Another Combo Pedal - Well, Sort Of! Cloning the ThorpyFx Heavy Water

The boost pedal market has exploded over the years. I believe part of the reason for the proliferation is some pedals tend to work better with specific amps, many pedals tends to work better with specific guitars, or more importantly specific pick-ups on those guitars. With many guitarists chasing specific or unique sounds, all of these subtle variations come into play. If you've watched any of the Anderton's guitar store videos on YouTube, you've likely encountered Danish Pete - a session guitarist and manager of their YouTube channel. He has a signature pedal called "The Dane" from ThorpyFx that combines a boost and distortion circuit (which would be a good future project...). There had been calls to produce the boost section as a standalone pedal, so ThorpyFx did just that, but took it one better. Instead of just having a single circuit, they created a dual effect pedal, the Heavy Water, which has the clean boost on the right, and a modified "grittier/dirtier" boost on the left. They also created a custom version with dual input/output jacks for people who wanted to create effects loops. I figured this would be a fun one to try since I already knew how to wire up a dual I/O jack pedal where it would function normally just using the input one and output two jacks (my recent Duo-Phase build). So in the final analysis, this is sort of a combo pedal as there are two circuits that can be accessed independently, it's marketed and sold as a single pedal normally.

Hoofing It! Cloning the EQD Hoof...

It's either a little late or a little early for Fuzz Friday, but I just got this beauty together and had to get it out there. The Earthquaker Devices Hoof is an extremely popular silicon/germanium hybrid fuzz pedal. New copies run about $179, so it's not incredibly expensive, but it's not really cheap either. It's a neat sounding pedal, and since you can never have too much fuzz, I figured it would be a great addition to the pedal board if nothing else!

Cloning the Fulltone OCD - The Ominous Carnivorous Dinosaur!

Founded in 1993, Fulltone made a variety of pedals over the years and was in many ways at the forefront of the boutique pedal market - in the US at least. The owner had been mired in some recent controversy and announced in August 2022 that it would be closing shop. If you go to the company website now, you get a Looney Toons "That's All Folks" banner, and that all of the individual pedals (which had been marked down) are sold out. The Fulltone OCD was a very popular overdrive pedal that, much like many popular pedals, underwent several parts transitions over the years. There are several variants, but I wanted to focus on some of the 1.X variants initially - especially the 1.4 which threw in a Germanium 1N34A transistor.

Not Just a Phase - Mu-Tron Bi-Phase Clone By PedalPCB

As I'd mentioned in my previous blog entry, I hadn't built many modulation pedals recently, and I figured it was time to remedy that. This is one I'd had going in the background for a while, but given the size and uniqueness of the build, I had to order additional parts and bits to actually make it happen. Based on the vintage Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, the PedalPCB Duo Phase an involved build, but in some ways is on the easy side for a modulation pedal - more on that in a bit. The Bi-Phase pedal itself, is a vintage unit that's found its way on both synths and guitars alike. Originals are long out of production, and vintage units run for quite a bit of money these days. There are apparently Chinese copies out there, but even those aren't exactly cheap.

Technical expert Steggi posing with her handiwork

Tone... In.... SPAAAACCCE!!! Cloning the EQD Space Spiral

Looking at the pantheon of available DIY effects pedals, you'll see a lot of distortion and overdrive pedals, a large number of boost and fuzz pedals, but then there tends to be a drop off as you get into modulation effects like chorus, delay, and flangers. Part of the reason for this is a lot of the classic analog modulation effects rely on long out of production integrated circuits, so even if you recreate the board exactly, you're missing critical components to actually make the effect work. There are, however, clones of many more modern pedals with modern integrated circuits, such as digital delay effects based on the PT2399 chip. One of these is the Earthquaker Devices Space Spiral - which can do anything from slapback delay, to a reel to real chorus, to absolutely psychedelic reverb and delay. It's not an incredibly expensive pedal, only about $199 new, but as there's a dearth of Steggo modulation pedals at this point, I thought it would be a good one to try out!

