http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/...cs/IMG_0195.jpg
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/...cs/IMG_0197.jpg

Yarsh, its true. After hour and hours and a couple of fried pedals (for some reason I chose to practice on some top-shelf pedals first) I successfully circuit bent and re-house one of those cheap FAB Danelectro distortion pedals (20$) into a square wave, amp-destroying noise machine which I called the "Hell Bent Noise Pedal". This thing produces some of the most awesomely wretched sounds I've heard come out of an amp, along with some of the weirdest. If you're not familiar with circuit bending, its the art of rewiring anything that makes sounds to make sounds it was not designed to make. I don't have anything recorded yet but I probably will today and I'll post it up.

Pics:

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The case with its innards carefully pulled out. They have an annoying way of setting up the pedal with the circuit boards on two shelfs, one on top of the other.

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/...cs/IMG_0192.jpg
Here it is all wired up (though the a capacitor hasn't been hooked up yet) looking like some strange electroctopus.

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/...cs/IMG_0193.jpg
I forgot to take a picture of the case pre-drilled and painted, but here it is hooked up to the inside of the enclosure with the pots/toggle switches. I didn't really plan ahead and wire everything up close to the underside of the top so closing it was a very scary process because of all the pressure threatening to pop some of the poorly done soldering joints. Only one managed to break and was immediately sent to the ER.

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TADUH! It was just an old wooden box I found in a closet.. not sure what it was originally used for. I basically made three slots for the pedal's knobs to go through and inserted them. I cut off the pedals LED, made a hole, made an extension and directed a new LED (A PRETTY GREEN ONE) into the hole. On the backside , which I'm not sure if you're able to see, I made two holes for the input/output jacks. The only thing I haven't quite solved yet is a practical method of turning this monstrosity on/off. Right now I have a finger-size hole at the bottom that I just reach in and poke the little trigger; this isn't hard or anything, just kind of annoying. I'm trying to think up a device that will mechanically do it for me by pushing something at the top.

Again, audio coming soon. I'd like to make a video of it in use but I don't have a video camera. My next project is going to be using a delay pedal. I can't imagine that'll sound like.

I do have one issue which I hope some of you bigger gear-heads can solve. It works fine, bla bla, but when I hook it up through my head's FX loop (Mesa Dual Rec) I get an annoying high-pitched feedback. I've tried playing with the FX knobs with no relief. Solvable?

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Yes. Don't put distortion pedals in the loop. ever.

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Grr.. I figured that'd be the answer. This is not what I wanted to hear since pedals going through the FX Loop will not effect a pedal going straight in.

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heres the thing with distortion pedals. They're built assuming that they're going to take in a small amount of current at the front, and shell a pile out their ass thus distorting an assumedly clean amp.

If you put it in the loop, you're punishing the front end of your pedal with a pile of preamp current, and then hoping it will be able to handle it, which it cant.

tldr; distortion pedals are built to be primary gainstages; they stay in the front.

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nice cakes now learn to case
*awaits soundclips*

Pfff, my casing is awesome - especially for a 0$ DIY circuit-bending experiment. Sound clips coming in an hourish. Expect chaos.

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i was talking about the shrooms smart guy

Ooh, I get it - snooper! I was wondering what you meant by "cakes", I figured you meant what the box looks like.

Anyway, here tis: http://rapidshare.com/files/1176442...t_Test.mp3.html

Not safe for ears. Its capable of quite a bit more, but I'm still figuring the monster out. Next, I need to figure out a way to use it musically. I started cracking up around 1:50ish when I discovered that farting sound.

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is that clip JUST the pedal alone? that thing fucking kicks ass.

DO WANT!

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Yeah, its just the pedal besides the obvious delay in the beginning and some reverb.

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Haha, this thing is awesome. I love it. Great job.

You should sell this shit!

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Ha, thanks! I guess I could once I got better, not sure if I'd want (or be good enough) to but it would be pretty cool, especially getting to make unique designs for each one.

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You should just issue to them to metaltabs regulars, that way when any of us release music, our tone is exclusive to just us, courtesy of you haha

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Nice work man! Ok, I see your dials but are those long ass stakes below the switches potentiometers as well? That's a killer design for pure DIY dude. I'm jealous. I'm waiting on some 4558's to come in so I can soup up my bad monkey. I'm also in the process of building a 1x12 combo amp from a bogen challenger amp I got off ebay. A lil crunch in a box will make that amp rip! Anyways, nice design and sound for first time dude!

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Thanks Davie. Yeah, those long pillars are pots as well. Two of them are 10 and the very right one is, I believe 100. One of them also works, accidentally, as a body contact too.

Good luck with building that amp, man. That shits gotta be tough.

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About how long did it take you do this, minus the construction of the case, so just the electronic work? How did you learn to do this kind of work? The whole concept of creating your own pedal is amazing to me.

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Hmmm, the electrical work took me.. altogether probably about 3 hours (not including the time it took to experiment and find the right connections).

I got started awhile ago circuit bending toys, which is basically what I did to the pedal. This site is great for getting into bending. I went through the garage and got a bunch of little toys I had as a kid and worked with them to get funny noises (like this guy's Bent Furby) but I only did that for a little and after a long break started right away on pedals. A site called Intelligent Machinery has some pretty good details on the art of bending pedals and helped me a lot as he gives a pretty good map on how to get started, and he's got journals that you can read (like this one).

If you've got a shitty pedal laying around or an extra 20$ to buy one, I suggest taking them, cracking them open, and messing with the circuits - its really entertaining and all you really need is a soldering iron, some wires, and a few switches (or screws even, for body contacts). If you've got questions I can help you out.

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That's real cool. I should definitely look into that, though I don't own a soldering iron. Maybe sometime in the future I'll get ahold of one, because i'd love to get into this. It would be so badass to have a unique tone because of something I created and nobody else can ever acquire, especially if i actually got good at it. You've inspired me, darko! haha

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Good! You should get into it. I procrastinated getting started because I didn't have a soldering iron, but then I found out you can get a pretty decent one for 15-20$.

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oh wow, i didn't realize they were that cheap. For some reason i thought they were a lot more. We'll start our own line of MetalTab pedals, exclusive only to the regulars on here. The Chris Rezendes model will be a snake skin design, the Tmfreak model will be marine camo, and the FBS model will be made completely out of stainless steel. Okay, Yeah i know my imagination is on overdrive today but I'm just so fucking bored. Maybe I should just work on getting a sodering iron first and reading up a little on this shit before I'm planning a line of custom pedals haha

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Bwaha, yeah. Just go to Home Depot (which is where I got mine). Read the instructions, watch a tutorial on youtube, and practice on some meaningless toys.

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Nice job dude

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fbs should be done in pink with frills.

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Haha

I'm thinking the TimeDragon model will be a variation of the crybaby wah pedal because of how emo he was in his Kalisia thread

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Hahahaha!

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