Category: Play

I recently rehouse my BOSS RC-3 in a 1590N1, and I thought I would share a few things I learned and the pictures. I wanted to add a second footswitch to access stop and the next loop function. Some people just add a second switch straight to the BOSS enclosure, but I also wanted to change the main footswitch to a regular footswitch instead of the one that’s part of the heavy BOSS case, as I find it hard to time when looping.

These are some of the things particular to this build:
– I used a Hammond 1590N1, as I could get the powder coasted 1590N1BK version. Some people use a 125B
– I think because there is a lot crammed on the PCB, I had to sand down the edges of the enclosure to get it to fit between the screw points
– The next loop button requires a normally closed momentary switch. These are hard to find. Carling make some, but they’re really expensive. Alpha make some too, but these have a slight click. You can get one similar to the alpha switch on eBay here.
– You can use a standard soft touch normally off momentary switch if you just want stop and for the main bypass button.
– I wanted to be able to do stop and next loop, so I added a DPDT toggle switch to switch between these two functions.
– I staggered the footswitches in terms of height so that you don’t accidentally hit the wrong one.
– I wanted to be able to fit pancake plugs so I spread out the jacks a little compared to how they were on the original.
– BOSS mount the control panel with some screws to the inside of the enclosure, I had to drill holes and put a screw right through the front panel (which I guess I could paint to look better)
– Don’t mount the control panel too close to the top of the enclosure. The Hammond screw holes are thicker than the BOSS ones so it can hit the PCB of the control panel. I came pretty close and had to sand a bit more away, as well as a little of the PCB.
– The power on/off is connected to the Out-A jack

Here are the pictures:

I was trying out the BOSS tone studio before I bought my BOSS RC-3 looper pedal. I wanted to see if there were loops I could use before I got the pedal. The software doesn’t let you download the loops without the pedal plugged in.

What I realised though, is if you use a USB or SD Card and rename it BOSS_RC_3, and then create the same directory structure, you can download all the loops without the pedal.

Every since I first came across the Fano SP6, I’ve wondered if it was possible to build something similar. It’s a really great looking design, half Les Paul Jr. and half Telecaster. It took me a while to find any parts that would suit this, so I thought I’d list them out here so it’s easier for you all to find:

BYO Guitar do a complete kit that’s very similar, you could buy a Les Paul Special pickguard and you’d be set:
http://www.byoguitar.com/Guitars/BYO-Elite-Jr-T-Kit__BYO-Elite-Jr-T.aspx

There are a couple of sellers on eBay that do bodies that have Strat style neck pockets:
ToneBomb
Rosser Guitars

Finally if you want to go completely custom, Precision guitars can custom CNC you any body shape with any routing:
https://buy.precisionguitarkits.com/product/whole-guitar-design-programming
Precision Guitar Kits have a custom junior that can be used to do something similar:
https://precisionguitarkits.com/product/junior-customizer

Update:
Just found the Rondo Agile AL-2500. Pretty much a complete clone. The control plate looks a bit in the wrong place though.

Update: Hotone have now made one of these, check out their Tuner Press.

Here’s a quick video of a 2 in 1 Volume and Expression pedal. Like a wah it has a footswitch built in that lets you switch between volume mode and expression mode without switching cables. I modified a bespeco weeper wah to build this which is a switchable volume/wah.
– It had a dual pot which meant I only needed a 3PDT switch, but I had a 4PDT, so I could add an LED in the future.
– If you only have a single pot, you need a 4PDT to do the switching.
– Mine is a buffered volume pedal, with true bypass switching, in case something fails I can bypass everything.
– You could easily modify it to be buffered bypass so that tone stays consistent between switching
– If you had a 500K pot you could probably get away with no buffer, although in expression mode it would then be 500K, and most expression inputs specify for 10K to 100K. It should work, but might not work in every circumstance.

I haven’t had time to do a schematic, so the pictures will have to do:

Been doing a little bit of research for a partscaster I’m building, and found some of the forums have mixed information about what is truly Fender’s medium jumbo frets. Anyway found that the fret wire they sell as medium jumbo is .103″ (2.62mm) wide and.046″ (1.17mm) tall according to this link on fender.com:

http://intl.fender.com/en-GB/guitar-bass-parts/misc-parts/standard-guitar-frets-medium-jumbo24/

This makes it pretty much spot on with dunlop 6150 fret wire unlike this post which is one of the top results on Google:

http://www.tdpri.com/threads/fret-wire-help.513926/

I recently swapped my the strings on my guitar from Cleartones to D’Addario NYXL. Here are a quick few thoughts comparing the two:

– Cleartone strings definitely lasted a long time with showing much corrosion
– Cleartone were definitely louder, I was surprised how noticeable this was
– Cleartone were louder in the fundamental, but NYXL had more harmonics
– Cleartone were much higher tension for the same string gauge and required a new setup in order to have correct intonation. The high tension also made it harder to play and felt like I was playing a higher string gauge.

Overall I think NYXL sound much more like conventional nickel strings, because of the balance between the fundamental note and harmonic content. I understand that for some styles of music, some might prefer the sound of Cleartone strings, but for me, I’ll definitely be sticking with the NYXLs.

YouTube recently changed the default settings for channels (including those that already had links enabled) so that social media links don’t show up on your channel banner. To enable these, here’s what you have to do.

1) Click the gear link under your channel banner

2) Enable “Customize the layout of your channel”

3) Add social media/website links as per before

I’ve been experimenting with some of the cheap class d amplifier boards available on eBay from china. This is the PAM8610 board with a Wampler Euphoria clone as a preamp. I added a footswitch that footswitches between clean and overdrive. It switches between two separate gain pots for clean and overdrive, removes the clipping diodes for clean, and adds a lead master in overdrive mode. I did some tests with this setup in separate enclosures, and there was very little hum, but as you can see from the video, there is tons when in the same enclosure. Maybe I have something poorly soldered, or maybe things are just too close together. Still it would be cool if a real manufacturer did something like this and sorted out all the issues because it doesn’t sound bad other than the hum. I might get another one of the boards and put it by itself in it’s own box. I’m powering it with a Mooer 2000mA power supply, but a one spot or anything over 1000mA should work, and it should take anything up to 12V.

Here’s some pics of the project. Notice I had to cut some of the plastic housing from the input jack, as well as bend the legs to make it all fit. The chassis is grounded, but the speaker output is isolated from the chassis. I kind of wish I’d used the deeper 1590BS instead of a 1590B so that there was a little more room.

After building a 2 in 1 overdrive, I’ve got interested in building more pedals, so here’s a few of the PCBs manufacturers I’ve found. Please let me know if you have more to add.