As described by cj:

This one is pretty simple. It's the new smaller Belton/Accutronics brick and a quad op amp, a Reverb Mix control and a tone control I'm calling "Dampen". It's a dead-simple low-pass filter right off the brick's output (or rather, one of the outputs) in parallel with a fixed cap to ground. I got that little idea from earthones' suggestion of a tone control for the 2399 reverb I did. (credit where due!) I'd say this is about 75% similar to the application note, but with the added tone control, slightly different filtering, and buffered VREF.

I've tried this with the Medium and Long decay bricks. The Long can definitely get some cool ambient spacy sounds going on. And with the tone control at min, it's really bright (either brick type). The only difference I can hear is the decay time.

Circuit is verified and sounds pretty damn good.

Demo by Geiri:

You can get the Belton bricks from Musikding here.  I'd suggest going for the BTDR-2H because it's smaller, but have included a layout for the older BTDR-1H bricks as well, just in case someone has one they want to use.

Layout for BTDR-2H bricks:

and one for the older BTDR-1H bricks:

 

It seems to be very popular so here's the Box of Hall - Heavenwithin modded version.

Ibanez OD850 - V3

Requested.  This is a slightly modified Triangle clone that some others may also be interested in.  The original used buffered bypass and FET switching but this has removed those components and is designed to be used with external mechanical bypass switching of some description such as a 3PDT stomp switch.

The scheme that I did this from noted 2SC1815's as the transistors, but I've got a batch of these and based on those I would imagine most people would be disappointed with their performance in this.  The datasheet lists them as 70 - 700 hfe, but mine are all on the low side, and nowhere near the 600 - 650 hfe you'd ideally want for a Triangle clone.  I'd suggest using a 2N5088/5089 or maybe a BC550C (transistors rotated 180 degrees to that shown in the layout) which should get you in the right ball park for gain.  As such the transistors shown in this have a CBE pinout, but if you want to use the 2SC1815 which are BCE, you will need to insulate the legs and twist round the base and collector.

The original schematic also showed the Tone pot to have a W taper, but these aren't very common so I'd suggest using a linear pot as in most Muffs.