SPACEMAN: Equinox Equaliser

The Equinox is Spaceman's trimmed-down version of an old-school studio equaliser - it’s definitely inspired by Pultec, but with a few key differences.  I’m fine with the differences, as it makes it practical to build.

Schematic can be found here on PedalPCB.  

If you don't have a power supply that kicks out 18v, Dirtbox layouts have a vero layout with a charge pump included.  One could be tacked on the bottom of this board - which is how I started doing the layout until I noticed that the Spaceman version doesn't appear to have this, and my power supply does 18 volts.

This is probably a good candidate for an additional loop to be added, so another pedal can be switched on with this at the same time.  There's certainly going to be enough room for a couple more jacks in the enclosure, and this could really tailor the sound of your favourite fuzz / drive / distortion pedal.

I may even make a point-to-point version of this to keep the vintage vibe of the Pultec.

SPACEMAN EQUINOX EQ - VERO LAYOUT

Clearly, this is not for the faint-hearted in terms of off-board wiring - I would not recommend trying this unless you are quite confident with your wiring.  

ENCLOSURE SIZE & LAYOUT

A sizeable box will be needed and you will need to do some planning before getting started.   Spaceman uses a 1590XX which has internal dimensions of 139mm x 115mm.  You may even want to go up to a 1590DD, which has internal dimensions of 179mm x 112mm, which is a lot of real estate on a pedalboard,  but it will be comfortable for the build and will allow better knob placement.  As a reference, the vero layout above is 71mm x 54mm.  

At this size, the vero will have to sit on top of the pots.  Rotary switches are usually too tall to sit boards on top of them, apart from the height, there are a lot of wires going on straight off the top.  With this in mind, the rotary switches will have to be the top row of knobs on the enclosure.  Could probably sneak the level control in next to them on one side.

A big vero board in a large box with a lot of wire should be well secured.   Some kind of mounting is a must.  There's some space on the layout for mounting, but you may need to add a little more, depending on your preferred method.  I often use adhesive stand-offs.  These have a 13mm clearance, which gets the board just above pot height, which is usually around 10mm.  

I'd suggest doing a mockup of the internals using the actual parts you plan on using, on a piece of cardboard before you start drilling an enclosure (including the mount positions).  I often use cardboard templates to pre-wire circuits before I finish them off in the enclosure.  It tends to be a bit neater and access is easier as you don't have to worry about the sides of the enclosure getting in the way.

EQUINOX VIDEO DEMO

SPACEMAN EFFECTS: Titan II Fuzz Machine

Hope you like standing resistors... chances are the ferrite beads might have to stand too.  

SPACEMAN EFFECTS TITAN II FUZZ MACHINE - VERO LAYOUT

SPACEMAN EFFECTS: Redstone Germanium Preamp

Yet to build this myself, I quite like the idea behind this - I am partial to anything with bass / mid/high controls for guitar and a germanium transistor.  Bonus points for also including a discrete op-amp, which I've been playing with lately.

Before I looked at the schematic for this, I was playing around with modding a Boss Blues Driver to make the tone stack a real tone stack with external pots and removing the last stage, just leaving the two discrete op-amps.  This is a refined version of where I was heading, so I think I'll park that project for now. 

BOOST STAGE

The boost stage uses a LND150 MOSFET which is common on several Spaceman Effects designs.  It could just as easily have been a JFET-based boost - this is a clean boost to make up for the gain loss at the EQ stage.  A little bit of high-end is also filtered off at this stage, but nothing substantial.  You may not even hear it.

EQ 

It's a fairly standard bass / mid/high tone stack with some tweaked values.  This could be modded to typical values for Marshall or Fender, but there's a decent chance Spaceman went this way for a reason - it looks pretty balanced to me.

DISCRETE OP-AMP

It's a Boss-style discreet non-inverting op amp using two JFETS and a PNP transistor (as found in the Blues driver).  There are a couple of resistor value changes, and the PNP transistor is, of course, germanium instead of silicon - hence the germanium preamp name.  The GE transistor will add some extra flavour, but maybe not much more. 

