A Famous 1980's Vintage Chorus - With a Purple Dinosaur???

As a college student in the late 80's and early 90's, it was amazing to witness the tectonic shift in musical styles over such a short period of time. One of the seminal releases of the era was Nirvana's Nevermind, released in 1991, which almost overnight ended the reign of hair bands and ushered in the era of alternative rock spearheaded by the Seattle grunge scene. The second single from the album, "Come as You Are," featured an iconic watery guitar riff played through the original iteration of the EHX Small Clone chorus pedal (with some post production) which was only built from 1979 to 1883. While you can get a modern version of the Small Clone today, there are some differences to the circuit which result in a different sound from the pedal. AionFX has released a modified version of the original as the Lithium project, so I absolutely had to build at least one!

The Dimetrodon Distortion - In Miniature!

Last June Steggo released the first original in-house pedal - the Dimetrodon Distortion. In one version or another it's become a permanent fixture on my pedal board able to do anything from overdrive to serious doomy distortion all in one package. I've made a lot of them, but I'd really love to see the pedal really take off and sell at a level that some of the medium-sized boutique makers reach (in the range of 50-100 pedals / year as opposed to 10-20). Given my current time constraints, I'd need to find a way to streamline some of the production of a version of the Dimetrodon to reach that production level (as I don't want to just continually make one pedal). I'd followed a recent release from Supercool Pedals (the Thneed - which is a great pedal BTW!), and that pedal is entirely SMD. Looking at that pedal as an example, I wondered if I could do something similar with the Dimetrodon without sacrificing the tone, so the Dimetrodon Mini was born!

Quick 5F2-A Update!

Late last month I posted my first amplifier build - a Mojotone 5F2-A Tweed Princeton. I've got to say, a month in and I'm absolutely loving that amp. I decided to put it in our upstairs family room and sell the Fender Champion 20 amp I had up there (and to be honest had rarely played because I honestly didn't like the amp that much). With the Tweed upstairs, I've actually been splitting my practice time a lot more between my downstairs office (where most of the guitars and amps live) and the family room (where I only have the one amp, no pedals - gasp! - and one guitar). That being said, there was one detail missing from the amp...

Revisiting an Old BMP Variant - With a New Board!

A little over a year ago I finished up a build of a really high gain and doomy Big Muff variant, Frantone's The Sweet. I had used a hand etched board from Effects Layouts and it came out pretty good overall. It sounded pretty much like all of the demos I found online. I'd tried to etch a couple more boards, but ran into some issues with my resist. Fast forward a few months and I'm learning to lay out my own boards. I figured something like this would be good practice as it is a bit more detailed than most of the early ones I'd been working on. So I got cracking and came up with my own PCB - no etching required!

Upping the Amp-erage - Building the Mojotone 5F2-A Tweed Amp Kit

I've been building pedals for several years now, but like any gateway dru... errr... hobby, I soon discovered that there were people who built their own amplifiers as well. Much like with guitar pedals, being able to build your own amp opens up options that may not normally be available because the amplifiers are rare, expensive, or likely both. Even if it is a more common amp style, building one yourself can often be cheaper. It also allows customization and choice of components to create a unique sound. I'd started my first amp project about 1.5 years ago, but sort of got bogged down and intimidated by the scope. I decided it would be advisable to maybe try a slightly more entry-level build to understand the ups and downs of the process a bit better. Mojotone offers a variety of kits with good documentation, wiring diagrams, and schematics. They aren't incredibly cheap, but all of their designs are well-proven. Their easiest kit is the 5F1 Tweed based on the 1950's vintage 5 Watt amplifier. This was a little more basic than I wanted to go as it only has a volume with no tone knob, so I went with the 5F2-A Tweed Princeton, which was first introduced in 1957 (and should pair up really well with my '57 American Vintage 2 Stratocaster). 

A David Gilmour Inspired Strat - Redux

A little over two years ago I put together a parts-caster using the EMG DG20 pickup set. This set of pickups was used by David Gilmour starting in around 1985 at the Live Aid concert. He'd continue to use the active pickups through about 2005 when he would return to the Black Strat and it's traditional single coils. When I first got the EMG DG20 together, it sounded good - by itself. Unfortunately most of the Gilmour sounds and pedals I'm trying to emulate are from the earlier albums, and the active pickups didn't stack well with my amplifiers and effects pedals. So given I have many guitars and this one wasn't being played - I had two options. I could try and sell it (the market for parts-casters as a unit is not good), or I could pull out the active pickups and re-wire it with single coils. After some unsuccessful attempts at the former, I settled on the latter, and I'm very happy I did!

Updating a Most Tranquil Steggo Pedal!

One of my favorite enclosures and pedals was the Steggo take on the Zendrive (which has since been re-introduced by Warm Audio as the Warmdrive). I'd initially used the AionFX board for my builds, but my friend at South Obolon FX released a version of this board and was kind enough to make me a Steggo version. I'd built one up a few months ago, but I've finally gotten a few more done for the shop!