Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hey everyone! I've been to the board before looking for specific types of pedals, but am now about to build my own stuff...

I bought a few boards from mad bean, and am going through to order the parts... I think I'm going to try and order through Mammoth, since I have a bunch of wire and cable to order through there.

In preparation, a circuit bending buddy of mine gave me a beginner board project... Here's the video for that - you can see my soldering job (which got better as more stuff got soldered) about 40 seconds in.



(the link is here in case the YouTube thing is broken) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9M1Wu-k ... ata_player

So, my questions: 1) a resistor listed as 820R - is that just 820 ohms, or am I missing something?

2) if an IC is listed as LM308, would the mammoth part listed as LM308N be the same thing?

3) if it says "jumper" - am I to assume that means to put a wire in place of a resistor to keep the connection?

4) (and this may be for a different forum) I'm building a few mudbunnies, and I wanted one to be a low distortion pedal, as if the volume was turned down on the guitar for a mellowed part - anyone know of a mod that can essentially cut the volume, but then turn THAT sound up?

I'm thinking of doing a couple creamy dreamers and a couple rams heads. I'd like to get close to my little big muff pi, but all the YouTube videos of the differ models lead me to think it's more rams head and dreamer - any thoughts?

I guess that's all I've got for now. Thanks in advance, guys... Any other advice is welcome! Looking forward to my first pedal build!

1) - 3) yes

4) I'm not sure what a mudbunny is.

Sounds like you've got things under control. As for light distortion and then volume boost, you just want something to amplify (not distort) the mild distortion you've got.

Do you have a breadboard? That way you can experiment and find the exact sound you like.

A mudbunny is madbean's version of a big muff. I ordered the boards from him, and now I have to buy the parts and put it together.

So the board would produce the sound, and I guess I want to muffle the volume and then boost it. I LOVE a big muff pedal, so I'd love to replicate its mojo when I'm at soft volumes as well. I don't have a breadboard, no. I think it's more like modifying an existing pedal...

And thanks for the quick response.

You could put a volume (and tone if you wanted aswell) before the circuit and then put a boost after it. So it could have pre-volume, big muff fuzz, tone, volume, then boost.

What's up my friend? So you are ready to get it rolling huh? I wish I could help you with your question there. Hopefully some much better guitar players can talk turkey with you. Actually whether it's FF or anyone on here they are better than me I do like FF's idea though.

If you have not already, post this over at Beans. They are a cool bunch of dudes over there too and will help you.

Blueshawk! Yep, I got the boards from madbean and am ready to order the parts. These are small compared to my practice board, though, so I may have to practice on breadboard or something with cheap parts.

It's interesting, I checked around to see what the differences were between the muffs - apparently there is no definitive sound for any of the 13+ versions of the pedal. So I think I'll just start with a creamy dreamer and maybe a rams head.

I think I'll post over there too just to see what they say. I imagine it'll be at least a month before I get started on these, but I like to prepare ahead and make sure I have all my parts inline. My guitar build is almost done, just waiting on the last of the parts, but I'm looking forward to the pedals, though.

How's your latest builds going? I guess that's for another chat...

Okay, next question:

When a cap list says 100n, what does that equate to for ordering? Everything on mammoth is in pF...

Also, when a resistor is listed as 8k2, 2k7 or 1k5, what is it that I'm looking for? There's also cap values listed as 4u7, 3n3 and 2u2... I'm totally lost with what those mean.

*EDIT* I found the capacitor chart list post, but still need help with the resistor Question...

Thanks in advance again!

8k2 is another way of saying 8.2K. The lower case "k" is used instead of a decimal point.

For caps is the same thing only a lower case "u" is used in place of a decimal point. So 4u7 is the same as 4.7uf.

Awesome, makes sense... I'm now looking at caps - I'm reading tha anything over 16v is okay... Will it make a difference to buy more than 16v, or will I just be wasting my money?

I used to buy those 16v and they are fine, but then I started buiding a few 18v pedals so now all I buy is 25v and up. You could buy 100v and it doesn't matter.

