BIXONIC: Expandora

OK - so this is what happens when you agree to make a pedal, before knowing what someone might ask for.   I'm not sure that this is 100% my kind of thing, but here it is.

Yes it's a huge layout, but it is going in a 1590XX enclosure, so why not.  I started this layout using the Dirtbox Layouts Expandora vero layout (and basically made it wider), as the first version that I did had a few too many rows, for the space available in the enclosure - and I will probably only be making one of these.  So credit where credit is due...  

I may still add the guitar / bass switch - see how it sounds.  There is room on the board for it.  Not hard to work out if you want to add it.  

If you are unfamiliar with the signal flow on the Expandora - it's kind of a Rat with an extra gain stage up front, and an unusual compressor like gain control that's always on, which is combined with a couple of switches to help set the overall gain of that stage.

The fun doesn't start until "forbidden mode" is engaged - which opens the gain right up.  Talking big ugly square waves.  The Expandora moves from a fairly innocuous drive or mild distortion, to a full blown fuzz monster.     

BIXONIC EXPANDORA

This is it on the bench for some testing - just a bit of rough / temporary wiring to confirm all works as expected, before I wire it up properly.    I think the tin can LM308 opamps look cool, and they were all I had.

It's been a while since I worked on small vero, or should I say normal size.   It took some adjustment, and I did have a tiny little copper trace left on a cut that took a decent amount of time to track down.  It took a magnifying glass and a multimeter to track it down - the damn thing was about the size of a bee's dick (which is a unit of measurement in Australia).