Mystery Meat - Cloning the New PRS Horsemeat

At the end of September, PRS announced their first three guitar effects pedals: a dual analog flanger called Wind Through the Trees, an optical compressor called Mary Cries, and a transparent overdrive called, of all things, Horsemeat. I'm forced to add yet another pedal to my list of awesome pedals with terrible names. That being said, in what has to be one of the shortest intervals between when a pedal is released and when it was first cloned, PedalPCB recently released the "Mystery Meat" - a clone of the Horsemeat overdrive pedal. With new pedals running just short of $250, and the few used ones out there starting at about $190, this is a great cloning candidate, so I decided to get cooking!

Steggo's Year in Review and Secret Lab Update!

Honestly, it's been an amazing year here at Steggo Studios, so before we go into the Christmas season, I wanted to write-up a year in review and 2023 preview! First, 2022 was the first year that Steggo Studios actually tried to sell pedals (at the urging of a friend), and on that front, things have succeeded better than I could have dreamed. The goal was to sell some pedals and basically support my hobby of building them, and with over 60 sold this year, I'm just amazed and grateful that so many people are enjoying the tone and the fun dinosaur themes! So without further ado, let's look forward to 2023 and see what's on tap!

It May Sound Kliche - Building the PedalPCB Kliche Mini Klon Clone!

When asked how many more Klon clones and Klon variants I'm going to build, the answer is pretty much always, "at least one more." I've built several different boards at this point - AionFX, Ceriatone, two different Tone Geek versions, a South Obolon FX version, and even a Puzzle Sounds (that I still need to work up an enclosure for!). However this is my first crack at a PedalPCB Klon clone. PedalPCB made up a set of validation boards for the special edition Kliche Mini (which has the dials offset like on the Klon KTR), and was nice enough to send me some!

Old School Tube Screamer Clone - The TS808

Along with the Big Muff Pi, the venerable Tube Screamer is one of the cornerstone effects pedals in the market. Both are available in a wide array of versions from the original manufacturer, and both have spawned a myriad of clones, modifications, and variants over the years. A couple of my favorite overdrive / boost pedals are Tube Screamer variants including the Tone Geek's version of the TS10 (my Velociraptor Screamer) and the Vemarum TSV808 (the Secret Spinosaurus). For this build, however, I'm going back to where it all started, the original TS808!

Cloning the Rare EQD Black Ash

The EQD Black Ash was a limited production fuzz pedal using a variety of vintage parts including carbon composition resistors and paper-in-oil capacitors. The total production was limited to 1500 units, and prices are rapidly rising at this point, with examples starting at roughly $300 and going up from there. When it came to cloning this particular pedal, I'd considered going with a vintage build like I've done with a variety of other pedals, but I've found they often have a higher noise floor than pedals with modern components so for this build I decided to go with modern components to validate the design and sound. I may go back and do a vintage build at some point in the future, though!

On Target! Cloning the EQD Arrows

The Earthquaker devices Arrows is a simple tone sculpting pre-amp booster. It stacks well with other pedals, taking the mud out of heavy fuzz pedals or brightening light boost pedals. It can also be used on its own to really make your signal stand out – especially on neck pickups. This project is the last of the first three pedals in Kyle the Ankylosaurus' "one knob" collection, and as with some previous Earthquaker Devices builds, I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

Ice Age Fuzz - Cloning the ZVEX Wooly Mammoth

Fuzz pedals are one of the oldest types of effects pedals out there, but there is always something new coming out with tweaks and variations on various circuits and concepts. The ZVEX Wooly Mammoth is a newer niche pedal with a fairly distinguished following. It is also unfortunately fairly expensive, making it a great candidate for cloning. Once again, South Obolon FX had laid out a really decent board for this build, so I took the plunge!

More Deja Vu - A Truly Steggo Acapulco Gold Clone!

So this is the second official build report for the new "one knob" collection from Steggo, and this one goes back to where the blog started with a build of an EQD Acapulco Gold clone. In a lot of ways it's hard to believe how far the blog and Steggo Studios as a whole has come in a little over a year, and I'm looking forward to what the next year brings!

