# Mischief Machine



## JamieJ (Mar 16, 2022)

This is the first of a few PCBs I've had a go at putting together myself using DipTrace and JLCPCB. Massive thanks to @cooder firstly for the inspiration with his amazing builds and for helping me get my head around DipTrace.

This is a rat that uses some of Jack Ormans mods from his e-book. I wanted to have a go at building one after @thewintersoldier & @Big Monk got talking about rats. Also I loved @jimilee different clipping options on his build. This build uses a 2P4T on a breakout board to allow for soft clipping, hard clipping, LED clipping and no clipping. Hard clipping is switchable internally between symmetrical and asymmetrical. I also managed to get hold of a genuine LM308 for mojo points.

The PCB sits on top of the footswitches so I have had to use pots with the long pins. There is a JFET boost after it on the 2nd switch which is great to just push the amp into more distortion. I have used coda micro controller based relay bypass switching which was a PITA to program the PICs but after lots of failures it worked. Thanks @dan.schumaker for the hex file.


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## cooder (Mar 16, 2022)

Turned out super excellent! The deep end of the pool, straight in. Few gulps but staying afloat quite nicely!


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## chongmagic (Mar 16, 2022)

Super awesome, can I buy a pcb from you?


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## DAJE (Mar 16, 2022)

"MAGIC"


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## fig (Mar 16, 2022)

Brilliant Jamie...Great collaboration guys!


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## Barry (Mar 17, 2022)

Nice job!


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## Phil hodson (Mar 17, 2022)

Wow! Amazing work. Inside and out!


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## Feral Feline (Mar 17, 2022)

Me Myself & I tip our collective hat to you, sir, that’s some Next Level shizzle!

+1 request for buying a board…


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## dan.schumaker (Mar 17, 2022)

Looks awesome!  Glad you were able to make the switching work for you!


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## SYLV9ST9R (Mar 17, 2022)

Great job Jamie!


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## jimilee (Mar 17, 2022)

That’s fantastic! It’s cool to see you implement the soft clipping option, too. I’ve never really seen anyone else do that outside of the roadkill rat. I like how you implemented everything as well. A 1P8T was really overkill, but it was there, and I liked how it was implemented in the Stockade.


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## spi (Mar 17, 2022)

Very cool!  What does soft clipping on a Rat sound like?


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## jeffwhitfield (Mar 17, 2022)

Damn, son...you got skills! Noice!


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## SillyOctpuss (Mar 17, 2022)

Shit dude that's amazing.  I haven't been around much for the last few months but you've raised your bar a lot Jamie.  I love the graphics too.  Looks like a commercial pedal I'd actually buy.  Good work dude


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## Funnel (Mar 17, 2022)

The pedal, pcb and graphics all look great. But I have to say your photography skills are also on point! I’ve seen/taken a lot of blurry pedal photos. But these are clean and crisp. I appreciate the work you put into every part of the pedal, even the pictures to display your work.


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## Bio77 (Mar 17, 2022)

Super cool!  Excellent work!  I've been planning on diving into the soft switching for awhile, but thinking about the programing and burning of the PICs, makes me sleepy.


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## JamieJ (Mar 17, 2022)

Thanks all! I’ve played it quite a bit tonight and I’m loving it. It’s so true it can do great overdrive all the way through to fuzzy tones.

@spi - it still sounds like a rat but smoother and less harsh and fuzzy/fizzy. It’s really useful to use it as an overdrive with the distortion turned down. 

I’m not finding the no clipping option that useful. I might get rid of that in future and just have both asym and sym clipping available externally.

@Bio77 - that was probably the hardest part of this build! But now I have the file and the process down you can burn the file to the pic in about a minute. It’s worth the learning curve of you interested. I am a sucker for relay switching.


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## ADAOCE (Mar 17, 2022)

Excellent job man! Super cool when I see people designing their own pcbs.


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## Paradox916 (Mar 17, 2022)

Wow man you knocked that one out of the park! well done sir!


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