'Fender Blues Junior III Modifications and other stories'.

This week I had on my workbench a limited edition Fender Blues Junior III. This example came in a 'Chocolate Tweed' cabinet, a burgundy metal jewel-light and a Jensen P12Q Alnico speaker. The owner

had done a lot of research on how to make it sound better and brought me the amp along with the BillM- Audio and Fromel Electronics upgrade kits. This post is about these modifications, but while writing a story about this little spider came to mind...

Liquitone Product Catalog

These are the products that are currently part of the Liquitone catalog. They are divided it three main groups; 'Standard Range', 'Deluxe Range' and 'Custom Range'.
The list will be updated with pictures, demo's of current and new offerings along the way.

Liquitone Collection 2008-2014

These are most of the builds I built over the years all collected in one gallery, including my earliest builds or what is left of them.

Custom Stereo Vibe 001 and 002

C U S T O M  S T E R E O  V I B E  0 0 1

The Custom Stereo Vibe 001 is very similar to last years Deluxe Stereo Vibe 001 but without a seperate expression pedal, so those functions are moved to the main enclosure.

The Beginnings of Liquitone Audio Electronics

This is the story of how I got started in building pedals, of how things evolved over the years and some advice on how to get started  building your own pedals.

The Wah and The Worm; the very beginning...

It all started in 2008 when I needed to replace a broken inductor in my 1994 Vox847. .I found a webshop and bought a reissue red Fasel. Up to then all I knew was how to fix a battery-snap with ducttape, so now I  needed to learn how to solder and how to read the schematic of the Vox, which led me to sites about modifying.

Instead of just replacing the inductor I ordered more parts, salvaged some old radio's, did the 'sweep cap', and 'vocal' mod and painted it red. This led me to experimentally swapping parts and adding switches to my old EHX The Worm, trying to make it sound more like a Uni-Vibe. It had a expression pedal for speed, countless foot- and toggle-switches and a lot of LED's added. I changed the name of the pedal to 'Liquivibe' which in turn led to coming up with the 'Liquitone' brand name.

Liquivibe, 2008

Development and custom builds

 At the moment I am working on a few custom builds and because of specific customers wishes I have been trying out some new things with circuits and enclosure finishing. 

On the workbench: Mu-Tron III envelope filter

A fellow Newtone Forum member managed to score an old Mu-Tron III envelope filter. Because it was in a bad state and broken, he managed to get it for a good price. Most notable are the huge 15mm holes drilled into the enclose, which makes it impossible to restore it in original condition.
The owner got stuck trying to fix it and sent it over to me. The optocoupler had died and was replaced by 2 NSL32's, the transistor was taken out of the circuit and the traces where bridged like it shows on the known Mu-Tron III schematic. (this transistor doesn't show up in the original Mu-Tron schematics, which indicates this unit is from 1979 after ARP had bought Musitronics before going out of business about a year later.) A 9v+ to 9v+/9v- voltage converter was also added.

Liquitone B15 Flipster Custom 001

This week I have been building a turret version of the ROG Flipster. It is an FET-circuit designed to emulate the Ampeg SB-12 Portaflex. These amps are still highly sought after for use in studio recordings and can be heard on a lot of classics, especially a lot of the old Motown recordings.
I was under the impression it was based on the B-15, hence my mistake in the name. The design is courtesy of http://www.runoffgroove.com/flipster.html

The DIYStompboxes 10-year anniversary contest, FY-2 Companion Fuzz and the Liquitone Deluxe Stereo Vibe

Hi all! Today I have for you some updates regarding the pedal I built for the DIYStompoxes 10-year Anniversary Contest and the prize I received for winning the contest.

Philicorda AG-7500/7600 and GM-751

Yesterday a friend of mine dropped by with an old Philips made Philicorda organ which I revised a while ago. One of the keys had the plastic part in the mechanism that kept it at the right height snapped off.

