Dying Battery Simulator

The first article I ever wrote on the beavis site was for a Dying Battery Simulator. As such it was woefully out of date. I've updated the article with a few new ideas. In honor of the voltage updates, here's the devolt:

Bunch of Updates

Hello friends! Things have been very busy in my real job, so I haven't had as much time as I would like to keep the Beavis Empire running. But there has been forward movement on several fronts, so here's a bunch of updates.

Beavis Board: Holy crap have I been inundated with emails! The response to the beavis board has been way beyond my expectations. I'm currently backed up at 130 emails, so if I may beg your indulgence for a little while longer--I will get back to everybody who emailed, and the kits will be rolling out the door soon. I just made a huge parts order (the largest in Beavis history) and am working to get a helper to fulfill all the order requests. The exciting part to me is the sheer number of people out there who want to hack stompboxes, which is pretty much the whole mission of beavis. Thanks to all who have emailed, I'll holler back soon.

Tube Cricket: Perhaps the longest "perennially-almost-done" project in my history, last night I finally got time to build the first Tube Cricket using a production PCB. The result was even better than I hoped for, a growly grainy rude little amp that is all about overdrive and distortion. Don't expect chimey Fender cleans from this little box. Parts are on order for the first batch, no ETA yet, but it getting  __so__ close! Clips soon!

Fuzzlab jr.: Finished debugging the PCB design, but still have some final work to move from prototype to final version. Need to do clips also.

FKR and Noisy Cricket: These are currently licensed to Oohlala Manufacturing and they are working hard to get them into production.

Email: Way behind :( Please be patient, I'll try and get caught up as soon as possible.

Other projects: Not sure when these will be done, but I really want to finish the DSWF (and post some clips!), the Armageddon Processor, and finish up work on a new distortion pedal. Stay tuned. Oh yeah, I spent a few hours trying to add an RSS feed to the main page, but could never get it working. That has been a big request, so if anyone knows a simple way for me to post an XML feed file and make it actually work, drop me a line. Thanks!

Your evil friend,
teh beavis

Back in Town

Back from vacation, time to ramp up for a big beavis board production run. Thanks for all the emails! I'll get back to everybody as soon as possible.

the coolest thing I've seen all year

Pardon my french, but  this goddamn rocks! open source programmable dsp effects for the masses. this guy is a genius, a real bonafide stompbox Einstein for the common man. visit his site.

www.howleraudio.com

beavis boards for sale!

Well my friend, I think I may have something that will interest you: the beavis board.

From Stompbox To Reality

A new article on how to read schematics, and turn them into working things.

New Amp Day!

It's always great to get a new amp, even if you built it yourself.

I've had the big rectangular enclosure and a cheap Chinese voltmeter sitting around for too long, so I decided to use them to build an amp. It's a clone of the smokey, but the gain is boosted to 200 and I can adjust to voltage.

Getting Started

After answering the same questions over a thousand times via email, I thought that maybe it would be clever to create a page that talks about Getting Started. So I made the page. Work in progress, hopefully it will be a good clearinghouse page for all the things that you can stumble on when approaching the dynamic, fascinating, and chick-magnet hobby that is stompboxery.

Getting Started Page

Sumthin New

The fuzzLab Jr.

Dual Oscillator

Here's a fun project, a dual oscillator built off a single 40106 schmitt trigger chip. Schematic and layout for a radio shack board included.

Altoids Guitar

A couple of fellows have posted wonderful mini-guitars over on instructables.com, little gems built out of altoids tins and rulers. I decided to build one. A few hours later, I have a rockin' axe. The sound is incredible, as good as my ten top PRS private reserve bubinga with gold hardware.

Ok, in truth it sounds like crap. I used a Radio Shack piezo for the pickup which provides the bouzouki from hell tone, and it is almost impossible to tune. But what the heck, a fun project nonetheless. (And no, I don't own a PRS private reserve ten top or any similar fine furniture guitar:)

Digital Sequenced Wah Filter (aka Precision Ass Tornado)

While waiting on parts for the next stage in the Armageddon Processor, I took some time to work on an idea that has been itching around in the back of my mind for a while: using a microcontroller to create multi-state LFOs through PWM. Still not complete, but I have lots of info and pictures to share.

