Echo Flanger (Dandy Horse) DIY Guitar Pedal Build

[@willieprins1361]

Wow nice to see Jan's musical side!

[@JanBeta]

Thanks! :D I've been playing in bands since I was a teenager. Glad you enjoy seeing that side. There's probably going to be some more videos about guitar gear in the future occasionally. :)

[@willieprins1361]

@@JanBeta myself as well. Although not performing as much as I would have liked to. Also studied technical subjects so the crossover was interesting.

[@rofbungle8572]

Great build, Jan. Fellow retro enthusiast here - building & repairing Apple / Mac / Atari / Amiga / Commodore etc - and gigging guitarist. I also build & repair a lot of valve / tube amp music gear. So I’m loving this content, in addition to your usual retro stuff. My pedalboard is mostly home made pedals, preamps & accessories. I never label anything, so get lots of questions from musicians wanting to know what gear I’m using, which I love talking about. Coincidentally, one of the guys I play with is a German friend called Jan! Did a gig down in Baden-Württemberg a while back! Biasing by ear is always the way to go. And hand-written labels and mis-matching knobs are perfect. Very rock’n’roll!

[@JanBeta]

Thanks! What a cool coincidence that you jam with another Jan. Say hello from me. ;) I already built quite a few pedals from kits myself, too. Some ended up on my own pedal board, some were given to band mates and friends. It's a deep deep rabbit hole to explore and lots of fun. I feel like I only just scraped the surface... :D

[@3vi1J]

Great video. I'm disappointed in the enclosure though: You should have gotten a heart shaped box.

[@JanBeta]

Haha, that's a brilliant idea. :D

[@domramsey]

Ah, this is cool. So good to mix up the content. Also, the different knobs and hand written labels are perfect. I wouldn't change anything!

[@JanBeta]

Thanks! I actually ordered more knobs already. I at least want to get rid of that screw replacing the original missing grub screw. :D

[@talideon]

Here's how you feel old: there's more time between now and when "In Utero" came out than between when the first Beatles album, "Please Please Me", and when "In Utero" came out.

[@TheGreatAtario]

First of all, how dare you

[@JanBeta]

Ouch! :D

[@jengelenm]

Thanks Jan! As an amateur guitar player myself, i reaeally dig this! I revisited the Nirvana discography very in-depth and extensively a half year ago!!! Straight as an ARROW!!!!

[@geronimome4153]

A multi-talented tech. How cool jan

[@ihavetonsofthese]

Never thought I'd see you cover another one of my favorite hobbies, nice work Jan!

[@MrUSFT]

It's great to know you are a fellow musician! I didn't think my esteem for you could get any higher, but you continue to delight! 🎸🎶❤

[@JanBeta]

Hey, thanks! I think there's quite a few other musicians in the retro computer scene, Rees (from Ctrl Alt Rees) is a bassist, for example. ;)

[@JacobDubs]

Thanks for posting this! I actually made an audio probe a couple of weeks before biasing my own build. I had the same issues with the oscillation adjustment and some of the other biasing as you did where it wasn't making much of a difference in the output during the adjustments. The direction didn't really say where to probe for the last feedback adjustment from what I remember. Also, I ended up getting the clock frequencies pretty close with a 22pf cap. It is what it is I guess.

[@Doomchild2XL]

Yay! Pedals! My actual favorite thing!

[@JanBeta]

I love tinkering with pedals myself. There's very likely going to be another video or two about guitar stuff in the future. ;)

[@Mind-your-own-beeswax]

As a keyboard/synth player who also fixes retro gear we are kindred spirits Jan. a great job on the build sir.

[@philxknife]

Really cool to see how these things are really made. Thanks! ❤

[@JanBeta]

Glad you found it interesting! Thanks! :D

[@meh3247]

That looked like a lot of bloody hard work fella! You made me glad I bought my Zoom B1Four (bass multi effect pedal) already assembled!