Back to the Beginning - Revisiting the Tone Geek Valve Screamer

The first guitar pedal I built (that worked - I'd attempted a Ceriatone Centura as my first build, but debugging that took a while!) was a Tone Geek Valve Screamer. It was probably a bit ambitious for an early build, but I've always been sort of a dive in with both feet kind of guy. I used the Tayda recommended BOM for the pedal, and it even came with a faceplate for the enclosure. As this original build pretty much took up permanent residence on my pedal board, I figured much like the BMP it was high time to develop a true "Steggo" version of the pedal.

Finally a True "Steggo" BMP Clone!

Any long time readers of this blog will know that I really like the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi in all of its forms. It is one of the main pedals of choice for some of my favorite guitarists, including David Gilmour, and is a key ingredient in their overall sound. I've built several BMP clones over the years, but all of them have had enclosures that mirrored the original in one way or another. Recently I've tried to do a "make over" of any of my "Steggo" pedals with a focus primarily on creating fun dinosaur names for them, and I've finally come up with a dinosaur themed BMP clone!

The Astrodon Physicist - A Brian May Treble Boost Clone

Many guitarists have a very unique and distinct sound which has been honed over the years. While a great deal of tone comes from playing technique, contributions from pickups, pedals, amplifiers, tone wood, etc. are often critical elements of the overall sound. Brian May is well-known for having a very bright sound, much of which came from the use of treble boosters in his amplifier or effects loop. This first pedal in the "One Knob Collection" replicates that treble boost circuit in an easy to use pedal.

The New "One Knob Collection"

I tend to build a lot of either vintage pedals or complex pedals, but there are a lot of really good pedals with only one knob. In fact, the first actual build I posted on the blog was a clone of the one-knob Acapulco Gold pedal, even though that wasn't the first pedal I'd built. I've recently been experimenting with some boards I've been able to order direct, which makes it cost-effective to offer some simpler pedals for sale through the studio. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce the first three pedals in the "One Knob Collection," but in typical Steggo fashion, there has to be a fun story to go with it!

A New Klon Klone - from a New Source!

I don't often wax political on this blog. When Russia began it's unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine back in February, I was angry (and remain so), and wanted to show solidarity with and support of Ukraine. At the time, I posted a build report covering the "blue and yellow" Blues Driver pedal build I'd just finished. In the interim I've built a couple of pedals for auction on Pedals for Ukraine. I've also donated to various agencies supporting Ukraine. A few months ago, a Ukrainian builder, South Obolon FX, began posting files so you could get your own circuit boards made. All he asked in return was a donation to the ongoing efforts in Ukraine, donations I was more than happy to make. One of the boards he provided files for was the Kent Rev 2, a Klon Centaur clone with a few added twists, so I figured I'd take a chance and have a few boards made up!

More NG-2 Clones!

The Cornish NG-2 is a high end fuzz pedal used most famously by John Mayer. I'd previously done a couple of clones in a hybrid Cornish style / dinosaur enclosure, but I really wanted to go with something more unique going forward. At the same time, I got a request for a couple of NG-2 pedals, but they wanted a custom enclosure similar to the original pedal. So, I had a lot of building to do!

Cloning the Aclam Woman Tone - PedalPCB's Whipped Cream

In my preview post from a couple of weeks ago, I indicated that Steggo was working on a clone of the Aclam Woman Tone Overdrive pedal. At the time I said that the pedal had "...one of the most awesome dino enclosures we've produced!" Of course, as I always start my build reports with photos of the PCB and gut shots of the enclosure, the actual photos of the completed exterior are at the end of the blog entry. So in deference to those of you who read the last page of a novel first, I'll wait for you to scroll down and come back... 

...

...

... okay, now that everyone's back. The Woman Tone pedal captures Eric Clapton's tone from his days in Cream using his custom Gibson SG and Marshall 100W amp (note to self, I still need to get a Gibson SG...). It's a neat, if somewhat niche, pedal that typically runs over $350. Given the fairly steep cost of entry, I knew I could do a lot better! I started with the new PedalPCB Whipped Cream board, which accurately recreates the Aclam pedal, but does so in a compact 125B form factor!

