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

A New K-T Event Fuzz - With a Fun New Board!

I've built a few versions of the Black Ash Fuzz at this point, mostly on the South Obolon FX board. The first one was a straight modern build with all modern components, well apart from the somewhat unique transistors. It sounded great, but part of the schtick of the original pedal was the fact that it used a lot of vintage and/or unusual components in the build. I did a second version of the pedal where I took a step closer to the original - carbon film rather than metal film resistors, higher voltage film caps in place of the low voltage film caps (which were used in lieu of the paper in oil caps). I'd posted that build on the PedalPCB forum, and another forum member posted their amazing version of the circuit - that lets you go really old school - and they were nice enough to make me a version of the board!

An Pair of Updated Thagomizers!

The Colorsound Power Boost is one of my favorite utility / boost pedals which I've built under the "Thagomizer" name in several varieties. Given all of these have the volume knob modification, the pedal can be used as a very nice clean boost and equalizer, or it can be used to add bit of a dirty overdrive depending on where the drive / gain knob is set. I worked with my friend in Ukraine, South Obolon FX, to finally develop a Steggo version of the power boost board with a charge pump, and I've now finally gotten a couple of varieties of the pedal together!

New Black-Ash Variant - Closer to the Original

Back in December I finished up a clone of the EQD Black Ash fuzz pedal. For that first validation build I went with all modern components, but the original Black Ash used a lot of vintage bits in its construction - including carbon composition resistors and what appear to be paper in oil capacitors. I wanted to experiment with the components a bit and decided to try to take the build a few steps closer to the original to see if it made much difference.

New Allen Bradley Thagomizer I - With a Few Modern Replacement Capacitors

I knew the day would eventually come when some of the New Old Stock components I'd been using on my Thagomizers would start to dry up, I just didn't expect it to come so soon! While I'm pretty well set for resistors, tropical fish capacitors, ceramic capacitors, etc., it's the older validated (as opposed to dead) electrolytic capacitors which are drying up - which I guess shouldn't be a surprise. At this point the 22μF Bianchi - Phillips capacitors seem to be gone. I've therefore had to make a modern substitution, but it appears to be the same substitution my European source of parts is making on his sets with the Iskra and Phier resistors as well.

More Thagomizers Inbound! Vintage Colorsound Power Boost in a Modern Box!

In February I posted my first build of a Colorsound Power Boost pedal using the AionFX Nucleus board. I'd initially been interested in the pedal and is sibling, the Overdriver, as they were some of the early pedals used by David Gilmour. For my Overdriver build, I'd gone with all modern components and an enclosure which harkened back to the original case. For the Power Boost, I sort of went the opposite direction, I used all vintage components and created a unique dinosaur themed enclosure for it to sort of establish the "Steggo" brand version of the pedal. Honestly I really love this particular pedal, and I think in terms of build enjoyment it is right up there with the Big Muff Pi and Distortion+, so I decided I'd try and build a few more to "support the habit" as it were.

Vintage Overdrive Build - The Colorsound Power Boost

When this blog entry goes live on Sunday morning, I'll likely be heading out with a friend to go pick up a vintage British sports car he just purchased - and then trying to drive it home several hundred miles... Wish us luck! In honor of the occasion, I thought I'd post a recent build of a vintage British effects pedal - in every way I can possibly make it! A few weeks ago I posted a build of the AionFX Plasma, a direct copy of the Colorsound Overdriver with an added volume control. Apart from the BC184 transistors, I built that pedal with all modern parts - metal film resistors, film capacitors, etc. I honestly love that pedal, but I wanted to take it a step back and try something fun - using as many vintage parts as possible to build its immediate predecessor, the Colorsound Power Booster. AionFX has released this PCB as the Nucleus, and as with the Plasma it is pretty much a direct copy of the original with a volume knob added. With even the reproductions running $700+, this is yet another great cloning opportunity.