Long way of saying unless you think you might run something on 18v the 16v will do it.

I know you saw the chart. Another way of thinking is when you see uf, take that decimal and move three places to the right and of course three back to the left for uf. So .1uf = 100n.

Pf are very small values. You rarely find more than 1-3 of those in most builds. They are the little orange discs usually.

BluesHawk - I saw you posted something during a search, but now I can't find it, where you talk about the types of capacitors that should be used.

I see the small ceramic types (xicon or orange drops), which are for small values like pF and nF values, and then there are the cylindric aluminum electrolytic ones, which are for large values like uF - am I wrong in this thinking? Also, does it matter if you mix voltage (e.g. getting a 25v and a 50v if the value you need is in one and not the other)?

I would assume no, but assumptions make things blow up with electronics, so I'm being doubly cautious.

Thanks again, guys - I really do appreciate all the help, and sorry if this stuff is posted elsewhere - I'm not always great with searching, especially when it's more vague like general parts sourcing.

All my old posts are gone from middle of February prior as I got "SQL'd" and I went off the reservation I guess I had to rejoin. I assume you are talking about one of those old posts or was it an old PM? If PM, those things don't hang around long I guess by default. I'm not aware of how to change that.

You can mix voltage ratings on caps. It doesn't matter.

The proper way to think of it is the pf is indeed small values. But the microfarads we don't call small per se or I guess I've never thought of it that way really. So the uf or n designation is 95% of the time the "film" caps, such as box caps and polyester caps...mostly. The large electrolytics are polorized and are also designated as uf and the orientation must be spot on or they make the magic smoke. On the layout you will see the electro's with a circle and then a "+ and a "-". This helps you figure out whether you need film caps or electro caps when you see uf next to a value. The long lead on those is a "+" and must be oriented as such. The film caps are not polorized therefore it doesn't matter which way you orient them. They of course usually show up as a box on the layout pics. Same with the ceramic disc ones for the picofarads, pf. They are not polorized either.

There are other nuances you run into but I won't bog you down with all that.

I assume you are sourcing the parts off Madbean's Mudbunny BOM? I'll take a look after lunch to see if I see anything odd I need to mention.

Edit: For the Ram's head that 4n film cap is a bitch to find. Just use a 3.9. There is a good chance if you tested it, it might read out to 4.0. But either way close enough. Also, for the Creamy Dreamer that 50n is equally a bitch to find. I usually take the next closest value, up or down, and start measuring the caps to see if I can get close to 50. But, then I usually have a large stash of parts.

Another note, you may have a hard time finding the exact value of resistor. With those you can teepee them, ie. solder two of them together. They add up together. You take the two leads, but the ends of each resistor up and twist together, solder and snip off the excess. Then you pop in the board. It will sit up some but not any more than a cap.

Awesome - i'll try to look at that tonight when I get home - I found all the resistors. I just posted in Bean's forum (where you had put in a link to a big muff history page) trying to equate the different versions and their general tones. I still don't know what the Mayo would compare to.

Take a look at bean's new schematic - I think he changed out the hard-to-find parts, cause I was able to get them all on mammoth (or some variant of them all). He also did away with the mids mod in favor of board mounted pots, but in an email told me how I can still do it.

My thinking is that I'm going to make 1 ram's head and 3 creamy dreamers (I have a little big muff that I'd like to match, but I have no clue which version will do that, so I'll make one CD and one RH and then use those as my basis for the other 2). 2 of those will have the pre-volume and post-boost so I can get a nice soft tone with that big muff mojo (also with a switch to turn those off, hopefully). I may try and put a mids mod onto all of them with a switch to turn that off completely, too - I'm a noob that jumps in the deep end, what can I say? I crank these things up smashing pumpkins siamese dream style, so I'm trying to figure out the best way of doing that.

Anywho - thanks for the advice, guys - I'll look again when I get home and will probably have more questions then. This is gonna be an expensive haul, but it'll net me 5 pedals worth of stuff and something for my guitar build, so I can't complain.