Introducing MayFly Effects pedals

I just noticed that the inputs are 9 volts but the internals are 18 volts.  I never thought about this, I guess there's something in there that pumps up the voltage, and thus makes it have a responsive sweep without it crapping and getting too farty at high volumes?

PS  Do you have a delay pedal in the works?
 
rick2 said:
I just noticed that the inputs are 9 volts but the internals are 18 volts.  I never thought about this, I guess there's something in there that pumps up the voltage, and thus makes it have a responsive sweep without it crapping and getting too farty at high volumes?

PS  Do you have a delay pedal in the works?

Yep!  I designed a little switching power supply inside there that takes 9V and makes 18V out of it.  This allows the pedal to have about double the headroom of a typical distortion or overdrive pedal.  This is something that I learned from looking at the design of the Klon Centar.  It's pretty cool and you can really hear it.

I do have a delay in the works.  A couple of them actually: one that goes up to 300mS with a tone control to allow tweaking of the brightness of the repeats, and another one that has 600mS with modulation.  Question for you:  For the long delay one would you prefer to have the modulation footswitch controlled, or instead have a 'chaos' footswitch (instant infinite repeats when you have your foot on it).  Switching modulation in and out might be pretty practical, but the chaos switch would be really fun :)
 
That is a good question.  At root I like an analog delay, and once upon a time I had an original BBE two timer that for the short setting was the best delay I've ever heard, it had bucket brigade thingies, the original note was not affected and then subsequent notes were, I can only describe it as washed, rather then simply diminished in sound or having the treble slowly reduced on top of the reduction in volume.  It was able to do these crazy feedback loops, which was tons of fun.  It was done with knobs, not switches.

The long setting wasn't as fun as my DD-3 with the ANALOG.MAN, that carves out the top 10 to 20 percent of treble depending on which way you throw the switch.  That is a lot of fun for going into outerspace, digital ping, ping, ping, clean, pristine and pure  ... can you hear me major tom ... 

Modulation sounds so cool, as does chaos.    My brain needs to stew.  Gimme a day or two.  There's nothing like a good delay.  Thank you for giving me something pleasantly distracting to think about!  :icon_thumright:
 
I thought about how I play, and I would set the modulation for the repeats at the beginning of a song and let it ride, and then at the end, or at some other appropriate point, it would be fun to stomp out an infinite repeat.  Of course, I'm not a "delay" expert (just a delay lover) and others may have a more practical bent than I. 
edit:
The mod was done by Analog.man not keely.
 
Hi folks,

The pedals are now for sale!  To celebrate this event, Warmoth forum members will get a 20% discount.  Yup you guys get 'em cheap because I love you.  :)

The pedal lineup includes:
- Sketchy Zebra phase shifter / vibrato. $270 - $54 discount = $216 USD
- Open Window high headroom overdrive. $195 - $39 discount = $156 USD
- Dirty Window high headroom distortion. $195 - $39 discount = $156 USD

These pedals are all personally hand made by me, with the exception of the laser engraved artwork which is done by a local shop.  Read more about them and listen to samples on my webpage here:
https://www.mayflyaudio.com/music_creation/

If you want one, here's how it works:
1 - send me a pm saying "Hey Trevor!  I want one of those pedals, specifically a <insert name of pedal here>".  Include your name, address, and actual email.  The actual email is for sending you a paypal invoice.  For customs, I might have to ask for your phone number as well.
2 - I calculate the total price including discount and shipping, and I respond with "sure - it will be $x.xx all in".
3 - If that sounds good you respond with "great - let it fly!"
4 - I send you a paypal invoice for the total, then I box up your pedal and send it to you along with tracking info.
5 - if you don't do paypal, (and hey, some of us don't do paypal), then send me a US postal cheque (or is that 'check' in the US?) made out to "Mayfly Audio Systems, Ltd".  If we go that route I'll pm you the mailing address to send the cheque to.  I can also take postage cheques in equivalent British pounds, Euros, AUS dollars, NZ dollars, whatever your local currency is.
6 - Once you get the pedal, check it over.  If you like it, post about it here.  Rave about how great it is, how glorious the tone is, etc.  Be gratuitous in your praise.  Do the same over at the gear page, tdpri, and the like.  If you don't like the pedal, let me know and we will work something out.  I'll make it right.

Trevor
 
great work @Mayfly! feedback (hehe) offered here:

https://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=33703.0
 
rick2 said:
I thought about how I play, and I would set the modulation for the repeats at the beginning of a song and let it ride, and then at the end, or at some other appropriate point, it would be fun to stomp out an infinite repeat.  Of course, I'm not a "delay" expert (just a delay lover) and others may have a more practical bent than I. 
edit:
The mod was done by Analog.man not keely.

ok Rick,  I've designed a circuit to do what you ask.  And I just got the PCBs back!

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The green one is the delay featuring almost a second of delay time, foot switchable modulation, and a chaos switch.  I call it "My Evil Twin" :)

The black one is a small format phase shifter that I'm calling the 'mini zebra'.

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in other news, which one looks better to you guys:

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The one on the left was spray-bombed in the garage and laser engraved by a local shop.  The one on the right was powder coated and UV printed for the graphics.  Up close you can tell that the spray-bombed one is, well, spray-bombed...

 

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If you want to go old school than spray, because it (rapidly) achieves a patina with use, if you want a high end pristine look then baked.  Middle of the road, silk screen.  Mmmh, between the two, I like the powder coated, but I suppose it comes down to cost. 

The picture  ... it makes your feet look so tiny and the pedals look enormous.  I don't know why I found that so funny, but I got a good laugh.
 
ok, this never happens.  The prototype of the delay works exactly as I expected it to.  Actually, it works better than I expected as it has OVER a second of delay!  I truly cannot believe it - this never, ever, happens.  I think I'll have a celebratory drink over dinner tonight  :)

Modulation works a treat, and sounds glorious.  Delay is nice and clean - until you hit that Chaos switch then the repeats get louder and louder until the limiter* in the repeat path kicks in then they just get more and more distorted.  Cacophony!  I love it!

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Now I just need some groovy artwork alla the Sketchy Zebra and I'm away.




* the 'limiter' is actually just a pair of clipping diodes....
 

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Hope you enjoyed that drink and that development is coming along.

Here's a small change I made to my sketchy zebra!

I found I don't use the faster speed settings on the phaser, so I've added this selector switch for choice between 500k & 2M of added resistance (the pot inside is 1M, so this cuts off the faster sweep and extends out to about 3x slower than stock).
 

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That is crazy man!  How did you fit that switch in there, considering there is a PCB just under the surface of the enclosure?
 
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