[@JanBeta]

It definitely is a lot of work building something like this yourself. But also a lot of fun (at least for me). Nothing wrong with buying pre-made effects to spare you the trouble though, of course! :D

[@meh3247]

@@JanBeta I saw elsewhere in this thread that you're a bassist too, and in the spirit of muso's everywhere, this is my current kit list: Fender Rumble 100W Amp (with overdrive footswitch) with the Zoom B1Four multi effects unit (mostly for exciter, compressor, bit of chorus and a smattering of reverb, but sometimes for some head breaking distortion), all played on an Ibanez SR300 in weathered black and I've got the Ibanez SR370EF fretless model on order... I've got no time for building a multi effect pedal - too damn busy laying down the funk Brother!

[@blacknote47]

Nice Project and Sound. To encrease the longevity of the Pedal I would take the Vibration of the Stage Floor into consideration. Maybe put a drop of loctite on those wonky trimpots and put some thermal pads between the chips and case to ensure nothings rattles itself lose over time.

[@JanBeta]

Thanks! I have several DIY pedals with socketed chips and never ran into any problems with them so far. Seems the grip is enough. Definitely worth considering reenforcing though so thanks for the idea. :)

[@paulvanderlaak700]

Would be nice to see a device for inside the c64. A delay so every Sid song sounds like you have two of them inside. Where you can set the delay time with a potentiometer. Good video btw.

[@chriswareham]

Oh wow, I didn't know there was a clone available of this pedal! I love the closely related Memory Man, Electric Mistress and Clone Theory pedals. I own a vintage Clone Theory and use it on bass, as it has this metallic sound that doesn't wipe out the low frequencies of the bass sound.

[@JanBeta]

I have one of the newer small Memory Man pedals on my board as well. It's absolutely amazing. EHX effects are my favorite by far, mostly because of their imperfections and analog sound. Lovely stuff!

[@VincentGroenewold]

Very nice also as a soldering guide! What temps are you normally using?

[@JanBeta]

Usually around 370C with leaded solder. :)

[@horusfalcon]

If you ever need a bass track for something, get with me. Cool little pedal kit.

[@JanBeta]

Thanks! I'm a bassist, too (I just turned into a guitarist a couple of years ago by accident). :D

[@toddwat9633]

Awesomely cool!!

[@paszTube]

So are you playings gigs in The Netherlands sometimes? Or near the Dutch border perhaps?

[@JanBeta]

Oh, we are a very small scale operation at the moment. It's more of a hobby for all of us and we mostly gig very locally currently. Maybe we are going to travel a bit in the future but there are no plans for that now. :D

[@jenzGuitarist]

Nice! :-) Ah, i love Electro Harmonix stuff (okay, this is a clone, but still), especially the Small Clone, too. Greetings, jenzGuitarist \m/

[@JanBeta]

Our other guitarist has a Small Clone, actually. It sounds amazing indeed! I have one of the small new Memory Man pedals and a Big Muff Pi myself. I love the quirkiness of the EHX pedals. Very fun to play with. :D

[@NathanOZlegend]

i love the guitar too

[@NullReference119]

Not sure if the caps you're using in the oscillator are NP0, if they aren't and you're having stability issues with the effects and or bias you may want to swap them with NP0 parts because those won't be affected by temperature changes. Those might be surface mount parts... but that's what there are spare resistor leads for 😉 Also when biasing you may need to loosely couple in your scope via a capacitor, your leads have capacitance and will mess things up. You'll bias for the circuit with the leads in... and not without.

[@JanBeta]

Oh, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing. I don't think the biasing needs to be absolutely spot on in this case (or for any other vintage analog effect). I guess it's better to just go by ear for the final touches (which is what I did and I am very satisfied with how it sounds now, after another round of fine tuning it in situ on my pedal board).

[@lorenzo.c]

What's the DC voltage applied onto those capacitors? MLCCs (Multi Layer Ceramic Capacitor) like NP0 ceramic are great for stability but the actual capacitance tends to be quite sensitive to the DC bias (capacitance substantially decreasing with increasing voltage leading to distortion). If the DC voltage is always the same then, possibly, it is not an issue but I would check anyway. Something to try is to compare NP0 capacitors with the same nominal capacitance (which is characterised with small amplitude signal around 0V) but different voltage ratings (the ones with higher voltage would obviously be physically larger). Metallised polymer could maybe be even less sensitive to DC voltage but I don't happen to use those at all in my designs. Disclaimer: I may be barking up the wrong tree here!

