MK1 Tone Bender tag layout

[Ben79]

Couldn't find a tag layout for the MK1 so I made this. Surely neater ways to do it than this resistor spaghetti but hopefully it will work. I've read that the key to the MK1 is auditioning every germanium you own til it sounds good so no wonder people normally build this on vero and use sockets. But I guess you can always breadboard it beforehand or use clips on the trannies til you have some worth soldering.



Using...

[eatyourguitar]

[Ben79]

Yeah, see, it's supposed to be a mess.

I wonder what would happen if I started selling pedals built like that.

[eatyourguitar]

not even solasound wants them built that way now. all the solasound licensed limited re-issues made by DAM and sold at mcari's were done on stripboard. pretty much all the booteeek MK I are on vero/strip now. if you can do it on tag board like your layout it would be closer to the original but way cleaner. super excited for those transistors your sending me. I really want to use pedalenclosures.com but someone suggested MDC-642-PLAIN-ALUM made by Lmb Heeger. fry's (EU) and mouser (USA) both have them if you search.

there is also brook @ pigeon FX with his super accurate enclosure

[theavondon]

I know Ian at Ghost does his stuff on tag or strip or whatever board and it looks clean as fuuuuck.

[Ben79]

Might check out getting a big steel enclosure - ultimately I'd like to be making them myself. Thanks for the info Rob, and the trannies go in the post today. Show us what you do with them!

Tim at Fredric Effects, who also builds nice pedals but with a different approach, told me to check out Ian's pedals. That's what got me interested in using tag board. Then I found Jimmy Behan who's doing the same sort of thing but building all kinds of clones. Interesting that Ian and Jimmy both make abstract, experimental music alongside their amazing pedals. I like the super clean look but I also like the utilitarian p2p punk method and I doubt they'd sound any different, would they?

I find tag more satisfying than vero, just wish I could find a cheap source.

[eatyourguitar]

sound different? yes and no. depends on the gain. nothing is shielded and there is enough gain going on. sometimes crosstalk is the magic bean that makes a pedal better or worse. some circuits are affected by the way ground is shared. the resistance to ground at different points in the pedal can be 0ohm to 20ohm difference before we put electricity down them. when you have AC + DC signals through a conductor the impedance changes slightly enough to affect a very sensitive high gain circuit. I built two identical parallel universe PCB's with one of them being in a wah enclosure. the wah version is very very different. more noise, more oscillation etc.. this is the exception, not the norm. there is no LM386 in a TB MK I.