A Famous 1980's Vintage Chorus - With a Purple Dinosaur???

As a college student in the late 80's and early 90's, it was amazing to witness the tectonic shift in musical styles over such a short period of time. One of the seminal releases of the era was Nirvana's Nevermind, released in 1991, which almost overnight ended the reign of hair bands and ushered in the era of alternative rock spearheaded by the Seattle grunge scene. The second single from the album, "Come as You Are," featured an iconic watery guitar riff played through the original iteration of the EHX Small Clone chorus pedal (with some post production) which was only built from 1979 to 1883. While you can get a modern version of the Small Clone today, there are some differences to the circuit which result in a different sound from the pedal. AionFX has released a modified version of the original as the Lithium project, so I absolutely had to build at least one!

The Return of the King (of Tone)

One of my earliest builds was a clone of the boutique Analogman King of Tone pedal. The King of Tone itself is a very sought after double overdrive pedal, with a variety of clipping options (most of which are set using internal DIP switches). The "real thing" is currently in Version 4, and on Reverb they still tend to start at around $600 for a real one and go up from there. The waiting list for an original remains long as well. My first build was in my "pre-dino" days - and I'd bought a kit from Germany that included an unpainted enclosure, the PCB, and all of the parts. I substituted some good matches for the original diodes rather than using the stock ones with the kit, though, as depending on who you ask the King of Tone has "magic diodes" much in the same way the Klon Centaur / KTR does. I'd always wanted to circle back and make a real "dino" version of the pedal, so I finally took the plunge.

Return of the MX-RAWR! Distortion+ with Options!

A few weeks ago I posted a custom MXR Distortion+ build I worked up for a friend using the tried and true AionFX Aphelion board. Well, the response I got to the design was frankly overwhelming and unprecedented. So I've decided to make up a few more for the shop. If they sell, I'll make more. They're not terribly hard, but I really want to keep using good vintage diodes where possible. So that may limit the pedal's lifespan, but maybe not. We'll see.

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!

A Fun Custom MXR Distortion+ (Modded) Clone

The MXR Distortion+ is one of the classic distortion effects pedals. I'd built one using the AionFX Aphelion board last year, and it also forms the basis of my home-brew Dimetrodon Distortion pedal (which I swear is really coming soon - I'm just waiting for the last of the beta test feedback!). One of the cool things about the AionFX board, is that it has three clipping and treble options which can be selected with a couple of toggle switches on the front of the enclosure. The clipping switch lets you choose between germanium diodes (as used in the Distortion+), silicon diodes (as used in the DOD 250), or LEDs (more like a turbo Rat). The treble switch changes the high frequency cut characteristics of the effect tone. I have a friend who recently took up the guitar and wanted a Distortion+ pedal, and the cool thing about this particular configuration is it gives you effectively three distortion pedals in one, with three treble options on each!

Cloning the Cornish P-2 - For Real This Time!

Pete Cornish's effects and pedalboards have been used by a wide array of guitar luminaires including David Gilmour, Tony Iommi, Brian May, Paul McCartney, and Mark Knopfler. While some of his designs are completely original, like the CC-1 Overdrive and OC-1 Compressor, other designs are based on existing circuits, like the SS-3 (loosely based on the MXR Distortion+) and the G-2 and P-2 (both based on the Big Muff Pi circuit using germanium and silicon diodes respectively). AionFX offers many Cornish boards, and as a fan of Cornish pedals, I've built many of them including the OC-1 compressor, the SS-3, and the G-2 (both in non-dino and dino versions!). Unfortunately AionFX did not offer a board for the P-2 and after hunting around, there were no commercial boards available. The only board I could find was the Effects Layouts version, which had the "probably" disclaimer and appears to have been based some speculative circuit diagrams on the net. I'd built a few pedals using hand-etched boards, both with and without the effects layouts Cornish buffer, and had really loved the sound. I still wanted to have a faithful clone of the original, though, and with a little gentle dino-sized nudging, PedalPCB has recently released the Polonium-2 board based on a trace of the actual P-2 pedal itself.

For a Pachycephalosaurus this counts as a "gentle nudge"

Finally a Dino Themed G-2 Clone... No Really!

I've been threaten... errr... promising to get around to finishing up my dinosaur themed G-2 clones for a while now, but they kept getting put on the back burner for other projects. This past weekend I decided it was high time to get them finished up! For more details on the pedal itself and some of the challenges one encountered making a reasonable clone of it, please refer to my original build from last May.

It's BMP Time Again!!! A '73 Gilmour Ram's Head Build for Steggo's Personal Board

I've definitely built more Big Muff Pi pedals than any other type, and in more variants. The circuit goes together well, and with all of the modifications over the years, there are a ton of options that can make subtle (and in some cases not so subtle) differences in the sound of the effect. Last November I finally came up with a suitably "Steggo" name for the venerable BMP, the Big Muttaburrasaurus Phi, or the "Big Mutt Phi" if you prefer. The enclosures I'd used were a modified version of an earlier take of roughly the same art that I'd intended on using with the AionFX Halo PCB that I've used on many successful builds. Since I had one of the enclosures for the Halo PCB available, I decided to go ahead and use it for a personal build - with only a few ulterior motives.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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

Cloning Lovetone's Big Cheese - Another Great Pedal with an Odd Name

Fuzz pedals were one of the first effects pedals released and come in an absolutely dizzying array of different takes on the classic tone. One of the more famous boutique fuzz pedals out there is the Lovetone Big Cheese, which in my humble opinion is a far better name than the Brown Source, but still keeps the theme of odd pedal names. When AionFX released their clones of four famous Lovetone pedals, I picked up their Monolith project which is an "exact adaptation of the Big Cheese except for the addition of an optional boost stage... for additional volume." I'd had some issues trying to create a decaled enclosure, so I finally threw in the towel and had one UV printed. The enclosure finally arrived, and I've managed to get this pedal boxed. If you can find an original Big Cheese, it will set you back at least $1500, though there are some apparently commercial clones available for ~$175 (though I'm not sure how accurate they are).

A Far More Sophisticated Distortion+ Variant - Cloning the Cornish SS-3

With the Dimetrodon Distortion version of the MXR Distortion+ circuit just about ready to be sprung onto an unexpecting world, I wanted to explore other variations of the circuit to see if there was a "Dimetrodon Distortion 2" waiting in the wings. Given I can make several varieties of the original circuit in the Dimetrodon Distortion design, I had to go further afield to find something that was substantially different - and which couldn't simply be built on the existing board. Once again, AionFX comes to the rescue with their Soma project. The Soma clones the Cornish SS-3, which is based on the venerable MXR Distortion+ with the addition of high and low tone controls, a Cornish buffer, and many other Pete Cornish tweaks along the way. 

A Third Thagomizer!?!!??? Another Vintage Power Boost Build

I have a real weakness for vintage pedals. Over and above that, vintage pedals built from vintage components probably reach the level of my kryptonite (along with chocolate, or a good steak... good seafood... I'm doomed...)! I've made a few forays into that territory with my Big Muff Pi builds (most notably my recent Violet Ram's Head build) and my builds of the Colorsound Power Boost (also known as "The Thagomizer I"). The army green enclosure version uses Iskra resistors (as well as tropical fish capacitors and vintage axial capacitors) while the orange enclosure version uses Phier resistors (and the same mix of other components). I'd sourced these parts as sets from a wonderful chap in Italy, but the problem with vintage parts is there is a finite number of remaining NOS in the world. So if the supply of Iskra and Phier sets dried up, I wanted to have another option for building vintage Thagomizers - so I decided to go shopping and assemble my own set of parts.