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!

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!

A Very Groovy Steggo - Cloning the Uni-Vibe

The Shin-ei Uni-Vibe is a very early chorus / vibrato pedal first sold in the 1960's. It has been used by many legendary guitarists including Jimi Hendrix, Robin Trower, and David Gilmour. It was marketed as "Vibra-Chorus" the Uni-Vibe uses a series of phasing filters connected to light dependent resistors (LDRs). The LDRs themselves are modulated by a small light bulb whose intensity and rate of pulsation are controllable using the knobs on the effect itself. I'd wanted to do a Uni-Vibe clone for ages, and the PedalPCB board looked very approachable, so I took the plunge!

Under the Sea! Cloning the Quirky EQD Sea Machine

I've been on a bit of a modulation pedal kick lately because I'd gotten some requests from friends, including this build, a clone of the Earthquaker Devices Sea Machine. Touted as a "super chorus" pedal, as with most EQD modulation pedals, this one isn't a one-trick pony and has several very unusual controls that provide a very wide tonal palette. While it is still in production, the "real thing" runs around $199 brand new, so it isn't exactly a cheap pedal - making it a decent candidate for cloning.

Tone... In.... SPAAAACCCE!!! Cloning the EQD Space Spiral

Looking at the pantheon of available DIY effects pedals, you'll see a lot of distortion and overdrive pedals, a large number of boost and fuzz pedals, but then there tends to be a drop off as you get into modulation effects like chorus, delay, and flangers. Part of the reason for this is a lot of the classic analog modulation effects rely on long out of production integrated circuits, so even if you recreate the board exactly, you're missing critical components to actually make the effect work. There are, however, clones of many more modern pedals with modern integrated circuits, such as digital delay effects based on the PT2399 chip. One of these is the Earthquaker Devices Space Spiral - which can do anything from slapback delay, to a reel to real chorus, to absolutely psychedelic reverb and delay. It's not an incredibly expensive pedal, only about $199 new, but as there's a dearth of Steggo modulation pedals at this point, I thought it would be a good one to try out!

Cloning the Rare Boss CE-1 Chorus... Well... Kinda!

There are certain vintage pedals which are much harder to clone today than they were once upon a time. Among these are chorus pedals, flangers, phasers, and basically anything that relied on a specific integrated circuit to do the heavy lifting in terms of audio signal modification. While Moore's Law has continued unabated for over a half century, and despite the fact that modern semiconductors consist of  literally over 100 billion transistors on a single processor die, certain integrated circuits go completely out of production and ultimately become exceedingly rare. 

One pedal design I've always wanted to clone is the Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble, largely because (I'm sure you'll be shocked) Alex Lifeson used one at one point. However, there hasn't been a decent DIY clone out there - largely because the original uses obsolete Panasonic MN3002 BBD chip, and these are getting increasingly hard to find. PastFX has a clone of the original they've sold for years, but even after cornering the market on MN3002 chips, they're running out. As such they're released a version of the pedal using the more common MN3007 chip. Because of the rarity of the required chips, the MN3002 version runs about $350 US while the MN3007 version clocks in just north of $200 US.

A Slightly Easier Boss Chorus - The CE-2

This build is based on another gem in the recent Boss releases from AionFX. The Azure project is a slightly modified clone of the Boss CE-2 chorus. The original pedal was released in 1979 with a bass version following in 1987 using the same basic circuit. Unlike the Dimension C with only four modes that toggle, the CE-2 is a more conventional pedal with potentiometers controlling Rate and Depth. The Bass version included a Mix function to blend clean signal back in, which is brought over in the Azure project (as it can build both versions). Setting the Mix knob to full makes the effect identical to the original guitar circuit. You can get an updated version of this pedal as a Waza Craft for about $220, and prices for originals go north from there. So again, this is a great candidate for a clone.

Aion's Blueshift - Cloning the Insanely Complex Dimension DC-2

The Boss DC-2 Dimension C chorus pedal was originally released in 1985 and remains one of the more popular chorus effect pedals. While it technically only has four main settings, the electronics behind the pedal are insanely complex (more on that in a bit). The original Boss version is long out of production, with excellent condition examples running north of $500 on reverb. That being said, you can get the Waza Craft re-release model new for just a little north of $250. Building your own version is a bit cheaper, but it is a huge challenge. I picked up the Aion FX version of this pedal, the Blueshift, which is an absolute beast of a build. It comes as two separate PCBs, and then gets progressively crazier from there!