callahan09

Oh wow, that's really convenient! So by screwing the jack into the hole I'm going to drill in my metal box, it will already be grounded, therefore no "wire to ground" is necessary. Thanks for informing me about that. Out of curiosity, what would happen if the circuit was NOT grounded? Would it potentially damage anything, or would it just not pass the signal along through the output jack? So just to be clear, what you're saying is that I could plug my guitar into either jack once the pedal is finished, and whichever one I plug into, that'll be the input jack? Then the other one, going out to my audio interface, that'd be the output jack. It doesn't actually matter which jack I use when I plug in? OR, are you just saying it doesn't matter which jack I decide to make the input jack, but once the circuit is built, one of them is definitely the input jack and the other is always supposed to be the output? Sorry for my confusion... And thank you again for all the tips and info you've provided! I get more and more confident that I understand what to do and how this all works the more you all here have responded to me, so I deeply and truly appreciate that you've been patient with me and helped me through all of this!

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation of everything, this all is starting to make a lot more sense to me now! I will be ordering a new soldering iron and some new solder today and hopefully later next week I'll have everything and be able to get this put together.

Thanks again for the advice. I think I'm starting to be able to picture what it should look like and how the connections are made... Would this be a good way to do it?: Connect a wire from input positive to output positive. Connect a wire from input ground to output ground. Connect one LED to the input jack, with its positive lead going to the input's ground post, and negative lead going to the input's positive post. Connect the other LED to the output jack, but reversed, so its positive lead is going to the output's positive post, and the negative lead is going to the output's ground post. Finally, connect a wire from the output jack's ground post to the metal chassis itself to ground the whole circuit. I don't know why I couldn't think of it like that before, but it seems like all the necessary connections would be made that way, and I don't have to actually connect the LEDs to each other, which should be much easier to pull off, right? Or would this not work because the other of the components isn't correct? I have a hard time grasping how electricity actually flows through a circuit and how the order of the components matters (or not?), so any confirmation would be great. As far as the LEDs being reversed directions from each other goes, I'm not sure if it matters which one is "backwards", the one connected to output, or the one connected to input? The schematic kind of looks like the backwards one should connect to the input jack, but maybe it doesn't matter, as long as one of them is backwards and the other is forwards? The other thing I wanted to know was would it be wise to buy some stranded wire, so that I can wrap the strands around the connection points so it holds together well, maybe making soldering easier? Or is the purpose of stranded wire something else and it wouldn't actually be easier or better to use stranded wire for this application? Thanks again.

Thank you for your response, Mike, the more I learn the more likely it is that I'll someday be able to complete this project successfully, so it's much appreciated that you took the time to read my rant and help me out I have two spools of solder and both are unlabeled. I went back and found my old order slip from when I bought them years ago, and one of them was a 10g spool of 63/37 tin leaded solder, the other was a 15g spool was lead-free. I was using the smaller spool before, so I assume I was using the leaded one, but I'm not 100% sure, so perhaps I should go ahead and buy some new solder anyway. Does "flux-core" solder work even easier, or should I just stick with normal 60/40-ish leaded solder? As far as the soldering iron goes, it was a $10 iron with a pretty fat tip, 30W, no temperature regulation. Also kind of unwieldy because it just has a plug on the end that has to go directly to mains, and that stiff cord sort of restricts motion. It also has a very unsturdy, light-weight base that is prone to tipping over or being pulled across my work area from the tension on the power cord alone. I was thinking of ordering this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZK55NYC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A7LMAL3UOCLC7&psc=1 It will get here fast because, is reasonably priced, has good reviews... It looks to have a pretty heavy base that should make working with it pretty easy, and it has temperature controls, as well as a pretty fine looking point on the tip. What do you think of that one, is that the right tool for this job? I am also going to get one of those "third hands" soldering station things, that is exactly what I need! My next question is about the actual build, I don't think it was addressed before, so I'm still not sure how to do it, but how do I connect a single lead from the LED to both the input & outpack jacks at once? Basically connecting one thing to two other different things... Am I misunderstanding how the connections in the circuit can all be made without having to do that, or if not, then is that kind of connection actually soldered, as I haven't been able to figure it out yet... Edit: Oh yes, and I was wondering, you said my soldering iron might be getting too hot, I was wondering if you might know the ideal temperature to set a temperature-controlled one to for this job?

