A New Electric Mistress Clone - With a Dinosaur Theme!

The Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress is one of the foundation modulation effects pedals released in the 1970's. It has been used by many guitar luminaries over the years, and is a really amazing flanger / chorus pedal. I'd previously built the PCB Guitar Mania version of the board - though it appears that this was a copy of the Madbean Current Lover board as it had many of the same quirks. Madbean has recently released a 2023 revision of the board that adds a volume knob, support for multiple BBD chips, and multi-voltage support (up to 18V). While my previous build was a great pedal, I really wanted to do a fun dinosaur version to add to my Steggo line-up. I'd also gotten requests for an Electric Mistress clone from some friends, and I really wanted to go with a better base PCB than on my original build, so I grabbed a few of the new Madbean boards and got to work!

Cloning the Famous EQD Monarch

The EQD Monarch is an out of production FET based overdrive pedal that gained a lot of popularity as a dirty boost without a lot of extra distortion or compression. It was also available as a DIY kit for many years through StewMac (and others), but while StewMac still offers many DIY effects pedal kits, the Monarch is no longer among them. I had a friend who wanted a Monarch clone - largely to allow a bandmate to leave his original unit in the studio and gig with a more easily replaceable copy - so I started doing some investigation on boards and kits available. As it turns out, the pedal is more than a bit finicky, and there were some flaws in the original design which likely led to a fair amount of frustration for both the users and the DIY community. Chuck Bones (of the PedalPCB Boneyard) did a great analysis of the circuit, suggested some modest improvements, and then took that a few steps further ultimately creating the Viceroy - a six-knob, two footswitch Monarch on steroids. Down the road, I plan to build the Viceroy, but for now I was more interested in getting a good direct clone of the Monarch working well - and across its full range.

A Dino-Inspired Red Llama!

A little over a year ago I finished up my first clone of the Way Huge Red Llama pedal using the AionFX Yacana PCB. It was a really fun build and is actually a pretty useful little pedal which can be used either as a straight boost or a boost with overdrive (and ultimately distortion). My original enclosure was a very Tongue in Cheek reference to the Disney film The Emperor's New Groove, but I really wanted a dinosaur version to fit the overall Steggo theme. Fortunately my friend Dmytro over at South Obolon FX laid out a version of the board with some additional gain stages like on the AionFX board under the name "Groovy Emperor" (I'm sensing a theme here), and he was kind enough to create a special "Steggo" version of the layout as well!