Steggo's First Combo Pedal - The Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal

Lovetone pedals are known for several things. First off, they generally are amazingly good pedals with great sound and a lot of flexibility. Second, they often have some fairly unusual names (Big Cheese, Brown Source, etc.). Finally, they're all long out of production and original examples are incredibly expensive - with price tags ranging from several hundred dollars to around $1500. I'd previously built clones of the Brown Source (the Firefly TV show themed Browncoat) using the AionFX Obelisk board and the Big Cheese (the 2001 themed Monolith) using the AionFX Monolith board (one of the few times I've stuck with the trace name of a board for the actual pedal), and I'd been impressed with the overall quality of the pedals. Lovetone released a combination pedal with the two of these in one box (and on one board) called the "Cheese Source" - so I decided to build my first "combination" pedal bringing these two awesome effects together.

Upcoming Projects - Steggo's Secret Lab Edition!

The blog has been a bit more quiet than I'd like lately, but Steggo has been hard at work building several pedals - some for the shop, some for personal use, and some (read a lot of) prototype testing as well. Several of the major board manufacturers have had sales recently, and Steggo has been stocking up... as in I think I'm going to have to expand PCB storage! In fact, there are so many in line now, the art department has been working overtime just to get enclosures designed. Production has been churning right along, and Steggo has several more surprises on the way in the next set of enclosures due to arrive next week. So in this installment, Steggo takes us into the secret lab and shows us what's on the horizon for the Studio!

An All New Thagomizer... Almost Literally...

Unless you've been under a rock, you know I really like the Colorsound Power Boost circuit, especially clones that use vintage components. Unfortunately, there are a finite number of vintage components available in the world at this point, and eventually supplies will run out. Vintage components are also more expensive than their modern counterparts, so I wanted to build a Power Boost clone on the AionFX Nucleus board with new components to see what impact it made on the tone of the pedal.

I Scream, You Scream - Cloning the VFE Ice Scream

The VFE Ice Scream is a boutique overdrive / boost pedal that, according to their website, "...are designed to push higher gain amps into meltdown. It all starts with a mid boost stage before the gain circuit. Tune the voicing of the mid boost with the MID knob, and then use the variable low and high cuts to further sculpt your tone to cut through the mix."  Unfortunately VFE Pedals shut down around 2020, though there are Gerber files available for a lot of their designs (I actually picked up several, so there may be some cool odd builds in my future). You can still get new pedals for $199 or so, so they're not incredibly expensive... yet. PedalPCB offers a board for this pedal as the "Frost Drive" - and they offer three different "flavors" of the board (vanilla, mint, and sherbet) so I decided to take the plunge and build all three!

King of the Stone Age? Cloning the Limited Edition Mad Professor Stone Grey

Back in February I built the AionFX clone of Mad Professor's Stone Grey Distortion pedal. It was a neat pedal, but the clone wasn't 100% accurate as I ended up using clipping diodes rather than transistors (essentially used as diodes) in the original. I also became aware of a limited edition version of the pedal and figured if I could figure out what changed in that version, it would make a far more interesting build! So, I did something fairly rare, I actually bought a pedal and set about trying to figure out what made it tick. 

Early Style Fuzz - Cloning the Jext Telez White Pedal

Fuzz effects are some of the earliest guitar pedals produced, and now they come in a fairly dizzying array trying to capture specific tones. The Jext Telez White Pedal tries to capture the sound from the Beatles White Album among other stacked 60's vintage sounds, and honestly it does a good job of it. Unfortunately like so many boutique pedals, used examples of even the Version 2 pedal will set you back over $600, with Version 1 pedals quickly climbing above $1000. Fortunately PedalPCB provides a platform to build your own clone as the Conqueror Fuzz!

Aion Convex - Dinosaural OTC-201 Major Steggo Update!

Almost exactly a year ago I posted my first Dinosaural OTC-201 build. Since that time, the pedal has literally lived on my board. It is one of my most used and useful pedals, and has in the intervening months completely taken over compressor duties on my board (in fact, I recently sold my MXR Script Dyna Comp as I simply wasn't using it). If you can find one of these beauties, they still run in the $300-$400 range, but a quick check revealed none for sale. So, I decided it was high time I moved on from the borrowed graphics of the first version, and create a truly Steggo version of the pedal!

Vemuram TSV808 - Now With a Dino Enclosure!!!

