The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Bass Amps & Effects => Topic started by: chromium on November 19, 2012, 02:42:46 PM
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I've been goofing around a bit with aluminum transfers and etching - trying to learn how to put graphics and labeling on enclosures. At the same time, I've been experimenting with some overdrive circuits on breadboard...
Both efforts finally converged into this:
(http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k125/0chromium0/DSCF9030.jpg)
(http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k125/0chromium0/DSCF9033.jpg)
(http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k125/0chromium0/DSCF00071.jpg)
Here's a quick soundclip of it at volume through my Orange/SVT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23g-areEq9U
Already working on another design. This is kind of addicting! ;D
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Kit-Kat chunky... ;D
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mmm gnarly.
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It sounds quite tasty thru my Genz/Peavey 4x12 rig too :mrgreen:
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sounds great. a kit or just from a schematic of the internet????
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I like the sound. Nice sound variations demo'd in the video, too.
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Yeah, that's awesome.
I'd like to find out more about you came to build that box.
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Thanks! I actually built this one for Nokturnal/Andy as a b-day present (happy 29th, man!!). He has long been a zombie movie aficionado, and so I thought some classic Night of the Living Dead graphics might be in order (http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k125/0chromium0/forums/smilies/zombie.gif)
This one was based on this schematic, and I built it on copper-clad prototyping board:
http://analogguru.an.ohost.de/193/schematics/Colorsound_ToneBender_RI.gif
The gain stage is copied pretty much verbatim, but I changed the tone circuit a bit. The way it works is that the signal gets split and runs into both a low pass and high pass filter, and then the tone control balances between the two. In the original, there is a much larger notch (sitting in the midrange) between the frequency points at which those filters begin to roll off. I narrowed that notch to about a 1/4 of what it was, and the sound has more mids and more "grunt" as a result.
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Brilliant (pun intended)! Death to the living!!! :D
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I'd forgotten that I'd built a small pre-amp circuit, even down to a custom etched board rather than "strips" and made it small enough to put into the original cavity of the PC - my original reason for minimising on the controls, so I could have the space to fit it... worked well enough during my metal days as it produced a rearl growl from the old original PC pups...
Long gone...
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:o Holy Crap I love that ! That sounds so f'ng cool, reminds me of Geezer. I really liked watching your pick technique, much like mine.
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:o Holy Crap I love that ! That sounds so f'ng cool, reminds me of Geezer. I really liked watching your pick technique, much like mine.
Thanks, Scott! The Geezer thing is probably no coincidence - big Sabbath fan here.
I'm mostly a fingerstyle player out of habit, but still trying to correct that 8) Half the time I can never find a pick, though, and so I end up doing what I did there - using my fingernail!
I'm working on another, slightly more elaborate box now that will serve as a stereo bass overdrive and/or buffered splitter. So rather than use a passive Ric-o-sound-type splitter, you can run a TRS (stereo) cable from a 4001/3, Magnum, etc... into it and add some grit independently to each pickup. It'll then either mix the pickups together into a mono out, or let you send each pickup out of its own stereo output - to separate amps, or separate channels on a board.
(http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k125/0chromium0/forums/effects/Psionic/DSCF3301a.jpg)
The overdrives will be roughly similar to that zombie fuzz above (but with switchable clipping diodes for different sounds), and each OD can be bypassed using those red-tipped switches (if I end up making more of these, the enclosure size will grow a bit to accommodate a pair of footswitches in place of the toggles).
If used with a normal bass (mono), the blue switch at the bottom will selectively cascade the overdrives in series - so they can both chain together and process the mono signal.
I built that enclosure last week, and I still need to build up the final circuit on perfboard and finish the internals - hopefully this weekend. I'll post some sound clips once I get it finished and have time to record it.
:toast:
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Joe, both of these look great! Even though my Alembics are the only stereo basses I have on hand at the moment, I would be seriously tempted by the stereo box - if my 4003 lived with me on the left coast I'd order one in a heartbeat!
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I'd forgotten that I'd built a small pre-amp circuit, even down to a custom etched board rather than "strips" and made it small enough to put into the original cavity of the PC - my original reason for minimising on the controls, so I could have the space to fit it... worked well enough during my metal days as it produced a rearl growl from the old original PC pups...
Long gone...
What I was thinking those days, was building a preamp for my epi with gibby tb pups, with an active-passive switch ofcourse. I think it would sound devastating!
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Joe, both of these look great! Even though my Alembics are the only stereo basses I have on hand at the moment, I would be seriously tempted by the stereo box - if my 4003 lived with me on the left coast I'd order one in a heartbeat!
Thanks! I wired up the enclosure last weekend, but I'm still using it with the circuit on breadboard (temporary/prototyping). Playing around with different overdrive voicing for the neck and bridge pickups, and making some other improvements. I think I have a manageable approach to building some enclosures (vinyl labels on powdercoated enclosures, buried in clear, buffed out), and if all goes well I might get some boards printed for both a mono and stereo version. We'll see...
I'd forgotten that I'd built a small pre-amp circuit, even down to a custom etched board rather than "strips" and made it small enough to put into the original cavity of the PC - my original reason for minimising on the controls, so I could have the space to fit it... worked well enough during my metal days as it produced a rearl growl from the old original PC pups...
Long gone...
What I was thinking those days, was building a preamp for my epi with gibby tb pups, with an active-passive switch ofcourse. I think it would sound devastating!
That would be a cool project. That old BC Rich I picked up has a great sounding, simple little 2N5088-based pre and varitone circuit on a board...
I'm still really green at it, but I've done a couple projects with software called KiCAD and like it a lot. It'll let you draw up your circuit, run tests/simulations, and layout the printed circuit board artwork (...and its all open source!):
http://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/KiCad+EDA+Software+Suite
Places like PCBCart (http://www.pcbcart.com/cart.php?target=profile&mode=login) can take those files and run off the boards for you, or you can just use them to do the print/toner-mask/etch/drill on your own.
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That would be a cool project. That old BC Rich I picked up has a great sounding, simple little 2N5088-based pre and varitone circuit on a board...
That sounds interesting, any wiring diagrams handy? :D
I was thinking of making a preamp for each pickup, so I'd avoid pickup interaction when I use both pickups on. I'd probably put the preamps after the pickup volume pots so I can use 500k pots for both active and passive mode. I know its (slightly) better to put the potentiometers after the preamp, but then I would be commited on using 50k pots, and those don't work well on passive mode...
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That sounds interesting, any wiring diagrams handy? :D
All the schematics I've come across depict that pre-amp/varitone combo board as a "black box", without any detail. There were very few components on the board - mainly caps for the varitone, and I'm pretty sure the pre-amp section resembled something close to the example shown here: http://www.phoenixcomputerlabs.com/All-About-Mixers/Pre-Amps.html
Neal Moser's site has the vintage BCR schems that depict the remainder of the wiring, and also the detail on varitone cap values:
http://www.nealmoserguitars.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=8_42
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Great info, thank you! :)