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!

Way Huge Aqua Puss Mk I AP2 Clone

Out of production pedals have started to reach fairly dizzying heights in terms of price. The Klon Centaur is well-known for high prices, but when you think of expensive pedals, something like the Way Huge Aqua Puss may not come immediately to mind. After all, you can buy a current production Aqua Puss for about $150 brand new. However, the one that is available today is the Mark III, and it sounds different than its earlier incarnations. One of the most prized versions of the pedal is the Mark I AP2 that uses the MN3005 BBD chip, and you can currently get an original on Reverb for $4250. Fortunately the Tone Geek has a PCB clone of the original for a far more reasonable price - as long as you can find all of the parts!

A Nightmare on Echo Street - PCB Guitar Mania's Echo Dream Clone

So this particular build has to rank up there with the absolute weirdest pedals I've ever put together and played, and it can be a real wolf in sheep's clothing depending on how you set the controls! Based on the Death by Audio Echo Dream 2, PCB Guitar Mania's Echo Nightmare PCB (available in trough-hole or SMD formats) is a pretty faithful adaptation of the original based on my playtesting so far. You're able to get a huge variety of tones and delay times with the pedal, and add fuzz. You can even kill the dry signal and only hear repeats if that's your jam (though I'm still struggling to understand an application for that functionality in anything outside extremely experimental music!). 

The Electric Druid Digital Delay - Another Great Teaching Pedal!

If you're new to electronics, getting started building your own effects pedals can be fairly daunting. Fortunately there are several companies and individuals working to make things a bit more approachable. I'd previously written about building the Anasounds Tremolo pedal, which includes not only decent instructions but online videos which will walk you through the whole process. While it lacks a full video course, Electric Druid's Digidelay project includes some of the best instructions I've ever seen for an effects pedal (or any other electronics project for that matter). Each step is clearly detailed, and in-build power tests are included so you can check reference voltages to ensure the pedal is working long before you even add the pots!

What's the Vector, Victor?

So here is my first "twin" build (well - sort of - we'll get to that later). I've been building several pedals lately (obviously) and I have a colleague who is also a guitarist looking for a delay pedal. Since I had the Aion Vector on my "to do" list, I didn't figure it would be too much more trouble to just build two at the same time, and for the most part that held true. It was sort of nice to be able to double check the placement of all of the components as I went through and make sure I didn't accidentally goof something up. The Vector is based on the Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay and the PT2399 delay chip. It is a digital delay, but one that many analog purists will at least tolerate. Unlike many of the pedals I've worked on, this one isn't ridiculously expensive, but it is still cheaper to build (~$40-50) than buy ($170-$200 used on reverb).