According to the Dead End FX build docs, a 1T308B transistor is used - it makes sense to use Soviets for a pedal with a large production run.  If you don't have a 308 - try something around 70-80 hfe and low leakage (most Soviet-era transistors have low leakage)  Japanese transistors might also be a good choice.

Potential mod:  As this is just another type of op-amp - diodes can be added across the output of the op-amp and inverting input for some soft clipping.  It works on LTspice, so it should work in practice. I'm definitely going to try this.    

SPACEMAN REDSTONE GERMANIUM PREAMP - VERO LAYOUT

The layout below is missing the soft switching to save on size.  If you don't have ferrite beads, jumper it on the input, or use a low-value resistor in the power section (100ohm).  You could quite happily not use the MOSFET in the power supply section, but I had the room, so may as well keep it in.

The same layout as above, but this one is for a Soviet 1T308 transistor, which uses the less common BCE pinout, as many Soviet-era transistors do - you could always use the one above and bend the legs. Still, I find that annoying, so I made another layout to suit.

SCHEMATIC

I redrew part of the Deadend FZ schematic, as I found it difficult to picture the discreet op-amp.  I have not included the soft switching or fancy power supply in the drawing below.   

VIDEO DEMO

SPACEMAN: Saturn V Booster

Be prepared for some scorching output level - the Saturn V is LOUD... 

SPACEMAN SATURN V BOOSTER - VERO LAYOUT

SATURN VIDEO DEMO

SPACEMAN EFFECTS: Spacerocket

Another fuzz from Spaceman Effects - the Spacerocket Fuzz.  

I used the schematic from Deadend FX for this.  It is slightly different from another layout I've seen in that it uses a 1N4148 and a 1N4001 as clipping diodes, whereas the other uses a pair of 1N4148s.  I'm not 100% sure which is correct based on the gut shots of the pedal, and it makes sense to have a pair of 4148s as clippers with the 4001 on power, but this is a Spaceman, so who knows.  I'm leaning towards Deadend being correct, but it probably won't make that much difference anyway - only one way to find out - build it.  

I've removed the LED switching, as it's complicated and unnecessary to some degree.  

SPACEMAN EFFECTS SPACEROCKET - VERO LAYOUT

SPACEMAN EFFECTS: Atlas III Preamp Booster, Point to Point Layout

I had a few of the FETS leftover from the Spaceman Saturn V Harmonic Booster, and I saw the layout over at Perf and PCB Effects Layouts, so I thought I might try one of these.  

The Spaceman Effects Atlas III is another booster, following the theme of rocket engines in naming (nice).

The switch is a phase switch, it literally just inverts the output phase.  So perhaps mount this on the side, or somewhere out of the road, as you won't be making use of this very often, if ever.   It could easily be completely removed, and I'm sure you can work out how to do that yourself.

SPACEMAN EFFECTS ATLAS III BOOSTER - POINT TO POINT LAYOUT

SPACEMAN EFFECTS: Titan II Fuzz Machine

This is a simple little fuzz from Spaceman - The Titan II  

SPACEMAN EFFECTS TITAN II FUZZ MACHINE  |  POINT-TO-POINT LAYOUT

Just a straight up boost / low gain overdrive from Spaceman Effects - the Saturn V Harmonic Booster.  It's a pretty quick and easy build & does it's job well.

 

SPACEMAN EFFECTS SATURN V HARMONIC BOOSTER - POINT TO POINT LAYOUT

SATURN V ON THE BENCH

Build in progress pic below, which is a little different to the layout, as I changed my mind about where + - V should be after making it (I just flipped them around).  I also subbed in a couple of caps as I didn't have a 27nf or 180nf caps.  I went with the next nearest value that I had, which was 33nf and 220nf.  Probably won't make much difference.  

I also removed the millennium bypass LED circuit, and combined drain resistor values.  The drain had two resistors in series, which has no purpose.

If you don't have ferrite beads, just leave then out.  Makes no audible difference.