What's new in PedalSpice

October 17: You told us, and we listened.

A lot of our customers asked to buy PedalSpice once instead of paying for it every year. So that’s what we did. PedalSpice is now $199.00 once, or 6 monthly payments of $35.00, and nothing renews. Fixes, general updates, and new parts additions stay free. Bigger additions later on, like new calculators, schematic image import, NAM model export and new circuit blocks, will be sold separately, so you only pay for the ones you want.

If you already had a subscription, you have the full version of PedalSpice, plus anything new we add before your paid year would have ended. All users will be refunded fairly.

Making one price work meant changing the free version of PedalSpice. A free circuit can now have up to 20 parts, and a free account can save 5 circuits. Nothing you already have is taken away. Every circuit you’ve saved still opens and plays, even if it has more than 20 parts or you have more than 5 saved. To save changes to a circuit with more than 20 parts, bring it down to 20 parts or buy PedalSpice. The free TS and OD1 starters save at their own 22 parts. A small counter at the top of the editor shows how many parts you’ve used for each schematic.

October 12: Move the panels where you want them.

Every panel beside your schematic now has an up arrow and a down arrow on its heading, so you can put the panels in the order that suits you. Want the knobs right under your drawing? Move them up. PedalSpice remembers your order on that computer or phone. On a phone, the knobs now start right under the schematic.

October 11: Folders, tags and pictures for your circuits.

Your circuits are easier to find now. Make folders like Overdrive, Distortion, and Fuzz, and put your circuits in them. (Pro and trial) You can tag your circuits too. (Pro and trial) And every circuit now shows a small picture of its schematic, so you can tell which one is which before you open it.

October 9: The CD4049UBE.

You can now use the CD4049UBE, the chip behind the Red Llama and other CMOS drives. Place it as one chip, or split it into its six inverters and put them anywhere on your drawing. Its power legs are always shown, so you can feed it through a resistor the way the popular circuits do that use this chip.

October 8: Inductors, a transformer and optocouplers.

The parts list has three new kinds of part. There's an inductor for wah circuits, with the Red Fasel, Yellow Fasel, Halo and Dunlop inductors ready to pick. There's the Xicon 42TL019 transformer, center taps and all. And there are four optocouplers: the VTL5C3, NSL-32SR3, H11F1M and H11F1VM.

An optocoupler goes on the sheet as one part. If you'd rather have the LED in one spot and the resistor somewhere else, double-click it and press Separate. The two halves show up as OC1A and OC1B, and Put back together joins them again.

October 8: New parts, and more accurate germanium transistors.

New in the parts lists:

• the BAT46 and BAT42 diodes
• the MPSA06 transistor
• the 2SK184-GR JFET
• the LND150 MOSFET
• the CA3260 op amp

The LND150 is a depletion MOSFET, so the symbol is slightly different.

The CA3260 can only take 16 volts, so on 18V it won't run and tells you why.

The AC127 and AC128 now behave like the germanium parts they are, and the OC44 now has the inner capacitance of the real part. A saved circuit that uses one of those three will sound a little different now, closer to the real thing.

October 6: Advanced mode.

Turn on advanced mode for a circuit to use plus-and-minus supplies (+9/-9, +18/+9/-9, +12/-12 and +15/-15), wire your op amps' power pins yourself, and place separate supply rails. Parts now refuse to run past their maker's voltage limit, and the message tells you why. Advanced mode is part of Pro and the free trial.

October 2: A longer guided tour.

At the end of the quick tour, press Show me more for a walk through the rest of the editor: the jacks, Circuit Blocks, Circuit Calculators, the plots, knobs and switches, audio and the File menu.

October 1: A quick tour for first visits.

New visitors get a short tour of the main controls. You can see it again anytime from View, Take the tour.

October 1: Rename, and your own blocks.

Rename a saved circuit from the File menu or My Circuits. Save any drawing as your own circuit block, or bring in a circuit file as a block, and find them under My Blocks.