A New Dimetrodon Distortion Variant in an Amazing Enclosure!

The Dimetrodon Distortion was Steggo Studios first original pedal design. Like most analog guitar pedals these days, it has DNA that can be traced back to earlier designs, but it fills a niche that none of the designs it is based on don't - at least for the tones I've been after. Last year I'd given away a prototype version of the pedal when my Instagram channel hit 1000 followers. It is getting close to 1500 now, so I decided it was time for another giveaway, but this time with a few twists!

Steggo's Dimetrodon Distortion an Honorable Mention on Chappers' Top 10 Distortion Pedals List!

Steggo's first original pedal, the Dimetrodon Distortion recently got an amazing shout out from Rob Chapman on his YouTube channel! He was doing his round up of the Top 10 Distortion Pedals of all time. Many of which I know, agree with, and have built in the past. However, there were a few that I haven't had a chance to play with, so I have some more research to do. While the Dimetrodon didn't quite make the Top 10, it did get an "Honorable Mention."

The Dimetrodon Distortion - In Miniature!

Last June Steggo released the first original in-house pedal - the Dimetrodon Distortion. In one version or another it's become a permanent fixture on my pedal board able to do anything from overdrive to serious doomy distortion all in one package. I've made a lot of them, but I'd really love to see the pedal really take off and sell at a level that some of the medium-sized boutique makers reach (in the range of 50-100 pedals / year as opposed to 10-20). Given my current time constraints, I'd need to find a way to streamline some of the production of a version of the Dimetrodon to reach that production level (as I don't want to just continually make one pedal). I'd followed a recent release from Supercool Pedals (the Thneed - which is a great pedal BTW!), and that pedal is entirely SMD. Looking at that pedal as an example, I wondered if I could do something similar with the Dimetrodon without sacrificing the tone, so the Dimetrodon Mini was born!

A Vintage Style Dimetrodon!

The Steggo Dimetrodon Distortion is based on the vintage Distortion+ circuit, but up to this point I'd only used all modern components in my Dimetrodon builds. Given the original Distortion+ dates from the 70's I thought it would be fun to look for old gut shots of the pedal to see what sort of components were used on the early iterations of that pedal and test out the Dimetrodon with something similar. I had also recently built a couple of Dimetrodon Distortion pedals with the Sovtek tone stack, but I didn't have one for personal use, so this build let me sort of kill two birds with one stone!

Old School MXR Distortion + PCB - Image from Premier Guitar

Special Dinovember 2023 Edition Dimetrodon Distortion Build Report!

A while back I had a Dimetrodon Distortion enclosure that had a bit of a problem. It had gotten scratched up, although the UV printing on the face of the enclosure was just great. I'd had mixed results trying to paint enclosures in the past, but I found some powder coat spray paint (rather than having to go through the powder coating process) and I figured this would be a great opportunity to see if I could recover a damaged enclosure - and then I decided to take it a few steps further!

Updating the Dimetrodon Distortion - A New Deluxe Version!

Back in June Steggo released its first original pedal design, the Dimetrodon Distortion. I love it (obviously), and a lot of other people have picked one up and really seem to be enjoying them. The only limitation of the original design was the fact that you had to pick one of the at least six major variations of the Big Muff based tone stack during the build unless you socketed components, which is a nightmare in a production pedal. I ultimately went with a fairly scooped mids version - the '75 Ram's Head - for the primary variant. However, at the time I mentioned that I wanted to try something like what was done on the AionFX Halo board and add a three way mids switch. After some work laying out the changes to the circuit and finding a switch that would work, Steggo is proud to introduce the next iteration of the Dimetrodon Distortion, the "Deluxe" which includes a three-way switch to toggle between three tone stack modes!

A Long and Winding (Development) Road - The Dimetrodon Distortion is Finally Done!

When I started building guitar pedals a few years ago I had a couple of initial goals in mind. First, I wanted better (and affordable) access to guitar pedals that were expensive, esoteric, out of production, or often a combination of all three. Second, I'd always had an interest in electronics (I work as a materials chemist in the semiconductor industry, and my uncle was always good with electronics), so building my own pedals seemed like a great vector to develop my skills in an area that I'd long neglected. As with most people new to the hobby, I started with professionally produced PCBs which were clones of the pedals I wanted build. However the further I delved into the hobby, the more I wanted to start making something different or unique - which gave rise to the idea of creating my own distortion pedal using a classic pedal as a base. 

A little over a year ago I posted an article with my hand-etched prototypes of the Dimetrodon Distortion pedal. It basically took the MXR Distortion+ and added a Big Muff tone stack and a gain recovery stage. It was okay, but after I'd built it and tested it, there were problems. It tended to pop a fair amount because of where the volume and gain recovery were located in the circuit. I tried solving this with pull-down resistors, buffers, you name it, but it just didn't quite fix the issue. So I decided to take a step back and see if I could re-engineer the pedal a bit better, and now a year later - it's finally done!

Dimetrodon Distortion prototype enclosure

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. 

Dimetrodon Distortion - Production Prototype!

I'm very excited to release this new version of the Dimetrodon Distortion to the world. It represents several firsts for me, and it is something that I'm pretty much ready to put into (small) volume production either in a couple of standard configurations or bespoke builds. The original versions of the Dimetrodon Distortion consisted of two boards, a hand etched Distortion+ or Drivestortion board with a hand etched BMP Tone Stack (the DD1A) or an Effects Layout commercial Drivestortion board with a hand etched BMP Tone Stack (the DD1B). While I'll continue to make several of those (as I already have the boards, and have an interesting idea - which I hope to detail in a future blog assuming I get it to work!), I thought it would be cool if I could combine the boards into a single etch and not have to use hookup wire to connect the two together. So, I decided to try and merge my graphics skills with what I've learned about electronics and circuit design over the past year or so!

Dimetrodon Distortion - A Classic Hybrid Distortion Pedal

In my update about a week ago, I included some teasers for upcoming pedals that I had not yet included on the blog. One of these was the Steggo-san Overdrive which I featured a few days ago. In terms of overall appearance, that is still one of my favorite pedals. In terms of sound, today's pedal ranks right up there. The Dimetrodon Distortion combines the classic MXR Distortion+ circuit with the tone stack from a Big Muff Pi creating something of a hybrid pedal. I've worked up a couple of different prototypes of this design so far, and I think I've decided which way I want to go long-term, because if offers me the widest range of options for this particular circuit going forward.

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!