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Messages - LJN

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Preamps and Effects / Re: Tone Bender Mk.II - Help Needed
« on: April 03, 2016, 06:04:55 AM »
 I can finally say this one is pretty much finished. I ordered some transistors from LIC Pedals and received them yesterday. The guy also sent me a proper layout and I completely rebuilt my clone using axial lead electrolytic caps and some of those old carbon composition resistors (I tested them first with both of my multimeters) . It sounds great and cleans up nicely with my old Kay Effector guitar, but not with my Epiphone LP. I guess it's the different pickups. The effect even has less noise than before.

Amplifier Discussion / Re: Loose speaker magnets- HELP !!!
« on: March 21, 2016, 03:27:42 AM »
No, I haven't had a chance do do it yet. I will as soon as possible.

It's all good. I can certainly understand that and it hadn't occrued to me that it would be taken in that context. I tend to be skeptical of advertisements, too. Especially after my disappointment with a couple of commercially built fuzz pedals, one of which that was advertised as a "vintage reissue " that actually IS built with modern parts, but has WAY more noise than any of my home built clones that were largely just built with whatever parts I salvaged from old circuit boards. That Tone Bender MkI clone is the first one I've built using those carbon comp resistors all the way through and I am quite pleased with that one. Though, as you said, those probably didn't make too much difference.  But it made me feel better about the build.

Thanks for the reply. I'm only building pedals for my own personal use and what I meant by the more important builds is there are certain ones that I've been wanting for a long time. I measured each one with my multimeter prior to installing them in my Tone Bender. MkI clone. I had used some modern types in there at first, but I wanted to switch it over to more vintage type parts. I don't really plan on selling pedals at all. And by saying they worked out in the Tone Bender, what I meant was it is pretty much noiseless. It does make a bit of noise with my Kasino amp, but not with other amps. To make sure,  I plugged it into another amp and listened as I turned the level knob on the pedal to it's maximum setting. There was no noise.

Hi, everyone. I was thinking about all of those old resistors I recently scored from that old Kimball organ. They're all 1/2 watt carbon composition types and I'm planning on using them in my more important fuzz pedal builds. They seem to work really good in my Tone Bender MkI clone. In fact, it sounded better to me after changing over to these old resistors, which have drifted with age. Anyway, I'm wondering what you guy's opinions are on the subject and if a few hundred ohms difference is really enough to significantly affect the outcome. Thanks.

Oh, and very glad to hear your amp is finally working, Billy!  :tu:
I expect your neighbors are really enjoying it, too. Haha
Oh, and my apologies for the way the above post turned out. Not sure what happened there.

Not to worry, I often suggest people "ball up their fist and whack" their amp.  If you want to be more official about it, use a rubber mallet - I have a couple of those by my bench too.  Certainly it won't hurt the amp.  If the amp cannot withstand a good whacking, it will never hold up to transport in the trunk of a car gig to gig.

Fist or mallet, I will hit a complete amp - in the cab - on the top and ends and front and back.  If the chassis is on the bench, I will whack the end of the chassis with my palm, no wires there.  And of course the rubber mallet can hit the ends of the chassis or the top edges or the transformer or even a flat area between parts.

it is a reasonable way to expose loose connections.  Such looseness can be a cracked solder joint, a cracked or broken copper trace, even cracked connections within components.  A lead coming loose inside a filter cap for example.

And sure, lifting an amp up a couple inches at one end and letting it drop back to the table top is not really any different from whacking, it just sends a mechanical shock through it a different direction than a mallet.  I used to make that a regular part of keyboard service, because aside from loose connections, it also sometimes exposed key contact problems.

I was not accusing anyone of amp abuse, just pointing out to all who read the thread that there is nothing wrong with whacking the amp to find out what is wrong with it.  But there are people who honestly think it is OK to just smack an amp to get it running every time, and considers it a fix.

It seems that sometimes it's easy to misinterpret the meaning of some posts. Thanks, Enzo. 
Quote from: Billythekid i feel like people my age dont care bout rock and jammin making music being a band. its all rap cars and money
Yes, I have run into the same problems quite a bit. It seems that nobody's wanting to start a band these days. I've met people who will say they want to start a band, but they're usually just all talk.

Okay, maybe using the word "smack"  is making it sound a bit more harsh than was intended. Firstly, I wouldn't advise anyone to do anything that would damage their prized amplifier. Secondly, I would not advise anyone to go banging on an amplifier's internals as it can cause severe damage and electrocution (something I'm sure nobody wants) . I was only referring to hitting the rear panel of my own amp, which only happened because I was very frustrated with it. If it had been a spot that would actually cause any harm to my amp or myself, I wouldn't have smacked the rear panel. I apologize for the misunderstanding this has caused.

Thanks, Juan. And a big thanks to the others who offered advice to point me in the right direction!  :tu:

Here's the circuit board with the "new" inductor. I had to tweak the value of that cap between the inductor and Q2's emitter, but on the third attempt I found the sweet spot with a .0082uf cap. The tone and sweep of the pedal with these mods is just awesome. <3)
 I've never enjoyed using any wah this much!  :dbtu:

I wasn't suggesting it as a repair technique. I was simply stating what you just said in your last post. My suggestion is that he should find those loose solder joints and fix them before continuing to use his amp.

I finally tried all four of those inductors in my wah pedal and the 1.8H was the one that sounded best. It has a very strong, vocal like quality and sounds almost like Hendrix!

Sounds like you may have a few bad solder joints in there. I can relate to the smacking of the amp as I've done that several times to my Kasino amp. You should probably try to fix those before putting the amp to much use, as it can and will lead to one or more parts failing. Also, what type of reverb tank does your amp have? I've had similar problems with the reverb in my old Sears amp self oscillating and if yours has a similar tank you could try playing with the spring tension a little. Hope you get it sorted.

Very nice. Apologies for the misunderstanding. I'm not familiar with that particular model.

Is this the 4 channel PA head?  I have one of those and it doesn't have an effect channel, but instead has two effect loops. Well, actually two effect send jacks. I assume yours is a similar amp. If this is the case, that's not meant for plugging into with a guitar and is not an effect channel. Try plugging into one of the other inputs. It will help if you can post some pics of the amp, as peavey used the 260H designation on several different amps.

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