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... 

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... 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!