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Paladin2019

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Just a quick pimping for www.buildyourownclone.com formerly big tone music brewery.

They're building up a healthy catalogue of fx kits and they're well worth looking into if you can tell which end to hold a soldering iron. NOS components, colour coding, pre-drilled encosures, not too pricey, excellent support and service.

I've just finished building the 'Ranger' treble boost kit (as an advanced beginner it was barely a weekend's work) and I'm very impressed with the kit, the (online only) instructions, Keith's helpfulness and the effect itself. I'll post pics and maybe even clips eventually.

Anyone else attempted their own build?
 
Was thinking of building that exact same kit. Definately post some pics.

Ned
 
I'll get some up tonight hopefully. My only complaint is that the enclosure was a little cramped so you should definately plan ahead in terms of assembly, but everything does fit if you do it right.
 
Right.

I'm sorry about the image quality, I seem to have the only digital camera with auto-anti-focus. :evil:

The innards. I stripped some thin wire and used the stripped insulation on the legs of the transistor - very handy.

Paladin2019-RangeIn.JPG


The box - finished with Hammerite Hammered Dark Blue spraypaint. I'm not sure it's supposed to look like this, it's rather 'grittier' than Hammered effect paint from a can, but nontheless looks very cool. This is the best representation of the colour.

Paladin2019-RangeBox.JPG


Finally, a size comparison alongside a Boss.

Paladin2019-RangeComp.JPG


Another quick tip, the power input socket is shaped so that you have to have it in place before you solder it, otherwise you can't fit it through the hole. I learned that the hard way. You can use masking tape to protect it while painting.
 
Nice. Did you pick the color?

I think these are the same as the Crispy Creme's which are suppose to sound killer with a Boogie.

Now I'm going to have to order one.

Ned
 
Yeah, I picked the colour. Boss Bluesdriver Blue. :lol: There's quite a few good colours in the hammer range and the plain 'brushed aluminium' look is pretty good too - see the finishing instructions on the site. I should have taken a pic or two before I sprayed it over.

I was going to add some text to mine but it would have been too much extra work and I know what the knob does anyway.

I've never played or even seen another treble booster, so I can't compare them. But I say go for it. It's just so satisfying to simply plug it in and hear it working!
 
Hey guys,

I really enjoy building my own musical equipment. There's the beginnings of a pedal page on my site at http://members.shaw.ca/house-of-jim I started with pedals and got into building amps around 1998. Pedals are a good place to start though - you're not going to electrocute yourself with a 9-volt battery. :)

Those kits in the link look good, however if you don't mind sourcing your own parts they can be built cheaper. http://www.diystompboxes.com is a fantastic resource!

Jim
 
Jim Jones said:
you're not going to electrocute yourself with a 9-volt battery. :)

Hi Jim, thanks for the links. I should point out that 3 people die in this country every year testing if a 9v battery is working by placing it on their tongue, so you're not exactly right!

One of the reasons I went for the kit was because I'm a beginner and I wanted the convenience of having all the parts, the box and the aftermarket support in one package, but I can see how it could be done more cheaply.
 
Hey Paladin,

I've heard about the 9-volt battery/electrocution thing but I find it pretty hard to believe. Besides, if someone actually dies from testing a 9-volt with their tongue I'd think it was God's way of "thinning out the herd" so to speak. :)

Jim
 
Yup, you could well be right. :lol:

I've been browsing your pedal page and notice you made a special mention of the OC44 transistor in your treble booster - just thought I'd point out that the kit I bought has one of those as standard. Neat! 8)
 
Hey Paladin,

Yep the OC44 is great. Any germanium transistor biased properly will work but the OC44 is especially nice. That transistor was standard in the original Rangemaster but people have original units with OC71's and 76's, too. I have an old Mullard transistor manual that states that OC44's were optimized for high frequency work so it would make sense they'd wind up in treble boosters.

Out of curiosity how noisy is yours?

Jim
 
For all of you DIY stompboxes lovers check www.pisotones.com :wink:
 
Hey Paladin,

That's good to hear! Some of those old germanium transistors are hissy as all hell so it sounds like you got a good one. Playing a humbucker-equiped guitar into a treble booster into an old non-master Marshall or Vox is a beautiful thing!

Jim
 
I do know a bloke in the Midlands with a 68 marshall halfstack... But for now I'm more than happy plugging the boosted love rock into my cornford hurricane 8)
 
Hi Paladin,

Cool - I've heard good things about those amps! My point in regards to amps was that the old Ge treble boosters don't match up very well with certain types. For example, Blackface Fenders (while classic amps) don't seem to work very well at all with these types of pedals. British amps seem to sound the best, especially the ones that are similar in topology to the old tweed Fender Bassman. So old Marshalls, Laney's, early Sound City's and Voxes are great matchups.

Jim
 
Paladin2019 said:
Just a quick pimping for www.buildyourownclone.com formerly big tone music brewery.

They're building up a healthy catalogue of fx kits and they're well worth looking into if you can tell which end to hold a soldering iron. NOS components, colour coding, pre-drilled encosures, not too pricey, excellent support and service.

I've just finished building the 'Ranger' treble boost kit (as an advanced beginner it was barely a weekend's work) and I'm very impressed with the kit, the (online only) instructions, Keith's helpfulness and the effect itself. I'll post pics and maybe even clips eventually.

Anyone else attempted their own build?

I've built 4 of Keith's kits, and they've all been great. There are a few holes in the instructions, and especially in the hookup phase you'll occasionally have to desolder a wire and add another, but basically they're simple and easy to build and sound great.

I think they layout on some of the kits could be better, and the instructions don't really stress that you need to make all of the components (transistors and mylar caps) lay down on the board or the case won't fit - so you need to take some care with lead length, etc.

I've built the rangemaster, 808, fuzz face and tonebender. They all sound great and work well, but the real standout to me is the 808 clone, which is better than any tubescreamer I've ever had. I've got a TS9 reissue and a 4 knob turbo, and these have gone in the closet since I finished the clone. It is just really excellent.

Keith is working on some new kits for a phaser, compressor and some other stuff, and I'm planning on building all of them. They are all true bypass, unlike most of the originals.

You can probably do this a lot cheaper, but getting the kit takes care of a lot of the PITA stuff. The box is drilled, the boards are made, and everything fits. Plus he has managed to find the correct transistors and chips, and that can be tough. I like them a lot, and if you can read and solder, you can probably get it right on the first try.

Mike
 
THREAD RESURRECTION!

I came back to this topic when a google image search for "hammerite hammered" brought up one of my pictures on page 1. Heehee!

About the CE-2; it's one of the old japanese black-label types which are suppsedly the most collectable even though the same circuit is used in all three versions. I got it a couple of years ago from a guy who was scaling down his pedal board. He wanted ?30 for it but since it had a few paint chips I talked him down to ?25. :wink:

I've been looking into the BYOC kits again lately and I've just bought an 808 for my bithday - I may buy a fuzzface if I have enough cash left at the end of the month. Mike, if you're still around, did you install the 808 mod pack when you built yours? I'm thinking of putting in all three mods, plus a blue LED and spraying the box hammerite hammered mid green (with the sandpaper effect I used on the ranger).

The kits have been updated and debugged lately. The treble boost is now on a PCB and incorporates three different boost types. It looks a lot less beginner friendly but I have a feeling the PCB will actually be easier to work on. They're all negative earth now, which ends the power headaches they used to have in their period-correct original incarnations.
 
I once build a TS-808 clone and added an extra diode in series with one of the other diodes to produce asymmetrical clipping. It's now my main distortion device.
 

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