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.

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).