Thanks for the explanation. I'm fairly sure I understand the circuit and how things need to be connected now, but I'm just getting incredibly frustrated trying to actually build it. I thought this was going to be simple, it looked like a good beginner's electronics project, but I'm in way over my head. I can't for the life of me figure out how to solder this stuff together. I swear I need a third hand! I have a dozen extra 1/4" jacks that I got cheap, and 100 red LEDs, so I've got tons of extra parts to practice on, but so far I'm completely failing to even get one single connection done properly. I bought some wire for this project as well. So my first attempt at soldering was to just simply solder one end of a piece of wire to one lead on an LED. This took me over an hour, and it looks like garbage, it's all burned looking and mangled and the connection doesn't look solid at all. I probably destroyed the LED by getting the lead too hot if I had to guess, but I have no idea. I just *could not* no matter how hard I tried get the LED lead, the wire, the soldering iron, and the solder all lined up and in the same space at the same time to form the connection. I even resorted to placing the LED and the wire in vice grips, lining them up next to each other so that the wire is perfectly overlapping the LED lead, then all I needed was two hands to hold the solder in my left hand and the iron in my right hand, and even doing that, it was still nearly impossible. The wire & LED lead would just come apart. So I have to ask, am I just using the wrong connection or something? Should I be using wire at all? If so, should I be using stranded wire so I can twist the strands over the connection point so that they hold together on their own until I get the solder on? What the heck am I doing wrong and why is this so difficult for me? I'm feeling like a complete idiot over here with how insanely difficult this seemingly simple stuff is for me. And to make matters worse, I should add that this is not my first time soldering anything! I must have blanked out how difficult it was for me in the past, or completely forgotten the technique or something, because this seems nearly impossible, but in the past, I have replaced the pickups and the 1/4" jack on my guitars before (albeit many years ago), and I don't recall thinking it was impossible then. I don't know why this seems so difficult and why it seems like I need an extra hand to do it this time. Unfortunately the memories and techniques I apparently knew in the past are all gone or not working for me today and I'm just really struggling and frustrated over here Edit: OK, I am taking two steps forward and one step back, maybe? Maybe the other way around, one forward and two back haha. I have now made the wire to LED solder connection a few more times for practice, and some of them are starting to looking pretty decent. Using the vice grips to position the wire and the LED and then working with the soldering iron and the solder seems to be the way to do it, no doubt about that. I'm not sure if my soldering iron is just so old and has cold spots or if I'm still not getting my technique right with the part of the iron tip that touches the wires and where to place the solder in that junction, etc, but I still struggle to get it going, and sometimes I'll hold the soldering iron for like 10 full seconds against the junction point and NOTHING HAPPENS, so I rotate the soldering iron in my fingers a little and then suddenly it all heats up. Am I struggling so much with all of this because my soldering iron is junk and doesn't heat evenly? But at any rate, after I got a few good solder connections successfully, I thought, yes, OK, I'm going to be able to build this with enough trial and error and spare parts blown through that I'll eventually get it right. But then, I experience more frustration about what the heck I'm supposed to do next. I know that the LEDs (now soldered together at 4 points total) need to be connected to the jacks. I figured, OK, let's start simple, and simply put another wire into the connection at one of the leads. Well, this gave me far more problems I expected (as is typical with every step of this process so far). I got the wire lined up perfectly and start to apply the heat, and BAM, everything falls apart. The previously existing solder connection got DIS-connected from the re-application of heat to the LED lead. I tried for 15 minutes to get everything back together again, the first wire, the second wire, the LED lead, and get it all to stick together with solder, and I couldn't do it. I gave up. I don't understand how I'm supposed to have 3 pieces soldered together at the same connection point? It all falls apart when I apply the heat if I pre-connect two pieces, but if I try to connect all 3 simultaneously, I can't get everything to stay together in the same spot to actually get the connection. At this point, I'm thinking I'm just a complete failure. I have no idea how to build this, and every time I think I'm going to be able to do it after all, another hurdle pops up and this one, so far, I don't know how to handle. I don't have anybody here who can show me what I'm doing wrong, or show me the right way to do things, and I'm trying to watch YouTube videos and consult my book, but I don't know, this has all been so far over my head and been so frustrating for me, it makes me kind of sick with myself, I am honestly in SHOCK right now that this is this difficult for me. I really was not prepared for how hard this was going to be for me. How do you guys do it? How do you make it look so easy? I just don't understand. I don't know what to do from here. Edit 2: After doing some research, oxidization on the tip of the soldering iron is a common problem causing it not to heat evenly. I used a wet soldering sponge and some solder and tried to get the oxidization to clear out for me to use this iron more easily, but to no avail. I think maybe I will just buy a new soldering iron. Also, my research tells me that solder can expire. My solder is about a decade old, so that's probably an issue as well. With a poor quality (it was cheap a decade ago) soldering iron which has an oxidized tip and some very old solder, could that be a reason why soldering seems nearly impossible for me right now? It's making me want to invest in a new soldering iron and some new solder, but I also have spent enough money on this project and I'm not sure I will be capable of building it even with new tools, so I don't know that I want to waste my money on more frustration and a never-to-be-completed project. Hmm...