When I built the Tone Geek Above Top Secret clone of the Vemuram TSV808 a couple of months ago, I was incredibly impressed, not only with the pedal, but with how the full functionality of the pedal could be accessed from the front of the enclosure. I decided I needed to make a fun dinosaur version of the pedal as well, and once again I collaborated with my wife for some of the enclosure art! So without further ado!

Doom Fuzz - Cloning the Mountainking Megalith

Distortion and fuzz pedals are an absolute effects pedal staple. I've built a wide variety, but I wanted to build something a bit on the harder side to compliment my hand-etched International Style clone of the Brutalist Jr. Looking through some of my available options, I thought that the Mountainking Megalith would be an interesting choice because of its wide functionality and utility for metal guitar and bass. PedalPCB offers a ready-made board as the Arkaim Fuzz, so I decided to take the plunge!

Site Changes and Updates

Steggo Studios is churning right along. The last few months have been really good from a sales perspective both through Instagram and the Reverb store. That being said, I'm not getting any sales traffic through the blog - so I've decided to remove the "pedals for sale" gadget from the sidebar (which you couldn't see in mobile anyway). That being said, I'm keeping the "Contact Steggo" form, so anyone can get in touch to ask for custom pedals. So what does that mean for the blog?

Zen Steggo Overdrive Back in Stock!

The industrious dinos at Steggo Studios just finished up two new Zen Steggo Overdrive pedals. These have largely been built to the formula used on the previous build starting with the AionFX Azimuth board and the fun dino-themed Asian enclosure.

A New Steggo Pedal - The Pterodactyl Phaser!!!

Back in February, I finished my first build of the AionFX Emerald - a clone of the Boss PH-1R phaser. It was a really nice pedal, in fact it is finding a semi-permanent home on my pedal board. It wasn't an easy build, as there are a lot of components and the pedal has to be properly biased once assembled. Now that I'm assembling a whole range of dinosaur-themed pedals, I wanted to include a phaser, and I had a great idea for the enclosure (more on that in a bit). It was really just a question of which phaser to choose. Most of the fun of DIY is building something that is hard to come by because of cost, rarity, the fact that it is out of production, or a combination of all of those. Since the Boss pedal is long out of production, and retail it generally costs $200-$300 US, I figured it fit the bill.

Final Photos of Pedals for Ukraine Riabininohadros!

I went ahead and posted the final promo photos of the Riabininohadros (Blues Driver Galaxie Mod) for the upcoming Pedals for Ukraine auction. Steggo decided to get in on the action, and I wanted to experiment with some better "on location" shooting for Steggo pedals in general so this became the test case!

The Official Steggo Klon Clone - The Kloned Centrosaurus!

In my teaser post a few weeks ago, one of the pedals I indicated was coming soon was a Klon Centaur clone. I've done several of these through the years, but I ultimately settled on the Tone Geek Mini-Taur as the base for the "official" Steggo clone of the Klon. I promised that it would have a fun dino-themed enclosure as well, and I think that I've managed to deliver (with some serious help)!

Jazzmaster Wins Warmoth Guitar of the Month!

Earlier this month I entered my Fender Noventa Jazzmaster build into the Warmoth Guitar of the Month competition on the unofficial Warmoth forum. I'd previously entered the StG 90, my Gibson SG tribute, in the March contest where it came in second. This time, and for apparently only the second time ever, there was a tie, with the Noventa Jazzmaster tying for first!

Steggo Out of the Office August 1-4

Steggo is going to be out of the office for a few days, so the Reverb shop is closed until late Thursday / early Friday. The dinos will still have access to messenger and email, but nothing will be shipped or worked on until the end of the week at the earliest - more likely Monday...

Cloning the Rare Boss CE-1 Chorus... Well... Kinda!

There are certain vintage pedals which are much harder to clone today than they were once upon a time. Among these are chorus pedals, flangers, phasers, and basically anything that relied on a specific integrated circuit to do the heavy lifting in terms of audio signal modification. While Moore's Law has continued unabated for over a half century, and despite the fact that modern semiconductors consist of  literally over 100 billion transistors on a single processor die, certain integrated circuits go completely out of production and ultimately become exceedingly rare. 

