Another POD Query

[hamo]

ah. come christmas i will be in malaysia on my holiday =p

Nice! My wife will be in Europe. I'll be here. Hopefully she'll leave me some money...

[rocklander]

And ive just checked out that website you provided about your pedal, And since im ood with electronics, i might see about having a go at building one of them.. Hmm Any tips?

indeed... I built the supreaux and the odie. I use the odie for overdrive and supreaux as the distortion, but in truth the supreaux has enough range to do OD and distortion .. I just wanted to not have to mess with dials when gigging. if I was building them again I'd build 2X supreaux's and set one at low gain ad one at high.. it's just a kick @rse pedal IMO.
if you want kick @rse distortion, go one better and build the thor.. have a listen to the samples

the biggest tips I can offer are:
*trim pots.. they say to use 100K, but I found it near impossible to bias the FETs to 4.5V with them, so used 50K.. MUCH simpler to set the bias (stops the clipping from being all farty and underwater sounding).
*read the instructions ..including all the pics. I missed the fact that I was needing to bias at 4.5V cos it was on the pic rather than the text
* get a bunch of j201 FETS and use try different ones. FETS have a huge range from one to the next so you could get some with higher gain than others (grap 10.. best price incl. delivery I've found is http://www.futurlec.com.au. only AUT$4 postage .. I've bought some stuff from south island components and smallbear and both were very disappointing experiences. for 3pdt switches and enclosures I found http://www.effectsconnection.com to be some of the best prices and pedalpartsplus are not far behind [and pedalpartsplus does that blue press'n'peel stuff for etching for about 10% of the price it sells for in NZ)
*if you get in trouble, email them. they're uber helpful and very quick to respond... also, check out http://www.freestompboxes.org if you want to go further.. there's some total gurus there (they intimidate me a bit cos I'm totally a paint by numbers electronics dood.. I have no idea what I'm doing and don't really understand it, but can follow the instructions).

[hippy01]

Thanks man, will Do.

One thing though.. Is there a good basic "translation guide" for Lamemans terms for FET etc type terms, as i can remeber exactly what they all mean..

[rocklander]

Thanks man, will Do.

One thing though.. Is there a good basic "translation guide" for Lamemans terms for FET etc type terms, as i can remeber exactly what they all mean..

dood, I don't really know that much either
a FET is a Field Effect Transistor
the J201 is what many of the FET based pedals tend to use. thing to look out for is the leg positioning.. if you need info on a particular transistor, then search for the part name (eg. J201, MPF102, whatever) and "datasheet" on google.
the datasheet will tell you which of the three pins (on a transistor.. if it's an integrated circuit like an 'OP-Amp what each of the legs are)are.. (Drain, Gate, Source).
FETS are static sensitive, so you ~should~ treat them carefully.. using a pair of pliers to short out all three legs in case you 'zap' it with a static shock, but in fairness I've yet to kill one.. they're more robust than their reputation.

The PDF files you download from the likes of ROG (runoffgroove) have the directions and stuff already laid out as it should be so you can't go too far wrong... after you've done a couple you'll get the hang more, and since you're only playing with 9V you shouldn't be able to do too much damage to most components.
if you're a total tight @rse like me, you could find old CRT monitors (businesses are writing them off and throwing them out these days cos everyone wants LCDs) and salvage capacitors, trim pots, and resistors (even LEDs) out of them.. in fact dead 'optical' mouses have wicked bright LEDs

google images will have lots of things like resistor and capacitor charts and capacitor conversion charts (how many pFarads in a uFarad capacitor etc) .. google knows everything

[hippy01]

Cheers man. Ill be sure to have a look and hopefully build 2 of theSupreaux pedals, in One.. Hehe. Sounds good to me

[slash-ed]

Dude are you from Malaysia?

If you can wait, you could probably just go back there and buy your gear. It's cheaper, more negotiable, and exchange rates etc will probably help you out too.