Unfortunately I think I am in a little in over my head on this thing, as simple as the schematic appears (even to me, someone who has never looked at one until the past couple of days), it is still confusing me. I apologize for my total ignorance and lack of experience! One thing to note is I'm not including a bypass switch. So I'm pretending that the bypass switch is actually just a straight line. Therefore, the schematic I'm looking at looks like this: First, I want to say that I did read some "how to read schematics" pamphlets and "beginner electronics" books this weekend in preparation for trying to build this, but I don't feel I sufficiently learned everything I need to know before getting started with the actual build. I don't know if I'm understanding the actual LED part of the schematic. The line intersections with dots mean the components at the ends of those lines are all joined together by wires, right? So it looks to me like both the positive & negative terminals on the diode get connected to both the positive and negative of each jack, and to each other? That seems like a lot of connections, so I feel like I may not be interpreting it correctly. I also don't really grasp how I'm supposed to make all those connections if I am reading it properly after all. But here is an point-by-point write-up of every single connection between the components that it looks should exist as I'm interpreting it. That way I'll know if I've got all this right or not: Input Jack Positive, LED 1 Positive, LED 2 Negative, and Output Jack Positive all connect to each other. Input Jack Negative, LED 1 Negative, LED 2 Positive, Output Jack Negative, and Ground all connect to each other. That would mean that the positive lead on the input jack has wires going to each LED (one of them, its positive terminal, the other its negative terminal) and to the output jack. 3 wires total? And the same for the output jack's positive terminal. And then an additional wire between the positive of one LED and the negative of another. And then a very similar thing happening between all the opposite polarity terminals of all of these components, plus one to the ground. What I'm probably misunderstanding is that a shared wire can make multiple of these connections, but I don't know how it works... I don't know, the more I type trying to explain what I think I understand and what I don't the more confused I'm making and the dumber I feel like I sound! I feel like I would understand how to read the schematic if I could just see a photograph of the actual circuit in the real-world where everything can clearly be seen to be connecting to each other. How many actual solder connections have to be made for this circuit? Even knowing that might help me understand how all of this works better than I currently understand it. I feel like one wire/connection might act as a bridge or something completing the same connection for other components in the circuit, like maybe connecting jack 1 to LED 1, then LED 1 to LED 2, then LED 2 to jack 2, would accomplish some of these aspects like connecting jack 1 to LED 2 and jack 1 to jack 2. I don't know if I'm making any sense... Anyway... I also was wondering in a general sense how to ground the circuit? Am I supposed to solder the connection to ground as an actual wire to the metal chassis of the pedal case or something, or is that not what is meant for this? I apologize that I probably sound like a rambling fool who understands nothing, but that's essentially what I am I expected this to be simpler than it is for me, sadly enough. EDIT: I found a really nice youtube video that explained the schematic junction points concept in a way that I think I grasped more clearly this time. Basically, when point A needs to be connected to point B and point C, and all 3 are interconnected with a junction point, you don't need a wire between A and B, and B and C, and A and C, you can just have two wires, one between A & B and another between B & C (as an example), and that circuit ends up completing the connection between A & C as well (by way of their shared connection to B). I think I'm understanding it now, at least. By virtue of this new understanding, it seems to me that this new graphic I drew up could be an example of an actual working wiring between all points in the circuit: Am I on the right track now? Basically, I would have the following individual soldered connections: Input jack positive -> LED 1 negative LED 1 negative -> LED 2 positive LED 2 positive -> Output jack positive Input jack negative -> LED 1 positive LED 1 positive -> LED 2 negative LED 2 negative -> Output jack negative Output jack negative -> Ground (I still don't know what the method is for actually putting in that "to ground" part at the end...) But does that sound like I'm understanding how to build the circuit correctly now?

