Nowaterwings, if you can post pics of what you have, it will make it easier to help you.

I don't see anything wrong or out of sequence in your pics. I do remember there being some unwanted sounds before I put mine in some kind of enclosure. I can't say if that is your only item of concern, though. It looks like you did well with your soldering.

La Fleur, great idea to use the pan as the base!

NoWaterWings wrote:

Has no one needed to touch the gain trimmer at all so far? There is scant mention of it in these 75 pages and on the Surfy Bear website

The gain is set to match the dry guitar signal. However, since the circuit doesn't support true bypass you never get a comparison between wet and bypassed dry signal. Both wet and dry are buffered by the gain, so you wouldn't notice any difference. However if you'd want to drive the Surfy Bear a little hotter you could do it with the gain but I think you'll get a better result with some kind of booster pedal.

Last edited: Feb 06, 2017 02:03:26

DreadInBabylon wrote:

Very cool build Ariel!!

bjoish wrote:

Hi NoWaterWings
Sorry, about the problems. Its usually a tiny detail that cause this type of problem.

The "super screechy and distorted" sound makes me think that a ground connection is missing somewhere.
Thanks for posting the pictures. The wiring seems correct to me and soldering joints too. What about the RCA-cable to the reverb pan?

If you set Dwell=0, Mixer=0, Tone=0. Do you get a normal dry guitar sound?
If you shake your reverb pan with the settings: Dwell=0, Mixer=10 and Tone=10, you should be able to hear a Splash.

Hey thanks for the help! I am now certain the RCA jacks are in the right order/configuration.
When everything is set to 0, there is no hum and there is clean guitar coming through. I also noticed then if I touch the mix pot, the holes on the board where the pot connects, and the output jack, I get very loud hum. Everything else stays quiet if touched (When mix=0).
When dwell=0 and mix/tone=10 I do get a splash if I shake the reverb pan.

Still getting a lot of harsh distortion occurring along with the reverb. This happens when dwell > 1, or if tone > 8. It also occurs if I have my guitar volume maxed while picking hard. Is this what the trim pot is for?

In addition, if tone>9 the reverb signal almost cuts out completely and the guitar signal gets marginally quieter and choppy, like it is being choked off somehow.

Also, when you say there could be a grounding issue, what do you mean? I have read in the troubleshooting section you recommend to ground the board to the chassis at some point, at what point on the board would you recommend doing that and how?

Last edited: Feb 06, 2017 15:16:26

NoWaterWings wrote:

bjoish wrote:

Hi NoWaterWings
Sorry, about the problems. Its usually a tiny detail that cause this type of problem.

The "super screechy and distorted" sound makes me think that a ground connection is missing somewhere.
Thanks for posting the pictures. The wiring seems correct to me and soldering joints too. What about the RCA-cable to the reverb pan?

If you set Dwell=0, Mixer=0, Tone=0. Do you get a normal dry guitar sound?
If you shake your reverb pan with the settings: Dwell=0, Mixer=10 and Tone=10, you should be able to hear a Splash.

Hey thanks for the help! I am now certain the RCA jacks are in the right order/configuration.
When everything is set to 0, there is no hum and there is clean guitar coming through. I also noticed then if I touch the mix pot, the holes on the board where the pot connects, and the output jack, I get very loud hum. Everything else stays quiet if touched (When mix=0).
When dwell=0 and mix/tone=10 I do get a splash if I shake the reverb pan.

Still getting a lot of harsh distortion occurring along with the reverb. This happens when dwell > 1, or if tone > 8. It also occurs if I have my guitar volume maxed while picking hard. Is this what the trim pot is for?

In addition, if tone>9 the reverb signal almost cuts out completely and the guitar signal gets marginally quieter and choppy, like it is being choked off somehow.

Also, when you say there could be a grounding issue, what do you mean? I have read in the troubleshooting section you recommend to ground the board to the chassis at some point, at what point on the board would you recommend doing that and how?

Hi again,
Since you get both dry signal and a nice splash from the reverb springs the blue and red signal paths are ok. And the power supply seems ok too.

Here are few things I would try:
1. Check and reflow all the soldering joints and wires.
2. Check the RCA cable, use an ohm meter or another cable.
3. Make sure that 'Rev out' on the board goes to 'IN' on the reverb pan. And 'OUT' on the pan to 'Rev in'.
4. Its also important that the MOSFETs on the backside not have electrical contact with anything.

The little trimmer is used to set the same overall gain as the 6G15. You normally dont need to adjust.

Screechy noise can occur if the ground wire to/from the reverb pan not is connected.

When you put the board in a metal chassis it will be automatically grounded thru the guitar jacks. The shielding metal chassis will improve the sound and also minimize the risk to pickup all kinds of interference.

/B

NoWaterWings wrote:

One final question while I check everything:
What ground wire are you referring to when talking about a ground wire to and from the reverb pan?

There are one black and one grey wire between the board and the RCA connectors. If the black ground wire (or the grey) not is connected you will pickup interference or get a screechy sound.

bjoish wrote:

There are one black and one grey wire between the board and the RCA connectors. If the black ground wire (or the grey) not is connected you will pickup interference or get a screechy sound.

Ok thanks, I think that may have been depicted in the pictures I posted. I just checked all the the soldering joints for continuity twice and they all gave me a resounding beep so I am going to rule that out. The RCA cables themselves are 100% connected right, I spent 30 minutes playing with each possible configuration of the cables/connectors. The mosfets are not touching anything other than the thermal tape. I checked to make sure the wiring makes sense and I'm pretty sure it does, unless anyone thinks I have the RCA connectors wired backwards (that was the only part I was less than sure about.) My power supply is 12v and 1.5amps, made for a keyboard so I am assuming its more or less well suited for instrument applications.

The pickups on my guitar (84 g&l sc-2) are not very hot, maybe around low wind p90s in terms of output.
Is there anything else that you know could be causing the distortion other than grounding/RCA cables/soldering joints? Could the mosfets be overdriven by something? The reverb sounds good when my guitar volume is rolled way back and the dwell is at <1, but thats no way to run a reverb tank or a guitar.

Also bjoish, I don't know how the rules are here but I don't to clog up this thread with my troubleshooting too much as I can't imagine many other people will need this information. Should we move this to private message/email?

Last edited: Feb 06, 2017 18:24:03

wfoguy, I appreciate you trying to explain it, I think I see what you are getting at :).

I just tried with a different guitar, this one with humbuckers. This was recorded straight from guitar>reverb>audio interface equipped with a -15db pad to ensure there is no clipping on my end. All of the sounds/distortion is created by the reverb unit.

Here it is

I hope this sheds some light on whatever problems I am having here. The knob settings are in the description. I figure a sound clip is worth a thousand words like "screechy" and such.