[@eddiehimself]

Hol' up, pardner! I'm fairly sure A has always been log and B linear, with C meaning reverse log, as in two side inputs being logarithmic to the centre output, rather than the centre input being logarithmic to the side outputs

[@JanBeta]

I'm not sure. I found several articles online that stated the labelling is inconsistent and depends on the manufacturer of the potentiometers. That's why I mentioned it. The pots I've seen in real life all seem to be labelled according to what you say though. :D

[@gertsy2000]

Nice. I think I see Guitar Rig on the PC in the background. ;)

[@JanBeta]

It's the "Amp Designer" plugin from Logic Audio, actually. But it's very similar to Guitar Rig!

[@wesmitchem825]

This is awesome the clone I got of a echo flanger sucks and I ended up getting a poly chorus reissue and it's not spot on the echo flanger clone I got the dude did what he could with the wrong bbd chips but knowing there's a kit available is awesome

[@JanBeta]

This one sounds like the real thing (at least as far as I can tell in lieu of a genuine Echo Flanger). Quite a difficult build but very much worth it (for me)! :D

[@twocvbloke]

Much like with modern retro computer recreations, even in the music scene people want to replicate classic hardware for their unique sounds... :)

[@JanBeta]

Haha, yes. There are astonishingly many parallels between those worlds. :D

[@avocd3711]

Great job! I tried to build mine but It do not works properly. I cannot get the 15 and 7.5 volts at the test pads. I just receive 12 and 6 volts and there is no effect. Please, do you have any tip to solve this? I checked all the parts an apparently everything is ok

[@JanBeta]

I'd check with another power supply first, then check for accidental solder bridges (maybe something is shorted to ground and pulls the voltages low). Also maybe check with a different voltage regulator and voltage converter chip if that doesn't work. In the worst case, one of the components does pull too much current. You could try removing the chips one by one and check the voltages to figure out which one. Might even just be an electrolytic cap that is in the wrong polarity or something finicky like that. Very difficult to troubleshoot unfortunately. Best of luck! Hope you can get your Dandy Horse to work!

[@avocd3711]

@@JanBeta thank you very much for the suggestions

[@lindoran]

Very nice!! Love it

[@JanBeta]

Thanks! :)

[@swk38]

music and computers is life

[@JanBeta]

Indeed! :D

[@arjanvanraaij8440]

Happy tinkering, and there is alot of tinkerers in the guitar community

[@JanBeta]

Indeed! I just started reading the forums and visiting DIY effects sites and such. Huge rabbit hole to explore. :D

[@catriona_drummond]

Not saying I am disappointed but I kinda expected the Turrican II theme at the end :P

[@JanBeta]

I'm not that good of a guitarist! :D

[@ronny332]

A small tip for making more live music 🎸😉

[@JanBeta]

Thanks so much! :)

[@BrixTalk]

did you hear the high pitched noise?

[@JanBeta]

Yes. It thankfully went away once I connected the effect to a proper power supply (on my pedal board). The psu I used was a cheap one that obviously lacked filtering of the output voltage.

[@benjaminwirth5192]

Nice one.

[@JanBeta]

Thank you! :D

[@josehereter4062]

Excelent!!!!

[@gower1973]

Would of been nice to hear some Nirvana riffs where the pedal is actually used, that annoying high pitched whine would do my head in.

[@JanBeta]

Sorry for the noise. It actually is super quiet with a better power supply on my pedal board. I guess the one I used for testing is crap. Using copyrighted music on KZbin is a bit difficult so I could only hint at some riffs. The In Utero sounds are all quite easily achieved with the pedal in combination with a SansAmp (used for distortion by Kurt).

[@nintrance-5488]

No Noctua fan? ;) NV-FS1

[@JanBeta]

Okay, that is much fancier than the self made fan I currently have! :D

[@alisharifian535]

Smells like solder fumes 🙂.

[@bradnelson3595]

Hello from Washington State.

[@JanBeta]

Hi! :D

[@velutumbra]

Why are all geeks musicians? Don't tell me you also have a cat!

[@JanBeta]

I don't have a cat but I do love cats and am often catsitting 3 of those friendly creatures for a friend. :D