ItsaBass
New member
I'm finished laying out and roughly testing my first pedal prototype, and I'd like to hear some feedback from a few Guinea pigs.
The concept of the pedal is incredibly simple, but in my opinion incredibly useful. I made it just for my own needs, but I thought maybe others might find it useful too. It's a passive, foot switchable, frequency-tunable master treble and bass control. The pedal has two "halves" – one for treble, and one for bass. Each half has a foot switch, a frequency selector switch, and a level pot.
The treble side of the pedal takes away the need for knob fiddling in the middle of a song. It lets you tune and pre set your "sweet spot" so you don't have to search for it every time. You can use the level just rolled off a bit for a mild treble cut. Or, with the level pot at or near 0, one end of the rotary frequency selector will give you a muffled tone, and the other end will give you a snarly "cocked wah" sound. Another thing it does is allows you to have two different stages of treble rolloff: one on the guitar (e.g. a little bit of treble roll off), and one on the pedal (e.g. a more intense treble rolloff, or a ripping cocked wah tone). Additionally, it gives a tone control to guitars that don't have one on board (e.g. guitars with the classic Charvel layout).
The bass side of the pedal is a very powerful tool. It feels like your usual "roll-off" tone knob, however it takes out the low end, not the high end. This has the effect of "de-mudding" the tone. It is especially useful in squeezing some clarity and versatility out of high-output pickups, making them sound more "vintage" and less compressed. It also highly impacts the way that stomp boxes behave. Most guitars don't have bass controls on board; for those guitars, the pedal adds that feature. And for those guitars that do have such a control (e.g. G&Ls or Reverends), it gives you pre-set foot switching ability, and allows you to do the aforementioned multi-stage trick.
This thing probably sounds super boring and stupidly simple, but it's the most useful pedal I've ever used, at least for the way I play. If you want to mess with it, please drop a dibs here. The first six posters with U.S.A. addresses each get to take it for a two week test run, then I need to get it back so I can tweak it. The catches are that you'd have to pay to ship it to the next person, and you'd have to give me a review/suggestions to improve the design and/or implementation. (I can reimburse you for your shipping costs.)
For those who want to try it, I've also gotta drop a big disclaimer. This is a hard-core prototype. It's the first pedal I've ever designed or built. It is probably really rough around the edges. I need you all's help to fine tune it. I've set up the prototype with 12 caps. That's overkill, which I did just for trial purposes. Eventually there will be six, or maybe just three. I want to hear which caps you think should stay and which can go. I'd also like to hear whether you think it's too small, whether the jacks are in a suitable location, whether you like the pot tapers, the knobs, the paint job, whether or not it buzzes or affects your tone when bypassed, and so on. Basically anything that could help improve the prototype. Use it as much as you want, wherever you want; I'm not afraid of it getting worn out. I just ask that you don't modify it, or go poking around inside (to avoid the possibly of breaking something).
I'd appreciate any help that can be given by y'all. I should have the thing ready to ship out in about a week or two, schedule dependent. Thanks.
The concept of the pedal is incredibly simple, but in my opinion incredibly useful. I made it just for my own needs, but I thought maybe others might find it useful too. It's a passive, foot switchable, frequency-tunable master treble and bass control. The pedal has two "halves" – one for treble, and one for bass. Each half has a foot switch, a frequency selector switch, and a level pot.
The treble side of the pedal takes away the need for knob fiddling in the middle of a song. It lets you tune and pre set your "sweet spot" so you don't have to search for it every time. You can use the level just rolled off a bit for a mild treble cut. Or, with the level pot at or near 0, one end of the rotary frequency selector will give you a muffled tone, and the other end will give you a snarly "cocked wah" sound. Another thing it does is allows you to have two different stages of treble rolloff: one on the guitar (e.g. a little bit of treble roll off), and one on the pedal (e.g. a more intense treble rolloff, or a ripping cocked wah tone). Additionally, it gives a tone control to guitars that don't have one on board (e.g. guitars with the classic Charvel layout).
The bass side of the pedal is a very powerful tool. It feels like your usual "roll-off" tone knob, however it takes out the low end, not the high end. This has the effect of "de-mudding" the tone. It is especially useful in squeezing some clarity and versatility out of high-output pickups, making them sound more "vintage" and less compressed. It also highly impacts the way that stomp boxes behave. Most guitars don't have bass controls on board; for those guitars, the pedal adds that feature. And for those guitars that do have such a control (e.g. G&Ls or Reverends), it gives you pre-set foot switching ability, and allows you to do the aforementioned multi-stage trick.
This thing probably sounds super boring and stupidly simple, but it's the most useful pedal I've ever used, at least for the way I play. If you want to mess with it, please drop a dibs here. The first six posters with U.S.A. addresses each get to take it for a two week test run, then I need to get it back so I can tweak it. The catches are that you'd have to pay to ship it to the next person, and you'd have to give me a review/suggestions to improve the design and/or implementation. (I can reimburse you for your shipping costs.)
For those who want to try it, I've also gotta drop a big disclaimer. This is a hard-core prototype. It's the first pedal I've ever designed or built. It is probably really rough around the edges. I need you all's help to fine tune it. I've set up the prototype with 12 caps. That's overkill, which I did just for trial purposes. Eventually there will be six, or maybe just three. I want to hear which caps you think should stay and which can go. I'd also like to hear whether you think it's too small, whether the jacks are in a suitable location, whether you like the pot tapers, the knobs, the paint job, whether or not it buzzes or affects your tone when bypassed, and so on. Basically anything that could help improve the prototype. Use it as much as you want, wherever you want; I'm not afraid of it getting worn out. I just ask that you don't modify it, or go poking around inside (to avoid the possibly of breaking something).
I'd appreciate any help that can be given by y'all. I should have the thing ready to ship out in about a week or two, schedule dependent. Thanks.
Last edited:
I was just thinking last night I need something like this. The 2 guitars I play most have an RTM in one and the Dimebucker I bought off you. Everything is OK EQ wise when switching except for the high end. When I switch to the Dimebucker and leave the amp settings a lone, it can drive a nail through your head w/ the treble. It would be cool to switch guitars, step on a pedal and leave my amps a lone.
