[{"content":" Rob the Fiddler # Hi, I\u0026rsquo;m Rob Stave. Texas Fiddler, Programmer, Cat Daddy and circuit tinkerer. # ","date":"6 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"","summary":"","title":"","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"6 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/general/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"General","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"6 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"Welcome back to the blog. I have been away for a while, but I am back now. I have been busy with work and other things, but I am hoping to get back into the swing of things here.\nIll admit, I have done this a few times before where I had a blog, and then I stopped posting for a while, and then I came back. I hope this time it sticks. I have a lot of ideas for posts.\nWhere we left off was pedal building and AI generated images. The images in the last post was when I was not really paying for midjourney and was curious how far I could get with zero gpu. My \u0026ldquo;homelab\u0026rdquo; is pretty much micro boxes.\nLooking back, those images suck, but they did spark an interest in AI and I ended up generating a LOT of cat images over the years since. I have kinda gotton that out of my system now, but I have a lot of fun with it.\nI also went from designing pedals on protoboard to modular synths and eurorack. I have a lot of fun with that as well. I get the designs on my laptop and send it off to china.\nThen, we moved to California. I have not really unpacked all those projects. I left a lot of things in Texas, and I have not really had the time to get back into it. I have been busy with work and other things, moving, looking for a job and getting all set up here.\nAI has advanced so far, people have been laid off left and right, and I have been upskilling in the AI realm.\nProjects I would like to kick off and talk about.\nGetting this blog back up and running. Technically, I fixed this up to blowfish in like November. Im backdating this entry to January as a starting point. There are even posts that were not published, so things might pop up with other dates. Its finally off my local gitea and on github.\nAI project: Somewhere I have my OLLLLD wordpress blog. Its just an SQL file that was corrupted and was the last time I gave up on a blog. I want to see if I can recover that and get it up and running again. It seems like an excellent AI task.\nGarden Stuff: I have always done garden projects in my back yard. The previous house in Farrar was a little bit of a jungle, and I had a lot of fun with it. The new house is much more manicured. We have a pool, no chickens, and a lot more suculents. So suculents are my new hobby for sure. But I have tomatoes and peppers scoped out too. I will be working on a tracking app for the garden.\nBluegrass: Im back in the bluegrass scene out here. The players are a bit spread out, but there are some good players for sure.\nModular synth: I will get back to this too\u0026hellip;but it might take a little bit to reaquire tools and the like. My drill press was little more than a drill on a stand. I have access to some better tools at my dads. We will see.\nOther AI stuff: Honestly, I dont know where this is going to go. I have been spinning up projects here and there. Its dead simple to have a full app. Ill put down my thoughts.\n","date":"6 January 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2026/01/welcome-back/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Welcome back","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Ai","type":"tags"},{"content":" @Images # Here are some images I generated using just a docker container running a fairly simple LLM. No GPU, just a CPU. I was surprised at how creepy some of the images turned out.\n","date":"7 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2022/2022-06-07-ai/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"AI generated images","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"7 June 2022","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/art/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Art","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 August 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/distortion/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Distortion","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"9 August 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pedal/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Pedal","type":"tags"},{"content":" Quarantine pedal number twelve. Lunar.\n","date":"9 August 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2021/pedals/quarantine-pedal-twelve-lunar/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Twelve","type":"posts"},{"content":" Quarantine pedal number eleven. Witch Burner.\nhttps://www.blackartstoneworks.com/pedal/witch-burner/\nSchematic\nThis pedal worked out REALLY well. There are very few that I have actually used on stage, but this is one of them. Im not sure what makes this one different, Its not exactly much different. I would say, if your looking for a pretty easy and solid build, this is the one.\n","date":"9 June 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2021/pedals/quarantine-pedal-eleven-witch/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Eleven Witch Burner","type":"posts"},{"content":" Quarantine pedal number ten. Blue clipper.\nHome Wrecker version I used\nVero Layout\nRosie the Cat ( next door cat ) inspects the Blue Clipper. Since the weather was nice, I started another round of pedals. Box is simple as it kinda took me a little time to get back in the groove of building them.\nPretty simple pedal\u0026hellip;one of the earlier ones to come out back in the day. It actually used to plug into your guitar directly.\nThe circuit is about as textbook of a hard-clipping op amp circuit as it gets. The only difference is that the biasing in the original circuit is a bit off. Rather than 1/2 the Vcc ( 4.5 volts) its like 90%.\nPerhaps 200k/240k is more likely? Don\u0026rsquo;t trust all schematics you find on the interwebs.\nDan Armstrong\n","date":"4 June 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2021/pedals/quarantine-pedal-ten-blue/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Ten Blue Clipper","type":"posts"},{"content":" The Atari Punk Console is probably every beginners gateway into DIY synth noise. Its simple, cheap and all the parts could be found at your local radio shack. Remember that place?