Most of us snap the tabs right of with a pair of pliers. Alternatively you can drill tiny holes to fit them in but it isn't worth the trouble, really.

Mischa wrote:

SurfHusker wrote:

Hello! I've been lurking in this thread for a couple of months and am in the process of assembling a Surfy Bear unit of my own, which I'm going to install in a Harbor Freight tool box. I've been studying this thread and practicing soldering and I think I'm ready for the final assembly.

However I have one question (and I hope it's not too dumb). I drilled the holes in the tool box last week and put all the switches and jacks and knobs in to make sure everything fit, but I noticed that when I put in the potentiometers for dwell, mixer, and tone they all have a tab on one side that makes them fit unevenly.

What is the best way to install these? Should I just get more nuts to thread over the tabs?

Hi surfhusker, you can snap the tabs off easily with pliers. You do not need them, they put these tabs on pots for mounting them on a surface with a hole in it. Have fun with your build.

Edit: Gilette beat me with answering!

Well, that was easy enough. I just wasn't sure whether or not those tabs were necessary to keep in place.

Thanks for your help, Mischa and Gilette! I'll be sure to let you know how everything turns out once I get it all put together.

SurfHusker wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that I need to get some shorter ones (maybe 1'-2' long) for this to work properly?

No. Have them as long as you need, and as short as possible (with extra for relief), depending on the build.
With longer ones (within reason) the audio loss is negligible, but there's more chance of electromagnetic or mechanical interference.
Low quality/cheap cables have shielding that breaks easily, I suggest investing in something more robust, especially when DIYing a unit.

Last edited: Apr 12, 2018 00:25:07

OK, I ordered some 3 foot double shielded RCA cables from Amazon. Thanks for the advice!

Holy crap...I finished it! I plugged it in and hooked it to my amp and guitar and got signal with no hum whatsoever, but also...no reverb. Then I remembered the gain adjustment screw on the motherboard and turned it up and now it's drippier than Niagara Falls. It sounds fantastic.

I want to thank everyone here for their sdvice and for helping to give me the confidence to go through with this. I'll post some pics later on. Thanks again!

Also to Bjorn: I noticed that on the Surfy Industries website, the Surfy Bear DIY kits are now listed as "out of stock." Are you going to keep producing these kits?

I posted this today to show what a SurfyBear can do with a... Roland Jazz Chorus. Recorded in Kyoto 2 weeks ago. No other pedals: Jazzmaster, SurfyBear Pedal and amp.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)

I worked on 6-6-6. There are reasons for this.
When I use the fender unit I generally keep the dwell higher, around 7, and the mix a bit lower, around 4, in order to keep the maximum guitar attach and still having a pretty drippy sound (I use a 1963 brown tank with original Hammond pan). But when I do this, I also have a brownface Showman amp on 2 JBL D130's.
Keeping the mix higher (like Dick Dale) uses literally the reverb tank as a pre-amp, so in this case of the Jazz Chorus, warms up the sound nicely. Having a higher mix than 6 starts being excessive and the sound results a bit lost.

For the Astronauts set I have heavy reverb. For other songs I still keep the mixer lower, but I got used in Japan to go on 6-6-6 with the Jazz Chorus (which I used almost every night) and found a good balance.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)

Tqi wrote:

surferjoemusic wrote:

what a SurfyBear can do with a... Roland Jazz Chorus.

Further proof:

• The guitar doesn't matter.

• The amp doesn't matter.

• You just gotta have the right kind of reverb.

Also, Dear Fender: For goodness sakes, make Björn a salary offer already!

Well i think this is partially correct. Even for the reverb. I mean, yes, you need the right kind of reverb with those particular features, mainly you need real springs, but you also need to know how to use it. It is not enough just to turn it up. Please remember that the key of surf music is NOT the reverb per se, it's the "compressed" reverb. This makes the difference. If you don't arrive to right level of natural speaker compression you don't get a good result.
Take this Jazz Chorus (an amp that I personally love... and consider my normal amp is a 1962 double showman + 2x15 D130's cab): most people uses it at 3-4 maximum of volume because it's powerful but crystal clear. I was having it at 4-5, just before excessive saturation of the speakers. This really kicks in the reverb at the right spot.

Anyway, Fender has all the technical knowledge and the technicians already employed to do this way before us they would not need Bjorn. All they need is to think better about their history and where they come from. Fender main revolution was to make the amps and guitars cheaper and affordable for most. They went the opposite. The reason of the great success of the SurfyBear is the cost. If the Fender tank was $400 people would have continued buying that. But they sell it for $850 and this is way too much for a guitar effect - considering that the guitars and the amps are still the most important thing.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)

Tqi wrote:

surferjoemusic wrote:

Anyway, Fender has all the technical knowledge and the technicians already employed to do this way before us they would not need Bjorn.

It's the innovation that they need, not his technical knowledge! Fender's process to making this in solid state form would be something like this:

• Use a class-D IC to drive the springs.
• It sounds wrong, add digital preamp modelling based on the FRV-1.
• Build it in China for the lowest possible price, with mediocre QC.

Björn's approach was not particularly technically difficult, in that all the components he used are well understood parts, as is the concept - but it was novel in that no-one has really designed amps that way since the 80's, and it never really took off at the time. 'Anyone' could have made this; but they didn't. Björn did. That, and because he's running a small business, he cares about the individual customers.

This is clear and I agree with you of course But we are not anymore a small business, this does not mean we will change our way of producing things.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)

j_flanders wrote:

Tqi wrote:

and because he's running a small business, he cares about the individual customers.

surferjoemusic wrote:

But we are not anymore a small business,

I don't think he meant it in the wrong.
You most probably still are a 'small business'.
According to wikipedia a small business is usually qualified as such if you have less than 50 employees in Europe, or less than 500 employess in US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business#Size_definitions

of course he did not mean it wrong never thought the opposite. actually the comment are all very much appreciated. and it is not our intention to make the business bigger.

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini
(www.surfmusic.net)