One pedal design I've always wanted to clone is the Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble, largely because (I'm sure you'll be shocked) Alex Lifeson used one at one point. However, there hasn't been a decent DIY clone out there - largely because the original uses obsolete Panasonic MN3002 BBD chip, and these are getting increasingly hard to find. PastFX has a clone of the original they've sold for years, but even after cornering the market on MN3002 chips, they're running out. As such they're released a version of the pedal using the more common MN3007 chip. Because of the rarity of the required chips, the MN3002 version runs about $350 US while the MN3007 version clocks in just north of $200 US.

Distortion Pedal Meets Business Card?????

In the world of guitar effects pedals, there are a lot of cool ideas and amazing variations on the theme. Some builders go the high tech route with programmable logic chips. At the other end of the spectrum you have builders still using perf board or direct connections (and their soldering is elevated to the level of art in many cases). One of the most interesting ideas I'd seen for a DIY pedal is the Godcity Instruments Brutalist Jr. distortion pedal. Kurt Ballou literally had his business card made up as a PCB that you could populate on your own. He provided a set of instructions and modifications on his website (which are still there). Sadly, the business card DIY version itself is sold out at the moment, but Effects Layouts has a trace and etching pattern - so I took the plunge!

Blues Driver with a Ukrainian Dinosaur - Redux!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a pedal I'd just finished which I'd intended to use as a donation for Pedals for Ukraine. Unfortunately once I got the enclosure back, I realized that there was a typo, and the there were some issues with the dinosaur - the contrast wasn't as good as I'd hoped. So, I resolved to revamp the artwork and give it another go. The enclosures finally came in today, so I got cracking!

Another Ceriatone??? The Goth Version...

When I finally finished my first Ceriatone Centura a few weeks ago, I still had a spare unpopulated board lying about. I'd picked it up several months ago along with the one I used for the gold enclosure built along with some other parts for... another project I'm working on. One I hope to feature on the blog in the future, but I digress! My previous Centura build sounds awesome, but now that I had one working, I really wanted to try and build one using the component load-out from the original Centura. So, I set about populating a new board!

Grab Bag Sale Update! Only 2 Pedals Left!

There are still a couple of pedals left in Steggo's second Grab Bag Sale. The Eggeaux Steggo G-2 has sold, but the Centurion and Meteor are still available (modeled by Kyle the Ankylosaurus below). In an effort to find these new pedals new homes, we've made a final markdown - $79 for one (your choice) or $149 for both!

New Allen Bradley Thagomizer I - With a Few Modern Replacement Capacitors

I knew the day would eventually come when some of the New Old Stock components I'd been using on my Thagomizers would start to dry up, I just didn't expect it to come so soon! While I'm pretty well set for resistors, tropical fish capacitors, ceramic capacitors, etc., it's the older validated (as opposed to dead) electrolytic capacitors which are drying up - which I guess shouldn't be a surprise. At this point the 22μF Bianchi - Phillips capacitors seem to be gone. I've therefore had to make a modern substitution, but it appears to be the same substitution my European source of parts is making on his sets with the Iskra and Phier resistors as well.

Steggo's Second Grab Bag Sale!!!!

Steggo's first grab bag sale went so well, Dimetrius decided that it would be a good idea to run another one! So here to present the three pedals in this group is our founder Steggo and his younger sister Steggi, our resident electronics expert!

Steggo's First Grab Bag Sale!!!

EDIT: Well, Dimetrius was right... these are all now sold!

So as I mentioned in my teaser article, there are a lot of cool things in the pipeline. I just put in a large order for enclosures this weekend. Of course, now Dimetrius (the dimetrodon - our office manager - don't worry, he's cool - he'll never ask for a TPS report) has indicated that we have too many pedals, especially early prototypes, lying around. He also hinted it would be "really cool" if we could find a way to get some of them to new homes. So, introducing Steggo's first "Grab Bag" sale!

Dimetrius Dimetrodon - our office manager - with his coffee

Tone Geek Mini-Taur - Early Silver Configuration (Warning: Graphic Klontent)

I've built several Klon clones at this point, including several Mini-Taur boards from The Tone Geek - most recently a fairly early configuration one for my personal use. As I mentioned in my teaser post a few days ago, one of the upcoming production pedals was going to be a Klon Centaur clone, but I wanted to finalize the part load out and configuration so I could buy in bulk. I had one last Mini-Taur board and faceplate lying around, so I decided to build one last one up with the faceplate before moving to the new enclosure (and hitting up Ryan for some boards sans faceplates!). 

