Nautilus - Building a Mutron III Clone

One of my geek hobbies is building guitar effects. It doesn't cost a lot, it's not too difficult, and at the end of the day you have a new gadget to play with. Over the last few days I've put together a clone of the Mutron III envelope filter. This project is based on the newly released Nautilus PCB from Mad Bean Pedals.

The first step in any build is gathering the parts. For the Nautilus build I had almost all the parts required. I only needed  the two Vactrols that are the heart of the effect, a couple switches and an enclosure to house the electronics.

The build itself is pretty straightforward:

Start with the 27 resistors and 3 diodes - all stuff that lies flat on the PCB.

Then the 14 capacitors, the IC sockets, vactrols and the trim pot.

Switches and Pots

Wiring is always sort of a PITA. The Nautilus PCB is designed to use board mount pots, but since I happened to have all three in stock I decided to just wire 'em up and save a couple bucks.

The Nautilus documentation comes with a drilling template so preparing the enclosure is pretty straightforward. It does generate a lot of aluminum shrapnel so it's best done in a box to contain the mess.

Mark the holes with a center punch

Drill pilot holes

Drill the finished holes with a step bit

Foot Switch Wiring

It's Alive!

Finishing the enclosure is a job for the future. I've built 3 other late seventies effects (Distortion+, Mutron Octave Divider, and a Phase 100) and want to finish them in some sort of uniform/complimentary scheme with matching knobs and so forth.  When I come up with something I'll do a post on etching the enclosures.

Cats Laughing - Blast From the Past II

I remember this as a pretty decent performance, but the Cabooze was never going to be the kind of place Cats Laughing would be comfortable playing. In any case, since we went on first we had the opportunity to grab some beer and barbecue while the other bands played. I think we might have gotten comp'd barbecue or a couple beers.

As to the set list... we were hitting the originals pretty hard at this point. Steve Goodman's "I Ain't Never Heard You Play No Blues" is sort of an oddball. I have a feeling it was intended as a little joke after Gloomy Sunday and perhaps to break up what would have been 5 straight songs sung by Emma and LoJo.

A Cats Laughing Blast From the Past

Designed by Emma Bull, stapled to telephone poles by all of us, and preserved for your pleasure:

That's February 5, 1989

 It's recently occurred to me that I have a bunch of ephemera from Cats Laughing that nobody's seen in a couple decades. So here's a more or less random sample - the flyer from a gig at the Seward Cafe.

Unfortunately, I don't have a set list from this gig. There's another dozen or so, some with set lists, pictures and more.

New Bass Day!

New Bass Day!

Like most guitar players I've occasionally thought about picking up a bass. So when a deal for a Spector Legend-4 Classic popped up on Hello Music I finally made the move. Total cost was $454 including shipping ($9.00) and a $30 "first time customer" discount. Since they retail for $699 I figured I didn't have much to lose.

The Legend Classic series has been Spector's "entry level" line for quite a while. My model was made in Korea, though some reports on the inter-tubes have them being made in Indonesia. It has semi-active electronics: mid-boosted EMG® HZ pickups with a Spector TonePump Jr. pre-amp. Apparently it's fairly common to swap the TonePump Jr. for an EMG BQC-HZ or to pull the circuitry altogether and run the 'em as regular passive pickups. After a couple hours of fooling around DI through a Presonus FireStudio Mobile I don't have an opinion.

As you can sort of see from the picture it's got a pretty decent quilt top, though the stain is much darker than it would appear from the official Spector advertising photos. Setup out of the box is excellent and in fact it was very nearly in tune, in spite of sitting in a UPS truck all day in 80+ degree weather. The only downside I can see at this point is that it doesn't come with a gig-bag. So that'll add $50 or so.

If these pop up on Hello Music again don't hesitate to snag one.