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. 

Not Just a Phase - Mu-Tron Bi-Phase Clone By PedalPCB

As I'd mentioned in my previous blog entry, I hadn't built many modulation pedals recently, and I figured it was time to remedy that. This is one I'd had going in the background for a while, but given the size and uniqueness of the build, I had to order additional parts and bits to actually make it happen. Based on the vintage Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, the PedalPCB Duo Phase an involved build, but in some ways is on the easy side for a modulation pedal - more on that in a bit. The Bi-Phase pedal itself, is a vintage unit that's found its way on both synths and guitars alike. Originals are long out of production, and vintage units run for quite a bit of money these days. There are apparently Chinese copies out there, but even those aren't exactly cheap.

Technical expert Steggi posing with her handiwork

A New Steggo Pedal - The Pterodactyl Phaser!!!

Back in February, I finished my first build of the AionFX Emerald - a clone of the Boss PH-1R phaser. It was a really nice pedal, in fact it is finding a semi-permanent home on my pedal board. It wasn't an easy build, as there are a lot of components and the pedal has to be properly biased once assembled. Now that I'm assembling a whole range of dinosaur-themed pedals, I wanted to include a phaser, and I had a great idea for the enclosure (more on that in a bit). It was really just a question of which phaser to choose. Most of the fun of DIY is building something that is hard to come by because of cost, rarity, the fact that it is out of production, or a combination of all of those. Since the Boss pedal is long out of production, and retail it generally costs $200-$300 US, I figured it fit the bill.

Set Phasers to Stun! The Boss PH-1r

In November of last year, AionFX announced six new boards based on classic Boss pedals - with four of the six never having appeared as a DIY PCB before. Needless to say I picked up the whole set. In addition to the new PCBs, AionFX also offered special JFET sets which would facilitate building these pedals, as in many cases the circuits required JFETs no longer available in anything but SMD form. The PCB boards themselves support adding an SMD if you're up to it, or you can buy pre-soldered SMDs from AionFX on through-hole mini-boards - just add your own jumpers!

For this first entry in the series, I'm going through my build of the Emerald - a clone of the Boss PH-1r Phaser pedal originally released in 1980. These pedals are not exactly rare or incredibly expensive - good examples run around $200 on Reverb, with mint examples still falling below the $400 mark - but they have been hard to clone because they require four matched JFETs to function properly (and matching through hole JFETs is hard enough, I can only imagine what a pain in the aaa... butt... matching SMDs would be). Fortunately, AionFX offers matched sets of JFETs for only $8 - which is totally worth it from where I sit!

A Doppelganger Doppelgänger - Building Aion FX's Quadratron

The Lovetone Doppelganger is a four stage optical phaser pedal with a huge number of tone options. Once again, this is currently a very expensive pedal, with examples going on Reverb north of $1000. However, Aion FX offers a version which you can build for a fraction of the cost of the original, though it is a challenging build! As you can see below, the PCB itself is vary large, though it isn't packed as tightly as some other manufacturers' offerings are. As this is a fairly complex build, I'm actually going to go through the process step by step rather than glossing over some of the more gory details.