MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Actually finished this a couple of days ago but didn't want to rain on @DGWVI's "Build Report Extravaganza" parade...... 
I've never heard of this pedal before seeing on the store. Digging around a little it seems like there's been a lot of variants over the years and associated with Free The Tone for a bit before being now solely produced by Providence in Japan. Designed by Yukihiro Hayashi.
I have to say this has been one of the most interesting and satisfying sounding overdrives I've built in a while.
At first glance it looks like a YATS (and maybe it is schematically) but tonally it defies any category I can come up with.
It's a super warm, amp-like overdrive that can get a little fuzzy on the extreme gain settings but it also cleans up to become a clean boost as well.
In between you can get what I would call some very nice "pushed tweed" to "pushed Brownface Deluxe" types of sounds.
I can't find a bad sound in it regardless of what the gain setting is.
Super dynamic to pick attack and responds well to guitar volume control.
It's "kinda" in the Benson Preamp or Chop Shop camp but less gated than the Chop Shop and less fuzzy than the Benson.
I think it excels on single coils and you can get some really fat, warm Ritchie Blackmore type sounds but it also works well with P90's and HB's although you'd need to goose the tone knob to overcome the warmth.
Just a real sleeper of an overdrive and I'm really loving it! @szukalski I think you would totally dig this one. It's right up your alley.
Enclosure is a pretty cool one I got from SmallBear during one of their sales. Apparently these are overruns for enclosures they built for AnalogMan.
Kind of a gray hammertone finish with a gloss topcoat. Really neat looking. I grabbed a couple of them from SmallBear.
Build itself was a typical PPCB drive build, very well laid out and simple build.
I recorded a short demo clip of the pedal and it's a bit of a "twofer" demo. I posted that I received some new pickups from Fabian Durbano in Australia in the "Mailbox" thread.
I installed the "Big Bird" (HB sized Firebird) in my "VelaBird" so it now has 2 Firebird pickups. I originally had one of Fabian's 59 PAFs in the bridge position but there was a lot of output disparity between it and the much hotter neck Firebird pickup. Now with both positions having Bird's in them it's much more balanced.
Fabian's Firebird pickups are wound pretty hot but you would not be able to tell that from how they sound. They "sound" like vintage output Firebirds. I'm not exactly sure why he chose to wind them that way but they sound fabulous! I'm becoming more and more of a Firebird pickup fan. They can sound like a big fat single coil yet cut and bite when needed. Super stoked about how this guitar now sounds. I have the bridge pickup on a push pull split coil and there's a lot of usable sounds with it split, but I will probably use it primarily as a HB.
I've said it before and I'll say it again here, the D'urbano Magnetic pickups are fantastic sounding pickups and are a bargain with the AUD to USD exchange rate. They take a while to get made to order and shipped from Australia but definitely worth the wait.
Just some noodling on the VelaBird before kicking on the Bullrush...then some more noodling...
I've never heard of this pedal before seeing on the store. Digging around a little it seems like there's been a lot of variants over the years and associated with Free The Tone for a bit before being now solely produced by Providence in Japan. Designed by Yukihiro Hayashi.
I have to say this has been one of the most interesting and satisfying sounding overdrives I've built in a while.
At first glance it looks like a YATS (and maybe it is schematically) but tonally it defies any category I can come up with.
It's a super warm, amp-like overdrive that can get a little fuzzy on the extreme gain settings but it also cleans up to become a clean boost as well.
In between you can get what I would call some very nice "pushed tweed" to "pushed Brownface Deluxe" types of sounds.
I can't find a bad sound in it regardless of what the gain setting is.
Super dynamic to pick attack and responds well to guitar volume control.
It's "kinda" in the Benson Preamp or Chop Shop camp but less gated than the Chop Shop and less fuzzy than the Benson.
I think it excels on single coils and you can get some really fat, warm Ritchie Blackmore type sounds but it also works well with P90's and HB's although you'd need to goose the tone knob to overcome the warmth.
Just a real sleeper of an overdrive and I'm really loving it! @szukalski I think you would totally dig this one. It's right up your alley.
Enclosure is a pretty cool one I got from SmallBear during one of their sales. Apparently these are overruns for enclosures they built for AnalogMan.
Kind of a gray hammertone finish with a gloss topcoat. Really neat looking. I grabbed a couple of them from SmallBear.
Build itself was a typical PPCB drive build, very well laid out and simple build.
I recorded a short demo clip of the pedal and it's a bit of a "twofer" demo. I posted that I received some new pickups from Fabian Durbano in Australia in the "Mailbox" thread.
I installed the "Big Bird" (HB sized Firebird) in my "VelaBird" so it now has 2 Firebird pickups. I originally had one of Fabian's 59 PAFs in the bridge position but there was a lot of output disparity between it and the much hotter neck Firebird pickup. Now with both positions having Bird's in them it's much more balanced.
Fabian's Firebird pickups are wound pretty hot but you would not be able to tell that from how they sound. They "sound" like vintage output Firebirds. I'm not exactly sure why he chose to wind them that way but they sound fabulous! I'm becoming more and more of a Firebird pickup fan. They can sound like a big fat single coil yet cut and bite when needed. Super stoked about how this guitar now sounds. I have the bridge pickup on a push pull split coil and there's a lot of usable sounds with it split, but I will probably use it primarily as a HB.
I've said it before and I'll say it again here, the D'urbano Magnetic pickups are fantastic sounding pickups and are a bargain with the AUD to USD exchange rate. They take a while to get made to order and shipped from Australia but definitely worth the wait.
Just some noodling on the VelaBird before kicking on the Bullrush...then some more noodling...
