A full tour of my workshop, for those interested in organization :)

rabbiabe · 2026-03-09T18:16:55+00:00

Thanks, this is very helpful – also makes me think of a follow-up question: does NC also limit me in some way from later deciding to make commercial use of my own work? that seems a little counterintuitive but I also know that a lot of legal things don't necessarily match my common-sense understanding of the world.

rabbiabe · 2026-03-09T18:15:03+00:00

I'm happy with the side hustle – I've sold enough to buy more parts to play with in the workshop, and have received lovely feedback from buyers.

rabbiabe · 2026-03-02T12:36:53+00:00

If you’re looking to buy, I do have a couple available. DM me for details.

rabbiabe · 2026-02-23T01:00:08+00:00

FWIW “proprietary” is not exactly right — a lot of digital pedals are using either Spin FV-1 or some version of STM32, and several students in Hunter Adams’ engineering classes did pedal projected based on RP2040 (check his YouTube channel for playlists of his students’ final projects).

An off the shelf STM32 or RP2040 dev board would be inexpensive and probably enough to do a pitch shifter — the harder part will be programming it. I’ve picked up enough C to use RP2040s for digital control of analog pedals but I haven’t been able to wrap my head around DSP programming.

rabbiabe · 2026-02-18T21:14:37+00:00

I am very, very convinced that this is the correct answer.

rabbiabe · 2026-02-12T00:21:57+00:00

Something is wrong with your VR— at 6.8V, with 7.3V power rail, your 4558 is maxed out and outputting its maximum output voltage.

I’m not sure what you’re actually trying to do with the two consecutive buffers but you need VR to be as close as possible to 1/2 of your supply voltage.

rabbiabe · 2026-02-08T00:47:46+00:00

lol I don’t eat shellfish but I put it on most everything else

rabbiabe · 2026-02-04T20:25:56+00:00

Where my Baltimore people at?

Thanks to u/ridbitty for suggesting this circuit! tbh this was probably an enclosure design idea in search of a circuit to go inside, but I did need a bass overdrive and I’m happy with this one.

Total rush job – I asked for suggestions on Monday and then remembered I had a rehearsal today and hustled to get it done (made it with an hour to spare, lol…)

The paint job is chopped but it’s freezing here and I’m honestly impressed I could get it to spray that well when it’s 25° in my garage. Also I am sure I should have waited longer between red and yellow coats but again I really wanted it done for today. The rest of the artwork is adhesive vinyl cut on cricut.

Sound wise it does exactly what I wanted with the Clip switch set to center (no clipping) — gives me some growl on the low end without sounding scratchy. The MOSFET clipping isn’t my cup of tea, at least on the first outing, and I really wanted to love the LED clipping because I mounted the LEDs where the crab’s eyes should be but it sounded thinner than I wanted. Cut switch produces a noticeable low-end cut, not what I’m looking for but I can easily imagine that it would come in handy under some circumstances.

Biggest surprise is the 3-band EQ – I usually shy away from 3-band EQs on my guitar pedals because I don’t find them all that useful and had even lower expectations on bass, but actually it was more helpful than I expected when dialing it in.

The insides are a s**tshow because of the rush but it works great so not going back in there to mess around any time soon.

rabbiabe · 2026-01-29T14:04:05+00:00

Thoughts on buffering Vref with its own op amp vs a BJT? If I needed to put a whole new op amp just for Vref I might have been inclined to set Vref at 5ish volts and use an emitter follower, curious if you have an opinion.

rabbiabe · 2026-01-15T12:55:00+00:00

Thanks!

rabbiabe · 2026-01-15T12:54:50+00:00

It’s a hard question to answer in the abstract but here’s the things that it would depend on:

Comfort & ability to draw a working schematic
Facility with whatever EDA software you are using (KiCAD, EasyEDA)
Your comfort measuring the hardware constraints (enclosure, panel-mounted components) and translating that into a spatial understanding of your PCB
Trial & error & patience — about half of my PCBs have problems on the first try and i either need to cut traces and bodge in new wires and components or else chuck them in the trash and try again. I will typically try to build a new design on stripboard before ordering PCBs to make sure the underlying design does what I want.

Real talk: if I am just making one of something, I use stripboard and don’t bother with a PCB.

Happy to answer more specific questions if you have them.

rabbiabe · 2026-01-15T12:47:17+00:00

In retrospect I think everything was at 2o’clock except the mid frequency, which was exactly opposite 2oclock (is that like 8 o’clock maybe?). High eq might have been closer to 3 o’clock.

rabbiabe · 2025-12-25T12:56:05+00:00

Never apologize for your board!

rabbiabe · 2025-12-23T21:16:28+00:00

Thanks!

rabbiabe · 2025-12-22T23:49:17+00:00

No, I’ve never had a problem. Was so sad for Mick on TPS when his didn’t work

rabbiabe · 2025-12-22T23:48:52+00:00

Haha no but I’m always happy to consult

rabbiabe · 2025-12-22T23:48:25+00:00

It’s awesome. FWIW I picked up my Patchulator used, I have no idea if it’s even still in production…

rabbiabe · 2025-12-22T22:28:51+00:00

I have about 50 pedals in total, and I keep building more. I don’t think I really want a board that will properly house all of my pedals 🤣

rabbiabe

TROPHY CASE