Freestompboxes: a mission statement

[modman]

Another Forum?
It really takes nothing to set up a forum nowadays...

No money, no knowledge, just a borrowed computer will do. There are more then plenty of them on every subject all over the internet. Probably rightfully so, because newsgroups and forums are the heart of the internet: people from all over the world with the same interest have the opportunity to exchange ideas.

With libraries abound, the internet did not do so much of spreading the canon of official canonical information. Rather, it turned out to be a great medium for the exchange of underground stuff. Building your own guitar effect stompbox is a prime example.

Stompbox project Info on the internet
Most of the circuits have been around since the beginning, but mostly in DIY magazines and they never really caught the guitarists' eye. They just walked in and grabbed their Guitar Player magazine. The online guitarist googling for 'vintage stompboxes' nowadays is bound to meet the DIY stompbox community sooner or later.

And if you are true tonefreak rather then a show-off name dropper you get very happy at the thought that you can build your own 'boutique' stompbox and tweak it to your own taste for a fraction of the money you would pay for a boutique box.

Backlash of the DIY pedal craze
Big commercial pedal manufacturers are dropping their prices like they're hot, boutique pedal makers are getting nervous and begging the diy community to safeguard them certain commercial death. Or so they think... Recent turbulences and censorship of certain commercial schematics (although they are all over the net) has caused great upheaval at the mother of all stompboxsites, aron's diystompboxes.com causing some 'heretic' discussion to flee to the kind German Musikding.de forum.

Copyright, Patent and more
Of course often the artwork and the graphical layout of the pcb of effect are protected, but redrawing or tracing a circuit is by no means illegal. Patents on effects do exist, but they are not some common. Most of them have expired by now. There are some examples here on the forum, so do check them out in you are interested.

Maybe this quickly setup board can provide a space for unabridge, free discussion about any stompbox design.

Private Folders
During the first few days a poll amongst the first 20 members showed that everybody was in favour of putting the sensitive schematics in a members-only folder. As most of the first were started in the folder accessible to everyone, they were moved. The original folder still shows a shadow of the thread and it's title is clearly visible. When you click the topic, you will be directed to the private section and will be asked for your password. (Added 31th July 2007)

[analogguru]

congrats, good idea

analogguru

[analogguru]

A nice intriguos fellow named "puretube", you can see his face here on the left:
http://www.puretube.de/Mike_and_Ton_1-0.jpg
seems to have nothing else to do then to follow my steps and talk lies to my actual ISP that with my schematics I would violate copyrights.

For this reason, some of the schematic-links maybe broken for some time.
I am working to sort this out and establish a "puretube-safe" webspace.

Sorry about the inconviniences.

analogguru

[modman]

A nice intriguos fellow named "puretube", you can see his face here on the left:
http://www.puretube.de/Mike_and_Ton_1-0.jpg
seems to have nothing else to do then to follow my steps and talk lies to my actual ISP that with my schematics I would violate copyrights.

For this reason, some of the schematic-links maybe broken for some time.
I am working to sort this out and establish a "puretube-safe" webspace.

Sorry about the inconviniences.

analogguru

Thanks for joining and posting so much terrific stuff analogguru!

Why professional pedal makers lurk around diystompboxes is no secret at all: checking for ideas to steal, misleading beginners, posting cryptic electronic inside jokes. The reason why ZVEX and puretube are to paranoid about their circuits disseminating is that THEY ARE UNPROTECTED.

I wasn't even remotely interested in some of that stuff until I noticed the taboo. At least there was a challenge, something that hadn't been done.