Boss Blues Driver with a Ukrainian Dinosaur - For a Good Cause!

When Russia began its illegal and pointless invasion of Ukraine in February, I posted a "yellow and blue" pedal I'd recently finished - my first Boss Blues Driver - in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Later on I donated Ukrainian Army BMP serial number 2 to the Pedals for Ukraine charity auction on Instagram. That pedal did very well, raising $260 for relief efforts. I ultimately plan to build more of those, but I wanted to do something a little different for a second Pedals for Ukraine donation. Something more dino related, so I hit the web looking not only for dinosaurs native to Ukraine, but I also wanted to come up with a fun pedal to put into said enclosure! Given my first "blue and yellow" pedal was a Boss Blues Driver, I thought that may be a good place to start.

You Can Call Me Jan, or You Can Call Me Ray... Cloning the Vemuram Jan Ray Overdrive!

This build sort of picks up where I left off last time with my Vemuram TSV808 build, I now turn to the Vemuram Jan Ray. This is another Tube Screamer variant, and while expensive (at least $375), it is still in production. According to the Vemuram site:

"The Jan Ray was designed to recreate the punchy clear tone of the Blackface Fender amps from the 60's. So-called the 'Fender Magic 6' sound. An easy to handle overdrive keeping the characteristics of the guitar with great sustain without any unnatural compression. The end result is an ultra-smooth drive that retains the Tube Screamer’s trademark mid bump; however, it opens it up with the full-range clarity of the Jan Ray."

There are a few clones of this pedal out there, and it is better known than the TSV808, but for this build I'm also using one of the brand new Tone Geek boards - the Black Triangle project. 

Above Top Secret! Cloning the Vemuram TSV808

The Ibanez Tube Screamer is one of the most common and popular overdrive pedals out there. The pedal itself has gone through many iterations, perhaps not as many as the Big Muff Pi, but it has a long history. Analogman has a decent write up on the history of the tube screamer on his page, and there is another decent write-up at Premier Guitar. As with many pedals, earlier variants or boutique modifications are especially prized by players, and these often command a premium price. The Ibanez TSV808 Vemuram is one such pedal, and it is sadly now out of production. If you refer to the original Sweetwater page, it states:

"The TSV808 employs a refined version of the original Tube Screamer circuit: Instead of four stages like the Tube Screamer (buffer -> overdrive -> tone -> buffer), the TSV808 contains three stages (overdrive -> tone -> +7dB gain boost). The end result is an ultra-smooth drive that retains the Tube Screamer’s trademark mid bump; however, it opens it up with the full-range clarity of the Jan Ray."

The controls on the TSV808 Vemuram are also a bit different as well. The normal Drive, Tone, and Level knobs are there, but there are also trimmers for bass and saturation. The pedal also included internal dip switches that allowed you to toggle between smooth and asymmetric clipping. So in short, this was an amazing pedal. It wasn't cheap new, if I'm reading my Goggle wayback machine correctly, it original cost $449, and I'm not sure exactly when it went out of production. Currently prices on the open market are exceeding $2000, with $2400-$2500 price points showing up for nice examples.

Teaser Time! Upcoming Pedals from Steggo!

One of my goals for this year was to get to the point to where I could sell pedals with all original and/or licensed art. A few of these, like the Steggo-san Overdrive, the various Thagomizers, and the Browncoat are already out there, but I really wanted to get some of my favorite pedals out there in unique dino form. Now that all of the dinos are back from vacation, there has been a lot of prototyping and art layout going on in the background, so I figured it was time for some teasers!!!

Steggo himself somewhere in the skunk works!

Jazzmaster in Warmoth Guitar of the Month Competition

I made it in just under the wire and got my Noventa-style Jazzmaster entered in the Unofficial Warmoth Forum guitar of the month contest. This month is the "Warmoth or Professionally Finished" category, and since Warmoth finished mine it works. Voting is now open (HERE) and goes through July 19th. A lot of really awesome entries this time around!