Updating the Miragaia

A couple of years ago, Steggo released an awesome doom fuzz clone using the PedalPCB Arkaim Fuzz board. The build actually ended up being surprisingly popular, and I've even built a custom version in a totally unique enclosure. That new enclosure came out so well, I decided it was time to go back and re-visit the original Miragaia enclosure, as Tayda had expanded the range of enclosure finishes available since I'd done the original design.

I'm still using the excellent PedalPCB Arkaim Fuzz board for these builds. All of the parts are new production. I'm using 1% tolerance metal film resistors. All of the metal film capacitors are 5% tolerance. The electrolytic capacitors are a mix of Panasonic and Nichicon rated at the normal 20% tolerance. These boards go together quite quickly and are very roomy. You're essentially able to populate all of one type of component (resistors + diodes, film capacitors, electrolytic capacitors, followed by everything else) in one go.

I'm using the standard 1590BB2 enclosure layout for these builds as well. One difference from my first time building these is I went to ribbon cable on the "Heavy" foot switch as well. It made things go just a bit faster than having to cut individual lengths of hookup wiring for the second stomp switch. One of these days I may make a little daughter board for that side as well, but as there are only five connections, it seemed unnecessary at this point. The DC and audio jack connections are all wired with aviation grade wiring from Tube Depot with heat shrink tubing insulation.

The enclosure art retains the Miragaia from before, but incorporates a lot more black and purple. According to Wikipedia:

"Miragaia (named after Miragaia, the parish in Portugal and geologic unit where its remains were found) is a long-necked stegosaurid dinosaur. Its fossils have been found in Upper Jurassic rocks in Portugal (Lourinhã Formation, Sobral Unit) and possibly also Wyoming, United States (Morrison Formation). Miragaia has the longest neck known for any stegosaurian, which included at least seventeen vertebrae."

We'd picked up a Jurassic Park toy of a Miragaia, at which point our son said it looked like "a goth Steggo" - so hence the reason one of the doomiest pedals I know of features the Miragaia. While the Jurassic Park figure was awesome - I felt we needed something more in keeping with the rest of the dinosaurs in the studio...

So I commissioned an artist friend of mine, Vandy Hall, to create a Mira the Miragaia figure using felting over an armature. Mira came out spectacularly, and if you get a chance you should check the rest of her work out!