A Dino-Inspired Red Llama!

A little over a year ago I finished up my first clone of the Way Huge Red Llama pedal using the AionFX Yacana PCB. It was a really fun build and is actually a pretty useful little pedal which can be used either as a straight boost or a boost with overdrive (and ultimately distortion). My original enclosure was a very Tongue in Cheek reference to the Disney film The Emperor's New Groove, but I really wanted a dinosaur version to fit the overall Steggo theme. Fortunately my friend Dmytro over at South Obolon FX laid out a version of the board with some additional gain stages like on the AionFX board under the name "Groovy Emperor" (I'm sensing a theme here), and he was kind enough to create a special "Steggo" version of the layout as well!

The Pedal Board's New Groove - Way Huge Red Llama Clone!

So here was a fun, easy, and fast build for a really neat little pedal. The Aion Yacana is a slightly modified version of the Way Huge Red Llama, originally released in 1992. There's actually a decent demo video of the pedal on YouTube that I recommend for anyone looking to build this pedal. If you turn the drive knob down, it basically puts more signal into your amp while retaining your amp's intrinsic character. If you start adding drive, it will add some hair / distortion to the signal as you start bringing in the IC on board (that does most of the heavy lifting for the effect pedal). Aion FX version adds a boost toggle switch not on the original that provides additional gain ranges. This primarily impacts the range of the drive knob, and based on my test compared to the demo video, the downmost position appears to mirror the basic pedal most closely.