Some serious Cork sniffery

It's probably a cool pedal, but because of their pseudo corksniffery marketing I'm obligated to dump on it.

  • Gold plated circuitry, electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) = literally that, just means an ENIG finished board instead of HASL. JLC offers it for an upcharge, OSHPark does it exclusively.
  • High precision low-noise thin-film Japanese resistors = Susumu SMD resistors
  • Class 1 Japanese capacitors = NP0/C0G SMD capacitors likely made by Vishay or TDK; this was a little surprising as I would expect them to tout some fancy film caps instead of just run-of-the-mill MLCC
  • Genuine Texas Instruments TL072 op-amp = cool $0.25 part
  • Genuine Microchip Technology TC1044 charge pump that doubles the voltage internally to 18v = this one troubles me because part of what makes the Klon is the +18V/-9V power rails for essentially 27V operation. So they either ran it as a single rail at 18V or they copied the original power scheme and just don't entirely understand what the charge pump is doing.
  • Real, rare, and vintage 1n34a germanium clipping diodes = mmkay cool
  • Buffered bypass with high quality soft-touch foot switch = always a good option, but not important enough to mention in marketing (imho)
  • Top mounted genuine Neutrik 1/4” – 6.35mm input/output jacks = I mean we can see that from the pictures, but okay cool.
  • Anodized enclosure and knobs milled from a solid block of aluminum = the milled enclosure is the one thing here that's actually special, no hate on the enclosure at all
  • White standby light = STOP THE PRESSES!!! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEEDED!!!

Anyway. I'm biased because I make and sell pedals commercially, but I don't make a Klon so it's not a competing product and the main motive for this post is that I'm not having a great day and needed a release. I wish them all the best with their pedal.
 
Hahaha... They make a Visual Super Product clone.

harby.com

Harby 蜃気楼 Mirage

Discovered in legend, circuitry reborn in detail. The Ibanez SK10 Visual Super Product 蜃気楼 distortion pedal was an oddity sold exclusively through just one
harby.com harby.com
 
For the life of me I don't understand why so many pedal manufacturers just rehash what has already been designed. What is the f'ing point?? Why not give something your own spin? Fancy parts don't really amount to anything. These are not hifi devices! And why on earth would I want a new TS-10? I had one back when they were new and it was a crap pedal then. Why pay a premium for a new version of a very ordinary design?

There are some rare new designs which actually improve on what has gone before, but they are the exception rather than the rule. It's ok if you use an existing design and build on it from there - make it something new and give it a reason to exist other than nice parts.
 
vigilante398 said:
It's probably a cool pedal, but because of their pseudo corksniffery marketing I'm obligated to dump on it.

  • Gold plated circuitry, electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) = literally that, just means an ENIG finished board instead of HASL. JLC offers it for an upcharge, OSHPark does it exclusively.
  • High precision low-noise thin-film Japanese resistors = Susumu SMD resistors
  • Class 1 Japanese capacitors = NP0/C0G SMD capacitors likely made by Vishay or TDK; this was a little surprising as I would expect them to tout some fancy film caps instead of just run-of-the-mill MLCC
  • Genuine Texas Instruments TL072 op-amp = cool $0.25 part
  • Genuine Microchip Technology TC1044 charge pump that doubles the voltage internally to 18v = this one troubles me because part of what makes the Klon is the +18V/-9V power rails for essentially 27V operation. So they either ran it as a single rail at 18V or they copied the original power scheme and just don't entirely understand what the charge pump is doing.
  • Real, rare, and vintage 1n34a germanium clipping diodes = mmkay cool
  • Buffered bypass with high quality soft-touch foot switch = always a good option, but not important enough to mention in marketing (imho)
  • Top mounted genuine Neutrik 1/4” – 6.35mm input/output jacks = I mean we can see that from the pictures, but okay cool.
  • Anodized enclosure and knobs milled from a solid block of aluminum = the milled enclosure is the one thing here that's actually special, no hate on the enclosure at all
  • White standby light = STOP THE PRESSES!!! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEEDED!!!

Anyway. I'm biased because I make and sell pedals commercially, but I don't make a Klon so it's not a competing product and the main motive for this post is that I'm not having a great day and needed a release. I wish them all the best with their pedal.
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Screenshot_20260403-152627.jpg
 
tegendemuur said:
View attachment 114601
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I'm sure he's a super nice dude and we could have lunch and talk shop (I went to school in Idaho but haven't had any reason to go back and visit), but I'm tired of the constant hyping of every single aspect of a design whether it's remarkable or not. I use solid steel MADE IN USA washers on my footswitches (seriously) but you won't find that anywhere on my product descriptions because it doesn't actually matter to the end user. If you're going to use fancy components go ahead and talk about them, but do it in a context where you explain why it matters. Can the consumer hear the difference between a HASL finish PCB and an ENIG finish PCB?

And maybe I'm the weird one on this point, but I don't like talking about myself with regards to the pedal process. There is no "about me" on my website where I talk about my background, experience, and education/degrees, because the pedals should speak for themselves. My pedals are built by me and my wife in our cluttered messy basement, usually while watching some sort of serial killer documentary.

Additional note: his pedals are "designed and engineered", what does each of those steps entail?
 
vigilante398 said:
I'm sure he's a super nice dude and we could have lunch and talk shop (I went to school in Idaho but haven't had any reason to go back and visit), but I'm tired of the constant hyping of every single aspect of a design whether it's remarkable or not. I use solid steel MADE IN USA washers on my footswitches (seriously) but you won't find that anywhere on my product descriptions because it doesn't actually matter to the end user. If you're going to use fancy components go ahead and talk about them, but do it in a context where you explain why it matters. Can the consumer hear the difference between a HASL finish PCB and an ENIG finish PCB?

And maybe I'm the weird one on this point, but I don't like talking about myself with regards to the pedal process. There is no "about me" on my website where I talk about my background, experience, and education/degrees, because the pedals should speak for themselves. My pedals are built by me and my wife in our cluttered messy basement, usually while watching some sort of serial killer documentary.
Click to expand...
The people being part of the brand is something I dislike as well. It is how things online are run nowadays, but it does the opposite for me... It is offputting to see people sell themselves; it makes them unrelatable. To me, they're as real as a cartoon character.

The product should speak for itself. That's what my money buys.
 
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