DEMO Aion's Redshift and Spectron (EHX Small Stone and Lovetone Meatball)

This post contains an audio or video demo

eh là bas ma

Well-known member
I built these effects sometime ago, in 2021.

Hopefully, they could be some interesting examples about what is possible to do when a pedal builder has "no artwork skills".

The idea for the "art design" came to me while i was shopping at the local grocery store. I saw two big packs of rice, one with an elephant, one with a dragon printed on the plastic packaging.
shopping.png
I thought it would be interesting to try and put these on an enclosure, so i bought both packs, and put all the rice in some other empty boxes.

After building the redshift, i painted the enclosure with a full white acrylic paint coating. Then i applied lots of water soluble varnish and put the piece of rice packaging on the enclosure, while the varnish was still fresh, so it would stick on it.

IMG-20210413-024834.jpg

I was pleased with the result, so i did the same thing with the elephant for the Spectron :
IMG-20211218-175855.jpg

In my experience, if you have no artwork skills, it's still possible to keep an eye out for every pieces of material that could be pleasing on some enclosure, including some product's packaging at the grocery store, or things that you would usualy throw in the trash can, etc.

I even keep the scrap from every building process, and the components labels, just in case it could be interesting on some enclosure, someday.

Do we really need some expensive devices, chemicals, or any graphic design skills to be able to do some basic artwork ?

I hope this humble build report can contribute to answer that question.

By the way, both circuits are very interesting. The Meatball clone is especialy amazing, among my favorite circuits ever.
I often use it in front of a gain effect to add some subtle wah effects into the distorted signal. It's great both for bass and guitar. It's able to create a wah or reverse wah, sensitive to your picking dynamic, among other things.

Here is a sound sample (recorded to demo Moosapotamus 360 bass fuzz) where you can hear a Spectron on bass and guitar, starting at 1:20 for the bass, and 2:40 for the guitar (i think it's set on reverse wah) :



The redshift is quite singular, it can do some very unique and pleasing sounds when you set it with Low Pass + Vibrato + 2 stages + Large Sweep, with Speed set on high values.
The possibility to select 2 different speed settings on the fly is also very interesting. It has lots of features so it could look like overkill, but all these mods are interesting and effective. I guess this circuit is meant to get the most of the legendary Small Stone phaser, with all the most popular mods from the diy community.


Glory to Aion !
 
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Great looking pedals mate! I love the mini chicken heads!

I built these effects sometime ago, in 2021.

Hopefully, they could be some interesting examples about what is possible to do when a pedal builder has "no artwork skills".

The idea for the "art design" came to me while i was shopping at the local grocery store. I saw two big packs of rice, one with an elephant, one with a dragon printed on the plastic packaging.
View attachment 68930
I thought it would be interesting to try and put these on an enclosure, so i bought both packs, and put all the rice in some other empty boxes.

After building the redshift, i painted the enclosure with a full white acrylic paint coating. Then i applied lots of water soluble varnish and put the piece of rice packaging on the enclosure, while the varnish was still fresh, so it would stick on it.

View attachment 68931

I was pleased with the result, so i did the same thing with the elephant for the Spectron :
View attachment 68932

In my experience, if you have no artwork skills, it's still possible to keep an eye out for every pieces of material that could be pleasing on some enclosure, including some product's packaging at the grocery store, or things that you would usualy throw in the trash can, etc.

I even keep the scrap from every building process, and the components labels, just in case it could be interesting on some enclosure, someday.

Do we really need some expensive devices, chemicals, or any graphic design skills to be able to do some basic artwork ?

I hope this humble build report can contribute to answer that question.

By the way, both circuits are very interesting. The Meatball clone is especialy amazing, among my favorite circuits ever.
I often use it in front of a gain effect to add some subtle wah effects into the distorted signal. It's great both for bass and guitar. It's able to create a wah or reverse wah, sensitive to your picking dynamic, among other things.

Here is a sound sample (recorded to demo Moosapotamus 360 bass fuzz) where you can hear a Spectron on bass and guitar, starting at 1:20 for the bass, and 2:40 for the guitar (i think it's set on reverse wah) :



The redshift is quite singular, it can do some very unique and pleasing sounds when you set it with Low Pass + Vibrato + 2 stages + Large Sweep, with Speed set on high values.
The possibility to select 2 different speed settings on the fly is also very interesting. It has lots of features so it could look like overkill, but all these mods are interesting and effective. I guess this circuit is meant to get the most of the legendary Small Stone phaser, with all the most popular mods from the diy community.


Glory to Aion !
 
Dude! Those are awesome!
Great looking pedals mate! I love the mini chicken heads!
Thanks ! It means a lot coming from such distinguished Enclosure Artists.

Unless you really enjoy using a real wah with an expression pedal, i highly recommend the Spectron. In my opinion, it's even better than a real wah.

You don't need to care about your foot while playing.

You can use the blend knob to make the enveloppe filter effect very subtle, not to overwhelming or invasive. Then it gets quite addictive, especialy before some gain effects.

The Send/Return loop opens lots of interesting possibilities with all kinds of other effects.
 
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Did you use a drill template for these builds or did you do it yourself? I kinda want a meatball now...
Most of the times, i order full kits from musikding, with drilled enclosures.

I am probably paying an extra 10 euros or so in total for such a big build, but I don't have to worry about sourcing the wrong parts, or making mistakes when drilling the enclosure.
 
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Nice. I really enjoy the Redshift, it is quite flexible. I enjoy that you can get a very mild phase with it. The amount of switches can be overwhelming but they are all useful.
 
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