My DIY pedal. Or: you can accept ugly if you fix it

I play bass guitar. And I am a sound snob. I have used plenty of audio equipment, both digital and analog, over the years and I would think of myself being able to get the sound I want out of every box provided it can technically deliver what I need. So with my progress as a bass player over the last 2 years I progressed from a laptop based FX solution (Guitar Rig) to a digital stand alone multi FX (Zoom B9) and finally to a real analog pedal board with stomp boxes. I now have the sound I always wanted and while I appreciate the comfort of an all-in-one solution I’d rather find myself confined to the pedals I own knowing that they will always sound that much better.

I like to grab a bargain and if a cheap product can do the same as an expensive one I don’t mind going for a cheaper brand. But, and this is where we finally strike the chord of this blog, I hate ugly. For me its all about the user interface and the beauty of a well designed piece of technology. And while the discussion whether  you can achieve good product design for the same price as bad design may be reserved for another day, reality seems to teach us this very lesson.

I wanted a Phaser effect. So I went out and bought a Behringer Vintage Phaser VP1. It is a very accurate copy of the circuitry of an Electro Harmonix Small Stone. And it desperately wants to look like one, too. I would have forgiven this lack of inspiration if it would have had the built quality its design suggests unfortunately the great thing about this pedal is its sound when on. All else is really bad what you can expect for the price. After spending €19 Euro on it I decided to retain what’s great and spend a bit more to fix all of what’s not so great. Read below if you want to do the same to your VP1.

Issues to address:

• The case sucks. I wanted a flat box design pedal.
• The pot shaft is plastic, so is the knob. The really bad kind of plastic. lightweight and just cheap.
• The tone switch is finicky and to easy to move.
• The red LED is boring.
• The foot switch is too easy going and once I opened the pedal I knew why. While it looks really pro its just a fake switch pressing down a tiny microswitch on a board.
• The biggest issues: no true bypass and the thing is really prone to pick up all kinds of environment noise.

So I basically threw out all but the two main boards:

• Case – gone, replaces by an aluminium case.
• Pot replaced by a high quality 1M pot
• Knob replaced by a big custom aluminium knob
• LED replaced with a white one with a decent metal LED bezel
• Switch replaced with a high quality DPDT switch
• Footswitch replaced with high quality 3PDT foot switch
• DC socket replaced with one you can build into a drilled hole.

I was just about to replace the audio sockets but decided to use the original ones as they were good enough.

Soldering took a couple of hours and since this was my first project of this kind I killed the following items during the process:

• an LED
• the first case as it was to small
• A drill as I tried to widen holes with just the one metal drill I had. If you want to embark on this and you only  take one advise let it be this one: DO get a stepper drill.

Soldering wasn’t quite as easy as the original bord is really crowded and the stuff is tiny. Re-connecting the pot, switch and LED turned out to be most challenging and you really want to use a desoldering tool, pliers and ideally a magnifier glass.

To implement the true bypass I used information found here. (mind the little corrections in the thread to connect audio socket).

I ordered all parts from DoctorTweek and I can not recommend this shop high enough. Steve is an absolute delight to deal with and you immediately get the feeling that you could talk to him for hours over a few pints.

Because it’s a Stone I decided to paint the case in grey primer and nothing else. It looks really stone-like and definitely sticks out of all the other pedals out there.

Now, looks like I need a Peter-Hook Chorus. Time to build a CloneClone.

Photos:

Proud Phone vs. Paranoid Android?

Welcome to blog post number one.

I did not quite expect to write my first article on this blog about the almost over-featured subject of smartphone platforms and their benefits and downsides but facing a very recent and welcomed opportunity to compare the 2 leading platforms I thought it might be interesting to focus on their very distinctive difference in how they approach the way they engage their customers and their needs and behavior. After all, this is what this blog is about.

Distinctive concept and recognition value

We are looking at the latest iterations of Google’s And Apple’s mobile operating systems, Android 2.2 on an HTC Desire from 2010 and iOS 4.1 on an iPhone 3GS from 2009. What comes to my mind first: