Friday 25 January 2008

Building Bugs - the new BugCrusher08

Things have been busy behind the scenes in BugWorld - I've been trying to streamline my ways of producing devices. Last month I brought out the diminutive PostcardWeevil (which has gone down well!) - my first foray into Pro PCBs (from Futurlec) - and now comes the first box, a new and powerful version of the BugCrusher.

The use of ProPCBs opens up some new techniques and the theory is that I can make things much more replicatable, while also packing more features in. To be honest, there's still plenty of figuring to be done - both on what circuits to build and how to integrate everything efficiently- but things are heading in good ways. Don't be thinking, either, that using ProPCBs makes the building process all that much easier -- it still takes a freaking age to put the boxes together!!!

So, here are the first pictures of the new BugCruhser08 - inside and outside!
A batch of 8 will be released in the next few days via the BugMailList (you are on it, aren't you?!)
There'll be more info going up on the main BugBrand site shortly too.
Coming soon will be a new version of the (standard) Weevil and then on to some more BugCrusher9VoltStomps...


The box features are:
Input Preamp for mic or line level
Voltage Controlled Crusher circuit - with main Crush Control plus variable CV modulation
Mixer to blend Dry / Crushed signals plus switchable phase inversion on the Crushed signal
Voltage Controlled Resonant Filter with LoPass / BandPass - with main Cutoff Control plus variable CV modulation
Output with lo (guitar-amp) or hi (line) levels
Modulation input switchable between Expression Pedal or external Control Voltage (CV - from analogue synths (standard +/-5v levels))
Electronic Bypass Switch plus external Footswitch socket


And some shots of the building process:
There are four boards within - one main board and then external boards joined via IDC headers.
One for Input / Output sockets
Two for dials and switches