Gibson SG with P-90 Tribute Custom Build

Here's a little project I've been working on in the background for quite some time. With all of the pedals I'd built, I'd also seen a lot of people picking up guitar kits and building them. There are even a couple of Facebook groups devoted to the topic. It looked like a lot of fun, and I (obviously) love to build things, so I figured I'd give it a go. I wanted to build something that I didn't already have, and ideally something I couldn't just go buy at the same or lower price point. I'd been looking at the Gibson SG with P90s, but they're not cheap (you're looking at $1500 for starters - probably at least $2K set up like I wanted), and while the finishes were beautiful, I already had red and black guitars. I really liked the idea of a transparent green SG rather than the transparent red - so I figured I'd try and build my own!  

... but do you have it in green???

A Tale of Two Mini-Taurs - Klon Clones in a Convenient Travel Size

As much fun as I had building my first functional Klon Centaur clone, it has one major drawback - it's bleedin' huge! Don't get me wrong, I really love the aesthetics of the enclosure - especially with the very tongue-in-cheek theme on that particular one - but it isn't the most practical pedal to be carting about unless you're going with a very limited board as it takes up the space of at least two 125B-sized pedals - if not a bit more. Shortly after releasing the BFK full-sized board, The Tone Geek released the "Mini-taur" - a faithful 1:1 signal recreation of the original Klon Centaur suitable for use with a 125B enclosure. I'd had so much fun building the full-sized pedal, I decided to not only take the plunge with the "mini," but use the opportunity to build one for a friend as well.

Aion's Blueshift - Cloning the Insanely Complex Dimension DC-2

The Boss DC-2 Dimension C chorus pedal was originally released in 1985 and remains one of the more popular chorus effect pedals. While it technically only has four main settings, the electronics behind the pedal are insanely complex (more on that in a bit). The original Boss version is long out of production, with excellent condition examples running north of $500 on reverb. That being said, you can get the Waza Craft re-release model new for just a little north of $250. Building your own version is a bit cheaper, but it is a huge challenge. I picked up the Aion FX version of this pedal, the Blueshift, which is an absolute beast of a build. It comes as two separate PCBs, and then gets progressively crazier from there!

Death by Reverb - Creating Fun Echo Effects!

Many guitar amplifiers include a built-in reverb setting. Since the 1960s it is one of the most common effects added to electric guitar. These days most reverb is added digitally, but there are some true analog versions out there including Anasounds' spring reverb system (which looks and sounds exceedingly cool!). Most amplifier effects are essentially one knob which adds progressively more reverb creating essentially a larger echo chamber for the sound, but there are other ways to manipulate reverberation digitally to create the illusion of playing in anything from a cave to a large room or even hyperspace if you want to get fairly crazy. Death by Audio's Reverberation Machine is billed as a "synthetic atmosphere creator." Guitar PCB Mania has a version of this circuit called the Death by Reverb which relies on a Belton reverb module for part of the build. It appears to be an "inspired by" rather than an absolute copy, but the controls are fairly similar.