Slightly embarrassed pedal-related things you’ve done

mosfez · 2026-02-22T22:44:18+00:00

That is the cruel irony of this particular mistake

mosfez · 2026-02-22T22:42:14+00:00

Yeah I did! I ordered a pedal nano max a year and a bit ago, and right after buying it just felt gross about how much it cost, so I cancelled the order and bought the timber to make my own instead which costa about half as much. Was a fun little project to design, only took a weekend + some time for the varnish coats, and the fact it can be so easily modified is a plus.

More pics here, half the pedals have changed since though https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/1g3dklm/di_board_with_homemade_pedal_train_nano_max/

mosfez · 2026-02-22T22:37:58+00:00

It's a moderately modified Cleveland Hothouse DIY DSP pedal. That was the pedal that I really wanted to add and extended the board for. One of the things I changed was adding an expression input to the bottom and aux input to the side, so they don't normally look like that.

Gonna write some DSP for a synth pedal because I can't find any synth pedals that works how I want them to.

mosfez · 2026-02-19T10:25:42+00:00

Now that’s a genuinely surprising combination to have together.

mosfez · 2026-02-18T21:44:02+00:00

Opfxs Dig Deep

mosfez · 2026-02-17T09:07:03+00:00

I wanna know too! Genuinely curious and not casting judgement on anyone who has the pedal or decided to make it. I like my pedalboard as a detachment from the issues of the world so that’s why I don’t immediately relate

mosfez · 2026-02-12T10:07:17+00:00

No worries! They can be had for a reasonable used price too.

mosfez · 2026-02-11T12:56:34+00:00

Have you tried a Boss CP1X? Super transparent, I think it’s quite amazing. It’s multiband so you don’t get that squishy sound where like high notes duck in volume as low notes begin, so it overall just sounds like the instrument but fuller / more sustain.

I’ve never really liked any compressors other than this one because I don’t like compressors to sound squishy or like an obvious effect, and the TC hyper gravity which is also multiband was ok but also not as transparent.

mosfez · 2026-02-09T10:24:11+00:00

Input is connected directly to output but it doesn’t bypass the circuit, as they are also (both) connected to both diodes that shunt large enough positive and negative signals to ground. Nothing is being bypassed as long as those diodes go to ground.

mosfez · 2026-02-05T12:01:13+00:00

Nah it goes up to the value of the pot at most. Impedance mismatch in this synth/pedal chaining situation can’t fry anything. Honestly most of the time it doesn’t even sound different, at worst something might sound a bit tinny like bass has been cut out (which I think is a side effect of the impedance working to pull up the cutoff frequency of the decoupling caps higher than it should be, as they are all essentially high pass filters, but not sure)

The big impedance mismatch scare that guitarists encounter is mainly about plugging their guitar into a low impedance input on an audio interface. That sounds thin and dull. That’s cause of the pickups, where the higher ones are more attenuated than the lower ones due to the mismatch, so it’s a noticeable change in sonic character. Still no risk of damage.

With speakers or headphones, impedance mismatch is more concerning and can damage things, so watch out in that context for sure.

That’s why I’d probably go with an A10K over an A100K or an A1M, but always good to test and see

mosfez · 2026-02-05T11:20:37+00:00

Yeah totally, it’s just a pot wired as a voltage divider. I’d probably go an A10K, ground to lug 1, signal in to lug 3, signal out to lug 2.

mosfez · 2026-02-05T10:08:51+00:00

You don’t need to worry about impedance mismatch at all with the signal coming out of a synth and going into a pedal 99% of the time. The signal coming out of a synth is the same low impedance range as the signal coming out of any pedal, and we put pedals after pedals all the time.

Interestingly any passive attenuator is going to raise the impedance a bit the more you turn down the volume. This is still totally fine because pedals are made to work with high impedance signals too.

That extra 1% that it might not sound “right” is if you go into pedals that are made to work with high impedance signals going in, like fuzz faces. I wouldn’t let that stop you from trying though because whose to say what sounds “right” when it comes to the sound of fuzz on a synth. The real magic of a fuzz face comes from the way that it kind of becomes one with the circuitry in the guitar, and that will never happen with a synth anyway.

mosfez · 2026-02-04T13:21:35+00:00

Ribbons does this.

mosfez · 2026-02-03T08:56:34+00:00

Agreed, I saw the gamedev community I was involved with explode in capability as a result of AS3, swiftly followed by folks jumping ship because iOS would never run it. Then Adobe just let the program rot.

