Blackout Blue Angel

Chorus and delay pedals are always the last two pedals in my effect chain. So why not to combine them into one 1590BB -enclosure. Made a basic circuit arrangement myself:

Chorus

There’s not too many alternatives in delay and chorus circuits which can be built in vero board. I first inspected the possibility to use Modtone’s Aqua Chorus by just rehousing it, but it appeared to be too large. Found a schematic of this Little Angel Chorus, which can be built in 19×18 -sized vero board. Sounds all right, but I had some issues with PT2399 -IC, which is the actual heart of the circuit. It locked up once, so I needed to add a separate anti-locking daughterboard.  It would have been possible to fix the existing circuit board, but I decided to leave it alone as it was working other than that. I also noticed that the depth pot (B500K) had any effect only at the end of its range. I changed it to C500K to spread the usable range of the sweep.

Chorus circuit

Delay

Mad Professor’s Deep Blue Delay is also quite compact being sized 18×19 assembled in vero board. It has the same IC (PT2399) that the chorus side has. Not any issues with that in this circuit. It worked right away.  Three knobs is all I need in delay pedal, so this is a good choice for me. The only thing I forgot was to connect the mix-knob’s one lug to the ground. It worked a bit oddly, I must say. I still was able to find a spot where it was working just ok. Still, I couldn’t stand it for long as it bothered me anyway, so I opened the box once again, and saw the reason immediatelly without a need to reassemble the whole thing.

Housing

As mentioned before, the enclosure is 1590BB. I made a separate daughterboard for +9V- and grounding distribution. Also placed the on/off  LEDs’ resistors into this board. With two jacks, one power jack, two circuit boards, two daughterboards, five pots and two switches it still fits quite easily into enclosure:

Input signal goes via the first footswitch either to the chorus circuit, or to the second footswitch. Then it goes either to the delay circuit, or to the output jack. With both footswitches unengaged the signal goes from jack to jack unaffected. I prefer having chorus effect before delay, but it can be either way. It’s very easy to change them afterwards if needed. Just swap the input and output signal wires between the footswitches.

Decals are made by Olli from CIS Decals, who’ve made the stickers and decals for many of my pedals.

Blackout Blue Angel: