Pamparo in Toronto

According to Wikipedia:

An impulse purchase or impulse buy is an unplanned or otherwise spontaneous purchase.

Well, I just did that … and I blame the internet for leaking this info to me (and for the slow day at the office)! I just bought this shiny new overdrive pedal which is probably the last thing I need right now …

Barber Unlimited OD

Look at part of the description here: We have a short run of 55 “unLimiTeD” pedals available for the end of summer. How can you say no to that especially with the free shipping to Canada … FREE?! Who says no to that?!?!

Ok, I’m done justifying what I’ve done … now I’ve got to find something else to sell to pay for this one

I’ve finally gotten the chance to look into building (modifying) the DIY expression pedal for my beloved Diamond Memory Lane. Props to the Diamond guys who actually included the schematic in the manual … see below:

Since it only controls how much feedback (number of repeats), I don’t find it useful to put a regular expression pedal for a couple of reasons:
- it’s bulky
- it’s unreliable in live situation

Having said that, I’ve modified the circuit a bit to provide 3 different levels of feedback (2 of which are controllable via trimpots)
- Feedback 1: 1 Repeat
- Feedback 2: 3 Repeats (by default)
- Feedback 3: 5 Repeats (by default)

Here’s the circuit schematic … maybe I should tinker with the “EXP POT” but I decided to leave that alone and modified the “TRIM BIAS” instead:

I have breadboarded the circuit and tried it … it WORKED!!!

Next step is to put it in an actual circuit board and an enclosure with some sort of LED indication of the setting. One potential problem is finding the switch to use without adding another IC to control it. I have not seen a lot of SP3T mechanical switches available … if you know of one, please let me know!

A favorite switch for my Brigadier here: http://www.strymon.net/products/favorite/

And while I’m waiting, I’ve re-arranged my pedals to have a spot reserved for this. Of course, I have to test all the connections after

Click here to listen: Pedalboard July 2010