Hank+Byerly

Nicely done Hank. You did well explaining the terminology. I am glad you are having success with creating the pedal. I look forward to hearing the way the guitar sounds.

Learning Journal #5 10/28/15 Since its special Learning Journal #5, I've desided I'll take a moment to talk about my design and what I hope to accomplish with it. Distortion is caused by severe ampilfacation of the guitar's signal to the point of clipping (voltage beyond or at what it can handle). A distortion stomp box controls the levels, gain, tone, etc to make it sound a certain way. There are three kinds of distortion stomp boxes; overdrive, distortion, and fuzz. They are catogorized by three different ways they make a sound wave clip but usually people just go with how harsh the distortion sounds. Overdrive is the most mild, distortion in the middle, and fuzz at the most uncontrolled. The lines between the three are blurred since it's more of a subjective thing but you surely won't call a fuzz an overdrive and vice versa. Stevie Ray Vaugen used over drives (like a lot of blues men do), distortion is found in a lot of metal (easier to control than fuzz and still has bite), and Smashing Pumpkins were famous for their Big Muff (a popular fuzz pedal) fuzz sounds. I am planning to build an overdrive with the goal in mind to make it sound different. By far, the most common overdrive is the Ibanez Tubescreamer TS9. This little green three knobbed pedal has been around for around thirty years and is crazy popular. People of all genres use them (SRV had two) to boost the midvoicing of their guitars and add a bit of dirt (slang for distortion). Because of their popularity, over 90% of all over drives are based on the same circuit the TS9 uses and this isn't cool with me. My pedal is called the NoClone, NS9 and is of my own design. Using LED, Germanium, and silicon diodes with asymetrical clipping, the NS9 will have a more glassy and clear sound which heavily contrasts the TS9.

Great work! I loved talking to you and seeing the pictures. Keep up the good work. I look forward to following your progress.

Have faith in thine own self, and thou shalt rejoice in the completion of thy quest to "move the circuit to a perf board". Good tidings unto thee, and may thy dial be turned up to eleven. Learning Journal #4 10/16/15 Parts came!! After studying the guide, I started building my mock circuit on my breadboard. Basically, this is a rough draft that allows you to move parts around to change the sound. If you were to do this on a perf board then you would have to solder everything into place. After around four hours of work, I had the circuit tamed to my taste instead of the unruly mega distortion that the simple circuit was in its default form. Now I have to move the circuit to a perf board. Really I'm not looking forward to this because I messed up on pretty much every step on the easy part so moving on to the hard part should be interesting....

Great Hank! I am glad you told me you were having troubles getting the parts, and that with some persistence you were able to make that happen.

Learning Journal #3 10/7/15 Not much progress to report. I ordered the parts and they have yet to ship. Also I have talked to Mrs Viroks husband who owns his own guitar shop and he advised me to work a bit more on guitars to practice my soldering skills. I will work on my friends cheap guitar by trying to solder out the buzzing by rechecking the ground wire connections. I will post pictures when it's done.

Hi Hank, it sounds like you are finalizing what you need. Let me know how successful you were in acquiring the parts you need. I know we talked about expense. All of these components sound like it is going to get pricey. Once you begin to piece the components together you can add photos of your progress. Keep up the good work.

Learning Journal #2 - 9/23/15 It was suggested for me to include a list of resources I believe I will need. There are over forty different parts needed so I will give you a broad list with a short description of what they do. All these parts are ordered from mammothelectronics.com. Solder- The material that joims together the components to the circuit board. Soldering Iron- This is the tool I will use to melt the solder to the circuit. Components- This includes LEDs, transistors, capisitors, resistors, potimeters, PCB, perf board, breadboard, wires, jacks, and others. All of this I am ordering online tonight. Hopefully, there will be progress.

Hank, thank you for including a source to assist you in your research. In your next journal please identify materials needed (or think you will need) with a description of their purpose. Also, feel free to incorporate pictures of your progress as you go. This space is to be used as a place to keep notes for yourself and to show me your progress. Your plan is very interesting! I am looking forward to seeing you progress.

Learning Journal #1 - 9/11/15 My objective is to build my own guitar effects pedal that I have customized to my own taste. Using http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/21291-build-your-own-stompbox I'll be able to follow the instructions and be able to complete this goal. I'll order the parts from mammothelectronics.com and build at home. Once I finish, I'll bring it in to share with my PowerPoint telling you what I learned. Bo will assess me from there.