ZJ

[bajaman]

Hi folks
Thanks for the invite, and many thanks for the English speaking - My Deutsch is a bit rusty, and being 56 years old, I am too old to re-learn it, so, this is great Modman!
I have built up an extensive collection of schematics over the years, which I shall make freely available if requested. Many of these are commercial (no not zvexpuretubemayer etc) and of course there is some degree of sensitivity if they are published as they are, but I am sure Gottfried or someone here can redraw them for everyone's enlightenment!
Long live the free exchange of ideas - that is how I learned - still learning!!!
Special thanks to Analoguru and Modman for this forum!!
Cheers and all the best
Steve
Baja Electronics
New Brighton
Christchurch
New Zealand
(soon to be home of the Americas' Cup - once we get it back from those Swiss guys - LOL)

[modman]

Thank Bajaman,

And ever so welcome, was kind of expecting you ... great having you here. Yeah, you are right redrawing the schematic is kind of essential if they are originals. Then these drawings as they are drawn there are copyrighted.

If you or anybody have any suggestion as to improve the structure of the forum, please let me know. Should still draw up some forum rules,

thanks again for being here (there)

ZJ

[markm]

Hello Guys!
ZJ, it works now!!
This is tremendous.
I thank you for having me on and I hope to be able to offer you some contributions to your community here.
You fellas have to know that I think this forum is going to ROCK the DIY community to it's very core!
This forum is going to be HOT, Very Hot and it's great to see you all here!
Thanks again ZJ.

[bajaman]

Hello friends
I just stopped for lunch - middle of Winter here - Brrrrrrrr!
Chicken soup warms me up though
One rule suggestion - no rules - seriously though, if you leach and learn, please give back to the community - spread the Love around, there's far too much hate already!
Best wishes to all
Cheers
Steve

[soulsonic]

I'm glad to see this forum.

[bajaman]

Hey hey
i think this is going to become THE best resource site on the internet - let us all hope that some a$$hole doesn't close it down
There are some VERY talented people here already ( not me- i'm just another learner willing to share what I have learnt)

[bajaman]

Hello Modman
I have a noobie friend - have performed a few mods on some of his pedals and tube amp - Is it okay to invite him here? - he is a computer tech, at the local University and a really nice guy
Regards
Steve

[modman]

Hello Modman
I have a noobie friend - have performed a few mods on some of his pedals and tube amp - Is it okay to invite him here? - he is a computer tech, at the local University and a really nice guy
Regards
Steve

By all means, everybody intrested in this project is welcome. I should maybe also contact Torchy, who left diystomp for musikding but doesn't speak German either.

[beavis]

Hi everyone, Beavis here.

Glad to meet you all.

[modman]

Hi everyone, Beavis here.
Glad to meet you all.

Hi Beavis,

An joy to have you here. Forum's just started one week ago although we sometime sound like overhappy campers, there's real stompbox action going on. Forum has still to reach definite form, it seems.

Don't hesistate to be a part of it. Was going to quote your website, but will put it in the diylinks post

http://beavisaudio.com/

ps starting out on the fuzz face, your fuzz lab really knocked me out!

great stuff!

ZJ

[modman]

About restructuring and stuff going offline at Jack Orman's site...a new forum in the making or was it already in place?

http://archive.ampage.org/threads/1/fxs ... ing-1.html

5/16/2000 8:16 AM
aron

Well, I can't believe it's free either but...

What I can't believe is that of the majority of all the people online reading this stuff, they would go and vote for the slowest possible way to get information.

I'm sorry, but I think it's crazy that they would rather pay for a CD which Jack has to make, dupe, mail out, rather than get the good stuff right away. Why would you possibly want to wait a month or so for new projects, when you can get them right away as soon as he's finished.

If they really wanted the site on CD, just get Internet Explorer, save the site as a web archive and burn a CD. Read/Write CD burners are way cheaper now.

Oh well, I thank Jack for what he has posted in the past and for what he has contributed and will contribute in the future. I can't help but think that somehow we have lost out a bit.

Call me greedy but not being able to link to a Mini-Booster or Mini-Tubes schematic online seems a crime.

