I want a sonic titan.

Fucking build one, yo! 386-based, simple as fuck.

That one is funny to me, because folks are so into it, but it is basically the same circuit concept as the Krank Distortus Maximus, which folks were all "ew, Krank" about(but that i built and loved).

I built the KDM, and i breadboarded the Sonic Titan. They are not the same, but they have quite a few similarities. I really enjoy the 386 as a distorter, and when put with a high impedance BJT(KDM) or JFET(Titan) input stage, they clean up pretty well with the volume knob too.

The titan is nice, as it gets rid of the badly designed amp tonestack that the krank had. IMO, an even better solution would be to put a better stack in there. A bax or even a correctly scaled amp stack both worked very well in my breadboardings. It loses some of the simplicity of the DAM design, but it gains a lot in flexibility.

I am definitely going to continue to experiment with the 386 chip. They are cool as hell, and can be used as low wattage speaker driving amps as well, like 1/2w into 8Ω or something?.

If you don't have a breadboard yet, you should get one and start playing with the thing.

I didn't even know Krank was still around until I looked it up after reading this.

Yeah, still going, but they kicked out that Tony Krank guy, IIRC.

Those are totally decent amps and cabs though. Pretty much just straight up well-known-mod hotrodmarshall high gainers. I think they have been outmaneuvered by the likes of Jet City at this point, but still, pretty decent maps they made.

Yeah I have a breadboard. I keep meaning to buy a cheap roasting tin to mount it in so I have a pedal protobox so I dont have to play hunt the jacks and shit.
My current pedal project is a DAM meathead as it goes on tag board pretty nicely. I need to dick with it though as I was pretty dam tootin' ripped when I made it haha.

I'm currently working out if I can fit a titan on an RS IC board. I'm nearly there with it. I hate soldering to vero with a passion

Vero can suck a lot if you don't have a vero-sized soldering tip.

I have been using a tiny little SMT sized pointy pencil tip lately and it has drastically improved my mood during vero builds.

Also, i would assume that you could fit a sonic titan on just about any size protoboard, there really isn't much to the circuit.

What is it, like fifteen onboard components total?

I have a great big motherfucking chisel tip for getting eyelets/turrets nice and hot. I should probably fit another tip for pedal work

I want to fit it on one part of these if I can, as a layout exercise if nothing else.

Yar, i have a big ole chisel tip for ampstuffs. A few months back i got one of those weller irons with the quickychangey tips, and i have been using the shit out of that feature ever since. My old weller was just the basic setscrew type and it fused itself closed in like two months of heavy use. When i was stuck with only the big chisel for everything i was quite generally ragefilled. That is no way to build. That is no way to live.

Without looking too hard at it, i think you should be able to fit the titan on that board. The 386 only uses eight of the ic pads, you should be able to get the JFET, PSU, and tone parts, on the other eight easily, i think.

Yeah it looks possible. I got most of the way through the layout and then got distracted by something mundane like needing to eat or something. I'll probably have to break a few traces but thats not really as problem.

Its easy enough to swap the tips in my iron, except I have no idea where the rest of my tips are

Actually, do you know of this is an accurate schem for the ST?


If it is then its a lot simpler than the one I've been looking at which I think was made by some kid learning to use EagleCAD.

That looks about right... i think? I just went looking for the ones i had, but i don't remember where the fuck i put them on this hard drive. That one looks familiar though.

Could you poast up the more complex one? I have a curious.

Yo, this is the one i used i think: http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3484 which looks a little different than what you have there.

EDIT: Ah, but the one you poasted shows up on the second page of that thread. Looks like maybe there were a couple revisions to the pedal mayhap. All the more reason to breadboard the thing first.

Good read that. I'm gonna breadboard it and tweak it to my amp anyway
I've made the one I posted fit on an RS IC board so I'm happy for that to work

Well the bike park is now closed for winter In 2 months I got about 200 runs down the mountain in and my riding has progressed quite a bit. Here's a photo riding A-Line, trying to style it and failing quite miserably I reckon when I get home I'm getting a bmx again because UK mountain biking will only disappoint after riding this.

That's a pretty sweet pic!

First band practice with the 90's covers project thingy. The singer calls me at 5:45pm to tell me band practice is 7-9. In the rush to leave home I leave the bag with all my pedals and cables Had to borrow a cable from the bassist. My 30w Line 6 combo thingy did OK and sounded all right. My fuzz pedal would have been much more awesome. I used a microphone for the solo in Bulls on Parade.

90s band sounds like a good idea, it's something I want to do. Thing is I dunno if people in Engerland would like or get it, most people seem to go to see cover bands to hear the same boring 70s shit

This is largely true in The States as well?

I wouldn't mind 70's too much... on The Island its all about crap 80's 80's and the 80's...

I always got the impression that this sort of music goes down better over this side of the pond than in the UK but I guess not And I agree 80s is worse. 90s-00s cover band with some rocked up pop songs would be fun I think.

Just booked my flight back to England, I'll be at London Gatwick on Monday morning