Cloning the Venerable Maestro PS-1A

The early 1970's saw an explosion of effects pedals with many well-regarded units making their debut. One of these was the Maestro PS-1 and PS-1A phasers, or more technically it was called a "phase shifter." I had a friend request one, and I figured it would be an entertaining challenge. Fortunately Lectric-FX has recently released the Altered State Phaser. This is not an exact clone of the original, rather it is a bit more user-friendly version of the original effect with some modern modifications. The effect now runs off of a normal 9V power supply, which still providing the effect the +/-12V it needs to function properly. There are also changes to the buffer, op amps, as well as a few optional modifications to the circuit. 

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.