[soulsonic]

That's old old stuff from when Jack changed to having all his good projects only available on CD-ROM. I remember when you could still get the schematics for stuff like the MiniTubes and Fat Gnat for free off his website. I still have the schematic for the MiniTubes.... I'm not sure about the others, I remember saving them, but I saved them on a floppy disc (that's how long ago it was!) so I'm not sure where it went to or if the info is still there. I have a printout of the MiniTubes, so I guess it's "safe". Anyone want me to redraw it post it up? It's really not that fancy - just a bunch of MiniBoosters all run together.

I used to visit the forums back then, but I got bored with it really quick - this is the first time I've been back on it regularly in about 7 years - I guess we'll see if it can hold my interest this time around. I'm thinking it will, I've already gotten much more out of it this time - I think alot of it has to do with the fact that I know much more about electronics now than I did then.

[DougH]

I have a printout of the MiniTubes, so I guess it's "safe". Anyone want me to redraw it post it up? It's really not that fancy - just a bunch of MiniBoosters all run together.

Not to pick nits, but that's painting with a *really* broad brush...

The mini-tubes was one of the first, if not the first, diy pedal circuit that incorporated "guitar amplifier like" voicing elements such as the 470k/470p and the "cathode circuits" being recreated in the source circuits of ea stage. Plus it stacked stages to create gain/clipping and included tone ladder networks like it's amplifier "cousins".

Whether you consider that brute-force or inferior in some ways today- it was the inspiration for the BSIAB and the voicing elements inspired the Meteor and eventually all the Runoffgroove "amp sim" stuff. It had a big effect on how the diy community looked at designing distortion pedals. Some of the ideas got integrated into some of Aron's op amp based stuff too.

You may see all the Runoffgroove stuff today and think it's been done to death and is blase'- that may be a fair assessment. And in that light the Minitubes may not look like that big of a deal. But it's important to remember the history, the chain of events, and the order in which different ideas were developed- in order to maintain a good perspective. That's one of the things that unfortunately gets lost over time. And as much as a particular schematic may have a long shelf-life on the internet- the order of events that brought it about in the first place gets lost way too easily.

[bajaman]

Thanks Doug - consider yourself our official historian
bajaman

[soulsonic]

I agree with you Doug - I did describe in too general of terms. I remember when I first found it - sometime around '99-'00 - I thought it was a really big deal. And I can see that it is/was a big deal still as far as really pushing new ideas for stompbox designs emulating amps.... especially in light of seeing how it's done to death now on ROG... and ripped-off mercilessly by booteekers. I'm a big fan of the Mu-Amp design for JFETs..... they behave so much better in that configuration.... and regardless of who may have started using it for guitar circuits first, Jack is the one who "gave it to the world".

I've been working on some ideas for an amp-style distortion myself using MOSFETs with a biasing arrangement similar to that used in an SHO for the sake of ease of building, and I would be really annoyed if someone described it as being "just a bunch of SHOs all run together", so yes, I absolutely get your point.
Now I just have to come up with a better biasing scheme for my MOSFETs....

[DrNomis]

I understand the basic idea behind Copyright,but would like to add my two cent's worth if i may....


I have found in some cases,that Copyright can be a bit of a hindrance rather than a help,this is not to say that there should be no Copyright protection at all,far from it,anyway,here's an example of where I think Copyright can be a hindrance,I own a vintage analog Synthesizer keyboard,which has a fault in it that I would love to fix,the keyboard is still playable as it is,what I really need to fix it is a decent service manual,but the company that made the keyboard,seems to be unwilling to make avalible a free downloadable version of the Service manual of the particular model of keyboard that I own,they have free downloads for related models though,but the schematics are nothing like what I really need,this particular model of keyboard has been long discontinued by the company,along with all related models,the only manual I can find is a user manual,not much help to me at all...


I'm guessing that the company isn't making avalible the service manual I need,for copyright reasons,I only need it to service my keyboard,i have no desire to start manufacturing this keyboard at all....