\nRadio Shack Forest Mims archive\nIf you can build this, and sit with it\u0026hellip;perhaps stay entertained for 5 minutes or more, you might have found a hobby you can get into.\nHackaday link\nI was playing with this and your standard 40106 oscillators for a weekend that my head broke and I finally got into \u0026ldquo;Glitch\u0026rdquo; as a EDM Genre. It probably was the time that I turned the sound off, but all the sequences were still rattling in my brain, that I realized it was interesting.\nAll the bloggy folks were drawing up circuits, so I came up with the above one and a long lost post on my old site. Not a particularly good schematic, and my explaination on the circuit was not amazing, but it got linked up to heck and that image made it to the wikipedia.\nI guess the wiki changed, but here is a BETTER version of what I tried to convey.\nCareful what you do in the internets\u0026hellip;it sticks around forever.\nstacktrace\ninstructables\nSynthtopia\nHackster Alex Glow\n","date":"9 May 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2022/noise/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Atari Punk Console","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"9 May 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/noise/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Noise","type":"tags"},{"content":" Building pedals involves a lot of half builds. So you typically bread board the circuit first. If it works, you build it proper and then box it up. It’s a lot of work and kinda expensive to do to completion. So it’s good to hear it and make executive decisions on the way. If it sucks, cut your loses.\nThis was a clone of Acapulco Gold. link\nI really have not had much luck with LM386 pedals. It’s a power amp, not an op amp so it’s loud. For this circuit, somebody had the idea to drive the gain up 200 and the push that into another LM386. If your not playing it whistles and whizzes. Honestly, its unworkable in my opinion.\nLM386 comes in a few flavors\u0026hellip;maybe there is a low power one that I am missing or something. There are strengths I think??\nI figured maybe if I did it on veroboard, it would get rid of that noise and parasitic oscillations. Nope. The circuitboard used to pick up AM sports radio too, but I fixed that issue. I know folks are not big fans of ceramic capacitors. I think I could have used more film ones. ( They are in the mail )\nSo I wish it away into the cornfield of half builds. A box of failed dreams, and successful builds that just sound aweful.\nMeanwhile, Lisa Marie jumps on the drill press and says ‘Box that up nerd boy I’ll do the drilling.\n","date":"8 May 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2021/pedals/fail-acapulco/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Acapulco Gold","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"8 May 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fail/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fail","type":"tags"},{"content":" Birdie sanders eyes my little clipping diode toolset suspiciously. Weather is nice, so I’m in the yard with the birds and the squirrels ( raccoons and possums too) doing another round of pedals.\nOne of the features that many pedals have is a clipping stage consisting of diodes. Different diodes have different forward voltages, so you can customize the clipping pattern.\nSwapping them in and out is a bummer so I created a set of protoboard plugins to make things easier.\nlink\nI have: Left to Right\nSi ( Silicon) Ge ( germanium )\nGe 1n34a Ge ?? ( from dads garage\u0026hellip;unmarked\u0026hellip;but Ge) Asymmetrical Red LED + Ge diode Si 1n4148 Si 1n4148 Asymmetrical Si 1n4148 x2 Led red Led yellow Led green All have different forward voltages and can be mixed for sounds between teeth grinding crunchy and teeth aching gritty. Keeps the raccoons at bay.\nApparently IR Leds have a lower Vf that \u0026ldquo;red\u0026rdquo;. That might be that just right place\u0026hellip;gonna have to chase that whale another day.\n","date":"7 May 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2021/pedals/diode-set/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Diode Sets","type":"posts"},{"content":"Fiddler, computer programmer, chicken farmer and Texan yo.\n","date":"11 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"About","summary":"","title":"About","type":"about"},{"content":"A collection of posts on Arduino projects. Mostly sound based\n","date":"11 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/arduino/","section":"Arduino","summary":"","title":"Arduino","type":"arduino"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/attiny/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"ATTINY","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"11 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"Imagine a blinky light for hello world. Well\u0026hellip;this is that.\n","date":"11 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/arduino/first-post/","section":"Arduino","summary":"","title":"First Arduino Post","type":"arduino"},{"content":"Todo\n","date":"11 April 2021","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/first-post/","section":"About","summary":"","title":"What am I doing here","type":"about"},{"content":"","date":"11 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/fuzz/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fuzz","type":"tags"},{"content":" Quarantine pedal number eight. Mosrite fuzz clone.\nPosing with the last green tomato of the summer. In a cage to keep critters out.\nI would say it’s a little more raspy. I really need to scope a few waves to see what is going on. The water slip off decal turned out nice. But I prob should print the whole thing at once rather that pieces. Eh. Better than sharpie and nail polish jobs I was doing a decade ago.\nThis has a switch to toggle in a 22k resistor. Many schematics do not use it. I’m not sure I’m on board with it either. But that resistor off the fuzz lug is apparently what gives this clone a unique sound.