Deluxe Tremolo

 Earlier this summer I learned about the existence of a thing called 'Harmonic Tremolo'.
Apparently the effect has been around for ages, but somehow I totally missed it. You can find the effect on Fender amps from the early sixties.

Projects update August 2013

Hi All!

I have been insanely busy lately building pedals. I have built a Deluxe version of my Tremolo,
a Deluxe Stereo version of the Vintage Vibe and a little point-to-point Germanium Booster.
I have entered the DIYStompboxes 10-year anniversary contest with the Tremolo and Vibe and for that I have made a few demo-video's.
The pictures and demo of the Tremolo will be posted this weekend, but I am going to redo the demo for the Stereo Vibe as I am really unhappy with it, and it doesn't do the pedal justice.

Vintage Vibe Custom 001

I'm working on a few new pedals and finished the first of the batch; a mono vibe pedal build inside a wah-enclosure. It found a new owner ( Bas van D who also owns my 'standard' Tremolo 002.) a day after finishing it, so soundclips will have to way until I either build a new one or can get some recordings from him using it in his new band https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sookie-Sookie-Funk-a-Soul

1971 Fane DEA100 MK IV

Hi all,

I'm back with something different than usual. It's about this amp I have of which I posted a picture on a gear-forum, and it got so much attention that I decided to make a post about it.

Deluxe Tremolo prototype sounds

I am trying out a new feature for my standard tremolo;
An extra knob that lets you go from the standard tremolo sounds into the realm of pitch-vibrato-, harmonic tremolo- and Uni-Vibe flavored phase-sounds.
I need to solve some volume differences between settings, but so far I am very pleased with the sounds it can produce.


Deluxe Tremolo prototype sounds

Liquitone effects in action

 love rears its ugly head oct25 2012

This is a recording of a rehearsal of the band I used to play in; Retrospective
Due to a number of circumstances the band sadly disbanded.
lead vocals - Fokko de Haan
guitar and backing vocals - Me
bass guitar - Bas Schell
Keyboard - Dirk Tel
Drums - Wim Wagenaar

Liquitone Octave Fuzz and other prototypes

 Octave Fuzz

This is the octave fuzz prototype I've build a year ago.
It is of the classic Octavia type to give you those classic Band of Gypsies-Hendrix tones,
octave up sounds around the 12th fret area, splattery gated fuzz tones and ring-modulator-like oscillating weirdness.
After a year of playing the thing I decided it is ready for production.
I am going to increase the space between the pins a little to make more room for the styro-cap and axial caps, and it will have neater wiring.

Questionnaire; Enclosure sizes; what has your preference?

A ) I have 20 pedals on my board so only another small box will fit.
B ) Small enclosures, otherwise people might think I am compensating for something.
C ) Small enclosures, because ...
D ) Big enclosure, small enclosures are for pussies.
E ) Big enclosure, because ...

Questionnaire; Product-Branches

My product range has 3 branches;

-Standard Range; only the most needed knobs and switches, reasonably affordable, small boxes.

-Deluxe Range; more functions for maximum tweakability, bigger boxes, bigger price-tag.

-Custom Range; Any of the Standard or Deluxe Range but customized to your specific needs/wishes.

Which of these 3 branches would you be actually interested in?

Questionnaire; Product-Range

Right now my product-range include;
 
-Germanium Treble Booster 

-Octave Fuzz 

-Vintage Vibe (Mono/Stereo, in a wah-shell) 
-Deluxe Stereo Vibe (separate box and expression pedal)


-Standard Tremolo
-Deluxe Tremolo (with 4-different tremolo/vibrato sounds)
-Deluxe Stereo Tremolo (still in conceptual phase, stereo in/out, 4-way mode switch for each   
  channel)


Which of these has your biggest interest?
Which effect missing from this list would you like to see go into development?