Thanks, and no apology necessary, you just saved me however much time it would have taken to drill two more holes in the enclosure

Thanks for answering all of my questions, Craig! Very much appreciated. I've put in an order for a 1590A enclosure, two 1/4" mono jacks (I was worried about quality here for a pedal that I will presumably never record without, so I got the Pure Tone brand, which seemed like the best of the best from my brief research), and 100-pack of 2.0 to 2.2 V rated red LED diodes for just a few dollars. Very excited to receive everything and get to work on building it and testing it out. As far as question & answer #5 is concerned, can I expect that the LEDs will not light up at all while plugged in and strumming on my guitar? Not sure if it's relevant, but for instance I often play with a Tone Zone high-output passive humbucker bridge pickup (Output = 375 [whatever that means, it doesn't specify any kind of units] according to the DiMarzio website). If they're going to light up at all, I'm thinking I'll drill some 5mm holes in the enclosure and let them shine, but if they're not going to light up at all I won't bother and I'll just leave them to sit inside the enclosure unseen.

Hi Craig, I was hoping you could answer a couple of questions for me (I just heard about your Transient Tamer circuit and would like to build one, but bear in mind I'm new to this kind of stuff). 1) With a transient tamer pedal, into a DI box, into my audio interface, let's say I wanted to plug into a fuzz box before going into the DI. Would I put the fuzz box between the transient tamer and the DI box, or put the fuzz box first? Same basic question about any other pedal FX I might want to record into the DI box. 2) How can I be sure I'm selecting the right kind of red LEDs? For instance, I found some on a website called Guitar Pedal Parts, which offers two kinds of red LEDs, a 3mm and a 5mm. Does the size matter in this case? It also refers to them as having a red diffused lens, not a clear lens. As someone who has never purchased LEDs before, it makes me wonder: are these actually emitting red light (I assume that's the kind I need), or do they emit a white light and then it appears red to the eye because it's coming through a red lens? This is probably a silly question, but wanted to know if I need to seek out a different kind of LED or if these will do the trick (I'm planning on putting in an order with this website for an aluminum enclosure and the input/output jacks, and it would be convenient if I can buy the LEDs from them too). 3) Probably a very silly question, but is there a difference between an input & an output jack (1/4" TS), or is it the exact same physical piece of equipment, just different in how the poles are wired up or something? I couldn't tell if I needed to buy two different kinds of jacks, or just one kind that can be used for both input & output. 4) Would you say it's worth it to wire in a bypass switch, or kind of pointless? I figure when I want to use the transient tamer, I will always want it on most likely, right? So why bother (although I may do it anyway as practice, because if I enjoy building this pedal, then I already have ideas for building other kinds of DIY pedals for myself!) 5) Every LED I can find online says to use a resistor in front of it or it will burn out. Question I have is: that's not necessary for your circuit, right? It doesn't use a resistor as far as I can tell (still need to study up on reading schematics before I build this, though). This circuit doesn't actually use a power source, either, and I was wondering, do the LEDs light up when you play (like as you're strumming the strings, the LEDs light up, and as the sustain dies out, the LEDs dim out)? Or are they dim all the time? Or somehow, are they lit all the time as long as the guitar is plugged into the circuit? I could see it being any of those ways, and was just curious what will happen. Thanks for any answers and help you can provide!