\nlink to tagboard\n","date":"11 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-eight-mossite/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Eight Mossrite Clone","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"5 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/electra/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Electra","type":"tags"},{"content":" Quarantine pedal number seven. A variation on the Electra posted on small bear.\nSmall Bear\nI used a 2n5088 and some Ge diodes I had in an envelope marked \u0026ldquo;Ge diodes.\u0026rdquo; Guess I have to take my own word on that.\nI have a few more iterations that I did not box. This was my favorite.\nI found some laser printable decal paper on the interwebs. Pretty fun!\nGonna see if I can’t get that to work with pigment inks, but in the meantime, I think I got a pretty good likeness of Ducky.\nDucky says stop playing Dammit (Green Day), dammit and is pretty sure I should just scrap the pedals for a Mesa triple rectifier.\n","date":"5 June 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-seven-ursa/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Seven Ursa","type":"posts"},{"content":" Electra pedal! Considering the work I put into what is the easiest pedal to build, I’m calling this quarantine pedal six.\nlink\nI actually built this in 2016, but the box looked like a trainwreck.\nFor some reason I used nail polish on it. I used it as a temp excuse to play with clear coat and somehow mixed clear coat with black paint! Then I dremeled the paint off which just gouged the aluminum. Oops And the 3PDT switch gave out. Those blue ones suck.\nSo, it is reall a rebox, redo and a repaint. And I swapped out the 2n3904 for 2n2369.\nI used the Cricut to cut the vinyl which looks way better.\nDucky is sniffing intently. If your looking for a first pedal to DIY, this is the one. Dirt simple and it sounds fine.\nThe Electra circuit is pretty much what a transistor based overdrive is ( not fuzz)\n","date":"25 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-six-electra/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Six Electra Clone","type":"posts"},{"content":" Quarantine pedal number Five. Ross distortion clone. Black Version. JRC4558 although I fail to hear the magic between that and my other 4558s floating around.\nElectro Smash\nPretty much the same distortion as a DS-1 or MXR+. With the gain dialed back a bit, it’s pretty decent. Heather showed me how to blend inks for the color effect. ‘Sweet Cat’ eyes it suspiciously. She is either a stray or puts on a good act in return for a little wet food.\nTagboard\n","date":"24 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-five-ross/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Five Ross Clone","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"6 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/booster/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Booster","type":"tags"},{"content":" Lisa Marie is inspecting quarantine pedal number four. A ZVex SHO FET booster clone. With all those Dirt Boxes, your gonna need a buffer ( Apparently 1 MOhm input impedance) The trade off is that the pot will crackle\u0026hellip;no matter what. It is based on an old soundboard circuit which did the same thing. Crackle ok!\nTagboard Sho\nIts pretty nice sounding. A taste of color when the gain is up, but for the most part, a very transparent booster clone. Basically a \u0026ldquo;loud\u0026rdquo; pedal that brings back your highs on a guitar.\nFor a Piezo-pickup based fiddle, its not particularly useful. I rely on the Boss Reverb which is my \u0026ldquo;buffer\u0026rdquo; followed by a volume pedal. The Fishman DI is the last in the chain, so it really does little except some EQ. I do not make use of effects loops.\nWhen push comes to shove, I am a Roland/Boss fan with what I use on stage.\nHad some issues with the clear coat. I added it too soon, so the green paint wrinkled. Adding more layers did not help so I said..what the heck\u0026hellip;add Glitter.\n","date":"6 May 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-four-sho-fet/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Four ZVex SHO Fet Boost","type":"posts"},{"content":" Xenia shows off quarantine pedal number 3. A Red Llama clone.\ntagboard effects\nA CD4049 Inverter is used to square up the signal, but since its un buffered (and not a schmitt trigger like CD40106 ) it is actually is not as crunchy as I thought. I made the llama with corpse paint before testing the circuit. 🙂\nHeather showed be how to use the paper die cutter for like the 10th time. It is a tad thinner sounding than I thought, so I might just redo with a counter to add some octaves\u0026hellip;.but for another day.\nLessons learned: do no leave out clear coat to dry overnight in the yard. Somebody\u0026hellip;Raccoon or Opossum knocked it over and smudged it. meh.\n","date":"30 April 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-three-red-llama/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Three Red Llama","type":"posts"},{"content":" Here is pedal number 2 in the quarantine series. I was hoping to do a Texas Square Face with the PNP transistors I had but they were all in very poor shape and I couldn’t find a matching set of transistors.\nOpt\u0026rsquo;ed for the Sili-Face. 2N5088 for both Q1 and Q2.\nHome Wrecker\nHeather made some sweet Day of the Dead figures that I got to add. Was crossing my fingers that the clear coat would work. It did. It is another fuziiz, but I like it better because I can bias this one with a trim pot\n","date":"21 April 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-two-siliface/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal Two Sili-Face","type":"posts"},{"content":"Kali shows off the first of many homemade quarantine pedals. Clone of a Colorsound one knob fuzz (NPN).\nColorsound one knob\nHeather had some leftover scraps from making Easter cards, so I used her bunny as a stencil. Its a fuzzy bunny\u0026hellip;get it!\nUses a 2n2369 that I got from a box of old transistors from my dad. I had hoped I had a gold mine of PNP Ge transistors, but almost all of them were leaky and not super useful. Then NPN was good though.\n","date":"11 April 2020","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/2020/pedals/quarantine-pedal-one-colorsound/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Quarantine Pedal One Colorsound","type":"posts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]