Questionnaire; Stereo Set-up

How many of you are using a Stereo set-up? 
And where in the chain does it split? 
I have build a dual-mono overdrive for myself cause I needed a drive pedal after my stereo-vibe and still keep the stereo effect. 
Have any of you ever been looking for such a thing? and would like to see it get into production?
(note; my own dual mono drive are 2 Wampler designed plexi-drives in parallel, this will not go into production. I will be designing my own FET drive if there is enough interest.)

On a related subject; Are there any type of effects beside overdrive/distortion you wished it had stereo-in and stereo-outs?

Liquitone Tremolo demo

 Bas van D of Dutch band Zuke and owner of the Liquitone Tremolo serial no 002 , has kindly send me 4 short recordings of him playing the tremolo with a USA telecaster through an Orange Dual terror amp and a touch of EHX delay.

 Liquitone Tremolo demo


Update; I have solved the slight volume drop heard in these recordings. It now has an internal gain-trimmer for unity or above unity volume.

Questionnaire;Hard-,Soft-Touch Switching

Most of my pedals will have true-bypass using a relay-switch.
That way it is possible to switch the pedal on and off using either a hard- or soft-touch switch.
(most true-bypass pedals or Wah-pedals you own will have hard-touch, and most Japanese pedals you own,
like Boss and Ibanez pedals will have soft-touch)
One of the benefits of a hard-touch switch is that you can feel the confirming click during loud gigs,
but a downside is that it can be audible during recordings or quiet gigs.
Now I am considering making a H- and S- version of every pedal so you can choose.
What do you prefer?, and for what reason?

The Big Liquitone Questionnaire - Curious about your thoughts and preferences regarding effect pedals

Hello Everyone!
At the moment I am researching the market, and I am curious about your opinions, thoughts and preferences regarding effects-pedals.
Instead of making a big list of questions I have decided to make individual posts for you to comment on.
I'm OK with replies in English as well as in Dutch.

greetings, Liquitone

Liquitone on Facebook

Liquitone now has a Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/LiquitoneAudioElectronics/
It has an easy overview of my current projects and products.
Here I sometimes post updates that don't make it to my blog, and might be an easier way to communicate than with my Blog.

I am currently in the process of turning this hobby into an official bussiness,
While I'm concentrating on this I will have less time for my projects than I had,
but once it's done I will be able to build a whole bunch of pedals.

I will keep you posted.

Greetings,  Liquitone.

Stereo Liquivibe Demo Oct 23rd 2012

 Today I tried making a video-demo to post on youtube, but I couldn't manage to import the recording into Adobe Audition for editing. I'll have to figure all that stuff out sometime.
I did however end up with some better audio-recordings of the Stereo Liquivibe so I decided to post those anyway.
you'll just have to imagine me rocking my foot on the threadle and see the blinking-rate of the LED change along with the effect's speed. :)

Voxy!!!

It is a bit of a coincedence but there happened to be 3 Voxes on my workbench this week.

First Stereo Liquivibe Sound-tests

 Today I've been testing out the Stereo Liquivibe  and decided I might as well record some quick sound-samples.
There is a lot of noise in the recordings but chose not to filter out the 60hz hum cause that would also filter out the Vibe's characteristic low end .
These samples are in chorus mode only.
I'm not going to apologize for playing Hendrix songs for this test, it's just impossible not to with this type of effect :)

Projects Update October 2012

I've managed to build that Stereo Uni-vibe inside an old cry-baby wah enclosure.
I replaced the treadle with the the chrome one from my Vox-Wah I bought way back in '94 because, well it's obvious isn't it? it wayyyy prettier than the boring black dunlop one.

Discrete IC's,Vibes and Prototyping

Lately a lot of different idea's from the past year or so are starting to come together.
I have build a prototype system thats a lot of fun to play around with.
basically I was annoyed at this maze on my breadboard while trying to build a Uni-Vibe,
I decided it would be easier to chop the thing up into te different stages and make them modular so I can move around entire stages in one move, instead of having to move around every singe part.