Spaghetti Monster

[Big O]

Finished a standard Paramix.  I call it the spaghetti monster because for such as fairly simple pedal it has wires all over the place.  Once I fired it up, the clean blend with a fuzz placed into the Send and Return jacks it worked perfectly.  When I plugged in a chorus into the Insert In and Insert Out jacks, there was pretty much nothing except for some background noise.  I double checked my wiring and I did everything as per the instructions.  However, I was suspicious that the IO and II Jacks that I bought may have a different wiring layout from the diagram in the instructions.  The grounds went to ground with a continuity tester, so I figured the other 2 wires were backwards on my jacks.  I rewired the jacks backwards from the instructions – and Voila!  The pedal works perfectly.

Since I was building this with some time constraints, instead of taking the time to do a full pedal size decal for labels and artwork, I went back to the way I did things way back when I started building pedals.  I printed out separate waterslide decal labels and artwork and then carefully placed them on the enclosure.  Simple, but effective and saved me a bit of time.

I repurposed a discarded enclosure for this project.  It was originally going to be a MkI Tonebender, but I screwed up the drilling.  I drilled a large (foot switch sized) hole where the LED was supposed to be.  That is why the footswitch and LED positions are reversed.

Gutshot (lots of wires):

 

[Barry]

Very nice! I am waiting to hear about this Fuzz Octave thing.

Send me an email and elaborate regarding any problems with the insert jacks.

[Big O]

Below is what I did to correct the wiring problem.  It may have been the particular jacks I used that could be or may not be the switchcraft ones called for in the instructions.  I sent Barry an email as requested regarding what I discovered.

I also hit a final glitch as the screws provided to attach the bottom plate would not work.  I discovered that the screw holes were not tapped into the enclosure.  Fortunately I had an old tap and die set from my grandfather who had been the head of the machine shop at Youngstown Sheet and Tube.  This was maybe the second or third time I ever had to use it, but I am glad I held on to it.  It came in handy and now the bottom plate is firmly screwed onto the enclosure.

[Anonymous]

Nice work getting that fixed! I’ve definitely had to swap wires when things didn’t match up with the instructions, especially with random jacks from different suppliers. It can be a pain, but it feels good when it finally works. I also love the idea of reusing an old enclosure—I’ve done that a few times too after messing up the drilling. You might as well make use of what you’ve got! I usually go the decal route too; it’s simple, and I think it gives the pedal a bit of character.

 

 

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