Aion Convex - Dinosaural OTC-201 Major Steggo Update!

Almost exactly a year ago I posted my first Dinosaural OTC-201 build. Since that time, the pedal has literally lived on my board. It is one of my most used and useful pedals, and has in the intervening months completely taken over compressor duties on my board (in fact, I recently sold my MXR Script Dyna Comp as I simply wasn't using it). If you can find one of these beauties, they still run in the $300-$400 range, but a quick check revealed none for sale. So, I decided it was high time I moved on from the borrowed graphics of the first version, and create a truly Steggo version of the pedal!

Dinosaural Tube Bender Clone - the Wyvern!

So this build is a clone of another rare beast, the Dinosaural Tube Bender. I've honestly never seen one for sale, but it does have an interesting history. Designed by Dan Coggins and originally published as a DIY project in the UK version of Guitar Magazine, Dan made additional tweaks to the design and released it under his Dinosaural brand, with only about 140 being produced in the original run from 2003-2007 (with an additional 12 being built from original components in 2016). Aion FX traced one of the production models and has released it as the Wyvern. 

Dinosaural Compressor OTC-201 Clone - With a Real Dino!

So this was another really fun build that may now be usurping some of my other compressor pedals as my favorite - at least for my single-coil guitars. That being said, my stock MXR Dyna Comp is still fairly amazing when I pull out my Les Paul. This build recreates a rare, though not ridiculously expensive ($300-$400-ish), compressor pedal - the Dinosaural OTC-201. Aion FX sells this as the Convex in both PCB and kit forms. I went ahead and picked mine up as a PCB as I wanted to hand pick some of the components and get as close to the original as possible.