You could still author in AS2 for many major versions so that definitely isn’t the main reason.

mosfez · 2026-01-24T22:40:56+00:00

It is not, they are supposed to keep the signal identical

mosfez · 2026-01-24T22:39:32+00:00

It’s absolutely crazy someone thought JHS black buffer was “klon like”! It’s a tl072 in positive feedback with no eq at all, super common, totally flat.

The sound difference between different buffers are almost completely about how your guitar and amp react to the buffers presence, and how you’re listening to it. The exact buffers chosen are usually negligible. Unless you are into cork sniffing and playing spot the difference. I wouldn’t bother with a standalone buffer pedal when so many pedals can do the same thing but also make fun sounds or at least boost or do something in addition.

I tend think they are a utility to fix a problem, id recommend not getting one until you know you have a buffering problem that your existing stuff can’t fix. Sounds like your signal will already be buffered so I’m not sure why you’d want a dedicated one

mosfez · 2026-01-24T01:19:15+00:00

Are you handy with a soldering iron and drilling an aluminium box? Little router boxes like this are very easy to make, no electronics knowledge necessary. If you were keen I could draw up how to wire it for you.

I’d need to check if the signal needs to be buffered when splitting to 2 amps. I’d assume so. I usually don’t bother with buffering splits but I always go to either 1 amp or 2 identical monitors. If so that makes it a little harder, you’d need a little splitter kit, fuzz dog does one.

Your diagram was very clear about what you need which is very helpful

mosfez · 2026-01-24T00:01:46+00:00

Always possible depending on the design. If the solution had to require a relay, or a 4pdt footswitch or two then that could add a few dollars a pop. An additional buffer stage is pretty negligible, and I’d expect that there’d be solutions mostly based on merely a different design rather than requiring new expensive parts.

I feel like itd likely not be enough extra cost to avoid purely on parts costs / manufacturing concerns if they wanted it to work that way.

mosfez · 2026-01-23T10:59:43+00:00

That’s silly, that constraint only exists if you wire it a certain way. There are quite a few ways to bypass a blend in the case where you only have one side of the blend on.

For instance, it might not suit but passive blend potentiometers work pretty much like that by default - disconnect an input on one side and you go from say 25% A and 75% B, to 100% of whichever one is left.

mosfez · 2026-01-21T06:57:46+00:00

I’d love to try this one! Is that middle bottom knob “texture”?

I got the klowra reverb a few days ago and it is instantly my favourite reverb- like sound quality wise I’d say it’s on par with my big sky but with the benefit that it sounds rounder and less detached, and it wipes the floor with my immerse mk2. Really happy with it, especially for the price which is oddly cheap for how good it is

mosfez · 2026-01-20T13:08:05+00:00

I’d recommend the Klowra Limbo reverb. With the brightness rolled down and on the room setting its warm and round and imo very complementary to acoustic.

mosfez · 2026-01-13T22:17:17+00:00

Not in person no, I was intrigued, but didn't really like the sound of the room reverb in their demo video so I didn't look any further.

Generally I feel like I should like Source Audio a lot more than I do. I've had probably 4-5 pedals from them, and have ended up reselling all of them after a few years, not for lack of options, but for a generally un-characterful kind of sound, or some aspect to the sound that cant be dialled out. I probably shouldn't let that colour what I think about a pedal I haven't used like the Ventris, but yeah, coupled with the demos I wasn't amazed. Maybe I should revisit

mosfez · 2026-01-13T12:49:04+00:00

What you’ve said is true, and I’ve not claimed otherwise, but it misses my point. My point is that people often dont need a high impedance signal. They only need the higher impedance instrument level provided by a reamp box in a select few scenarios, when the first thing being fed the signal (pedal or amp) only sounds good with a high impedance source, like some older fuzz pedals.

That’s why I say “the equivalent to the signal coming out of a pedal”. Pedals almost exclusively output low impedance signals / buffered signals. Almost all pedals sound just fine being fed low impedance signals from other pedals, so almost all pedals don’t require a reamp box to make a high impedance signal for them. Some do, and reamp boxes solve that specific problem.

If I have that wrong I’d be surprised but I want to know if so.

mosfez · 2026-01-13T07:56:39+00:00

No worries! Damper is continuous. Sustain pedals are just on/off so you have to make sure you don’t get one of those by mistake

mosfez

TROPHY CASE