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.

Browncoat Serial Number 3 Now Available - $120

I just finished up Browncoat serial number 3, and it is now available both here and on the Reverb store. Externally this one looks just like the previous two. The only change is I'm using a different brand of 33n film capacitors I picked up from Pedalhacker because I ran low on the WIMA ones.

Production Updates, Prices, Timeline, and Teasers!

Steggo Studios will have some pedals available for sale soon! I've been working in the background on the boards as mentioned in my previous blog entry - along with a few surprises because who doesn't love surprises! I've been waiting on enclosures from Tayda to arrive, and they hit the post earlier this week! So without further ado, here's "the plan" and planned inventory levels!

Quick News Updates and Upcoming Production Schedule

The blog has been quiet for a few days while I've been working in the background on a few items, but I wanted to take a moment and give everyone an update on a few recent topics and make a few announcements. 

First up, as I indicated earlier in the month, I entered the StG-90 in the Warmoth guitar of the month contest on their forum. Well, the results are in and... I didn't win, but I did come in a strong second out of six with over 20% of the total vote (8 votes vs. the winning entry's 11). The winning entry was submitted by a previous guitar of the month winner, and was honestly pretty dang stunning. So for my first time out, I can't say I'm disappointed in how well the guitar did.

Brown Alert??? Cloning Lovetone's Brown Source

So, I'm going to chalk this up as one of the pedals with one of the worst names, yet having one of the best sounds out there. The Lovetone Brown Source was originally released in 1995, and tried to capture the "brown sound" - that elusive distortion tone that so many rock guitarists try to achieve. The term itself was originally coined by Eddie Van Halen, and many different pedals, amps, and combinations thereof have been used over the decades to try and find that perfect organic tone. Actual vintage Lovetone pedals start at $700 and go up into low four-digits from there, so this is yet another pedal screaming for a decent clone. In July of last year, AionFX released four Lovetone clones, including one of the Doppelganger which I completed last year and posted a review of in October. This project, the Obelisk, was released at the same time, and I finally managed to get it completed!