YA386A

=Yet Another 386 Amp. This one runs two 386 N-4s at 18 volts for around two watts of rude tone.

Some PCBs

Got time to get some major work done on the Armageddon Processor PCBs. Almost all are laid out and the first two are ready for testing. Woot!

A Worthy Successor to the FuzzLab?

Maybe, with the Armageddon Processor.

Meet the Beav

I get a lot of emails with questions. Thankfully, most of them are about building stompboxes n' shit, and not about my previous life as a Guatemalan transvestite. But a lot of people seem to keep asking about the birth of the beavis. So go ahead, meet the beav.

Low Voltage Tube Overdrives

Here a couple of fun designs using tubes in starved-plate configurations for overdrive circuits. The first is from a schematic I found on matsumin's site, a 12AU7 dual-triode running at 9-12 volts: the ValveCaster

The second is a bit more interesting. It uses as 6111 sub-mini dual triode originally designed for ballistic missiles and other Cold War aerospace tasks. Here's a pic of the 6111 next to a regular 12AX7 tube and a 9v battery for scale reference:

I created a simple voltage regulator to supply 6.3v to the heaters and ran the rest at 12 volts. Here it is, the Sub Caster.

There's also a great thread going on over at diystompboxes.com about these designs--lots of ideas there.

Tube Cricket Proto

Well after many many months, the design is done and tested, PCBs are being manufactured and soon there will be a kit version from olcircuits.com and ready to run boxes from the Beavis. I haven't finalized which enclosure I'll be using, but here's a snapshot of the finished proto:

And here is the schematic for those who want to hack one together.

FKR Update

A wee bit 'o news...

BYOC Ultimate Fuzz-Updated Mods

One of the first pedals I ever built: the BYOC Fuzz Face clone. I was playing around with the fuzz face circuit last night and came up with a few additional mods that are rather fun. Updated Mod Diagram!

The Great Buffer Jihad

Some simple ideas in the great Buffers vs. True Bypass jihad, including schematics and a DIY buffer project.

I have a Rat Problem

Yeah, yeah, I know. I just can't stop building bastardizations of the Rat. Following hot on the heals of last week's Double Rat Rack, I just had to top it with a triple rat. I had a few BYOC Mighty Mouse boards left over so I whipped them up, wire-brushed and drilled a big wide enclosure and built the Triple Rat, complete with bitchin' 80's rising sun graphics.

Pedal Hacker Projects - Effect Order Switcher

Does the Digitech Grunge sound better before or after the Boss DeathMetalMasterShred 9000? Chorus before delay? Dinner before the movie? Build a simple effects order switcher and dare to compare.

Pedal Hacker Projects - True Bypass Loops

Here are some wiring diagrams that show how to create true bypass loops. Examples are shown for a simple loop, loop with LED indicator, and loop with a feedback mixer.

Double Rat Rack

I finally got the rack mount double-rat done for my good friend James. Lube knobs, and LED/stock/germanium diode switching on each side.
See more pics.

Help Me Help the Little Kidz!

I finally finished my custom one of a kind Noisy Cricket Combo amp. It is listed on eBay and 100% of the proceeds go to UNICEF. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your parole officer. All to a good cause and a bitchin' little amp to boot! Update: This little number was purchased by the most awesome Scott of Axe and You Shall Receive. What a great guy. And he has an awesome business too. You think you suffer from GAS? Yeah right, visit Scott's site and you'll suffer some more.

motors and noise

I've been playing around with different electro-mechanical effects ideas: using motors, transducers, coils, etc. that can be directly applied to a guitar body, strings, bridge, pickups, etc. Here's the first set of results: using vibrating motors (as found in cell phones, old pagers, etc.) to get bowing and grinding effects. Check out the idea, along with a video.

trotskys coming online via superpuma <woot>

As time becomes less and less available and the number of projects my crazy mind thinks of becomes unmangeable, one of my favorite devices, the Trotsky drive has been neglected for too long. The good news is that my good friend and stompbox guru Nate has taken up the task of building and customizing trotsky pedals in addition to his other awesome custom builds. If you are interested in the trotsky, or want to check out some other cool custom stompboxes, absolutely give nate a holler: puma (at) superpuma.net. Here's an example of one his righteous etched trotskys:

digital

I added a page to yack about some of the digitial/microcontroller stuff I've been working on, including the arduino punk console.

