What's the Vector, Victor?

So here is my first "twin" build (well - sort of - we'll get to that later). I've been building several pedals lately (obviously) and I have a colleague who is also a guitarist looking for a delay pedal. Since I had the Aion Vector on my "to do" list, I didn't figure it would be too much more trouble to just build two at the same time, and for the most part that held true. It was sort of nice to be able to double check the placement of all of the components as I went through and make sure I didn't accidentally goof something up. The Vector is based on the Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay and the PT2399 delay chip. It is a digital delay, but one that many analog purists will at least tolerate. Unlike many of the pedals I've worked on, this one isn't ridiculously expensive, but it is still cheaper to build (~$40-50) than buy ($170-$200 used on reverb).

As with most Aion FX kits, it consists of a very clean circuit board with generous-sized holes for your through board components. This particular one is provided in a fairly cool looking purple. One nice thing about Aion FX kits, is each one is provided with a Google doc that includes all of the parts needed to actually build the project (though this one is also available as a kit). This makes ordering from sources like Mouser and Small Bear very easy. There are also sourcing guides for some of the more exotic parts to help the builder get quality, reliable parts.

Of course, one of the problems with the electronics industry (and many industries) at this point is the demand for components means that sometimes the recommended component isn't available. No problem, Mouser easily lets you sort for something similar. I've run into this problem several time, but generally have been able to match recommended part fairly easily. This time, however, I got a bit of a surprise. I needed a lot (and I mean a LOT) of 10K ohm resistors for a variety of projects, but the recommended part was out of stock. No worries, I found an electrically equivalent version, same length, same resistance, same power rating, same tolerance. I didn't, however, realize that these were angled for a narrow lead spacing. So one of the two boards looks a bit odd (see below) because of the angled resistors, but they work just fine!

This project also includes a trimmer resistor which is used to set the frequency knob so you don't get a distorted infinite repeat in the circuit. It's very easy to tune the trimmer once you get the build together. For the two enclosures, these are some of the first UV printed enclosures I've had done at Tayda, and overall I'm really pretty happy with them. I got the labels for the knobs a little close to the actual knob (though not as close as the distorted phone camera photos would make you believe), but that's a lesson learned for next time.

I decided to keep the "Vector" name for this pedal, and borrowed the logo and name text from an eponymous 80's vintage, limited production supercar. I then found a complimentary font for the rest of the text on the enclosure. This one is fairly plan as compared to others I have coming up, but since I was making one for a friend, I decided to keep the design somewhat down to earth. The only drawback to the UV printing is that you can't print on any side but the top. That means I have "in" and "out" arrows on the top, and I have to come up with something clever for my "Steggo" logo. I have what I hope is a solution on order, but it hasn't arrived yet. Watch this space!

In terms of playability, the pedal is working perfectly and sounds exactly like the great demo on the Aion page. Well... as exactly as my meagre guitar skills are able to replicate. That being said, you can do a dead on album version of "Pets" by Porno for Pyros with this pedal. I was using my Chapman ML-1 in position 2 (neck + bridge). The delay gets a bit heavy in the verse if you're not careful, though, but again, that's not a technical fault with the pedal so much as it's a limitation of the squishy carbon based creature at the front end of the signal chain.