Radio Shack Noisy Cricket

(Updated rev 1.2) I've received lots of requests from people to make Noisy Cricket Mark II printed circuit boards available. Unfortunately, I'm not equipped to make lots of PCBs (and I hate making PCBs to begin with--the least fun part of this zany hobby). So as a compromise, I figured it would be a good idea to figure out how to build a NCMII on one of those Radio Shack general-purpose PCBs. They are available ($2.50 for 2!) at almost every Radio Shack and you don't have to etch, cut, etc.

So here's a handy build guide showing the info you need to build your own cricket without etching boards. PDF Version

Tube Cricket!!!!

Over the last 8 months I've been very successful at avoiding work on the Tube Cricket. Thankfully, Mark at OLCircuits has badgered and shamed me into getting the final schematic done. Mark then proceeded to work on the Tube Cricket Kit! Woot, etc. Check out the OLCircuits prototype:

You can get more information on the upcoming Tube Cricket Kit here: http://www.olcircuits.com/olc_tubecricket.html. Send Mark a thank-you note for kicking my lazy ass into gear on this one!

Beavis Gets Press

My grandfather once told me there were only two ways I'd be a news item: the arrest reports or the obituaries. Of course, he was a grumpy old bastard. Hey gramps! Neener Neener: Premier Guitar ran a short piece of Beavis Audio! Amazing that there would be mainstream interest in my fun little corner of the world, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Thanks Premier Guitar People! Here's a direct link to the page.

Noisy Cricket Mark II Update

This weekend was a Noisy Cricket Mark II building bonanza. Wife and kids were out of town (sad :(  ) so I got a lot of time to build (glad :) ). Got a stack of Mark II's done. I'm really pleased with the new enclosures and the way these have turned out. I'll be putting this batch on eBay, more details to follow.

All for a Good Cause

In related news, I've been thinking about building one very special Noisy Cricket and selling it for a charitable cause, something that helps kids who need help.

Then I found out that eBay makes it easy to set up an auction where the proceeds go directly to a specific charity. Armed with this knowledge, my mind sprung into action: what kind of Noisy Cricket had I not built before? Simple: a combo!

I had the shell of an old dean markley practice amp, no speaker or electronics, just a dusty beat-up 12" high cabinet. I cleaned it up, repaired the Tolex rips and dings, and painted it yellow. I put the hardware back on and installed a nice new Jensen Mod Series 6" speaker in it. Next I fabricated a front panel out of a sheet of stainless steel and attached it to a small Hammond enclosure to hold the guts.

It's not done yet, but close. When it is ready to go, I'll be sure to post a link to the eBay auction so you can get in on the philanthropic action.

Stompbox Gutshot Gallery

Peek under the kimono--here's my growing collection of pedal inside pix.

Fresh Steaming Updates

I've been building stuff, learning stuff, starting fires and causing general mayhem in the Beavis Basement for the last month. And I've been neglecting the site, so here is a quagmire of quickies:

Forrest Mimms Three Knob Synth: Mimm's classic 556 dual timer oscillator with a new output section to make it compatible with the pedalboard. Plug it in instead of a guitar. Also google the Atari Punk Console for a quick and easy version of this.

Theremin: I've always wanted to build a real Theremin, not the silly opto 1 chip things. Ordered the Theramax kit from PAIA and its now about 75% done.

Seven Knob Muff: Still lots of work ahead on this, but its getting closer. Check out the lovely Hammond enclosure and knobs for this beast.

Malekko B*assmaster: Malekko Heavy Industries is a new pedal house run by a very cool guy. His B*assmaster is derived from the uber-rare and ultra-cool Maestro Bass Brassmaster from way back. Got one in the basement yesterday, and it simply rocks: awesome fuzz an octave effects with a ton of tweakability. Highly recommended.

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