MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
So you know you have a problem when your wife is visiting her family for a few days and the first thought that pops in your head is
"Sweeeeeet! Uninterrupted bench time!!"
Well, I think this is my last "Summer Fridays" 1/2 day Friday at work, nice little perk from my company. After wrapping up my last meeting around noon I got my tackle together and got the boat ready to go fishing with my buddy tomorrow before he has to have some major surgery.
With that out of the way, I set aside the rest of the afternoon to do some soldering.
I actually have 3 other pedals ready to go and I was planning to build one of them but the Blue and White truck of happiness dropped of the mail, which included my latest PedalPCB order.
I've been noodling on the Cattle Driver all day and absolutely loving it. In my latest order was the Grover Drive, I guess @PedalPCB has an overabundance of stock since he's blowing them out for $4. I had never heard of this pedal (as usual) but when I started researching it, it too is a Butler Tuber Driver inspired pedal and associated with both the Eric Johnson and David Gilmour "sound". So I couldn't pass it up and decided to build it instead of the other projects I had lined up.
It's an easy, medium-ish parts count build. Holy moly I LOVE this thing! Sounds really really cool.
Essentially it's a Zen Drive with a fixed "Voice" and fixed gain setting but it's got a transistor based fuzz in the front of it.
I was expecting it to sound pretty much like a Zen drive, and it kinda does, but with the fuzz running into the front of it really makes it more than the sum of its parts.
The stock build is a 3 knob pedal with an internal trimmer that adjusts the bias of the fuzz. You can dial it more towards a starved fuzzy kind of drive or dial the other way for a smoother distortion, singing lead type of sound. I think that it's kind of silly of have to choose where you want this, so I turned it into a 4 knob pedal by exposing the trimmer on a pot.
REALLY useful little mod to be able to dial the bias on the fly. Significantly changes the character of the pedal depending on where you set this.
Compared to the Cattle Driver, it definitely sounds more like a "pedal" than an amp. I'm still so impressed by how the Cattle Driver sounds. But the Grover has it's thing going on and is a KILLER sounding pedal. I definitely like it more than my stock Zen drive.
I ran it with a couple of different boosts in front of it but sounded the best with the GOTA LPB-1.
While both inspired to emulate the Tube Driver, they are different sounding pedals and come at it from different angles but both really great sounding.
The Dover can nail that "Cliffs of Dover" sound, the pedal's namesake.
I liked it so much that I ordered another of each of the Cattle Driver and Grover to build for my buddy who LOVES the Zen drive I built for him. I'm betting these will knock his socks off.
If you like the whole "warm, singing lead, sustain for days" kind of thing, I'd highly recommend this build. Really looking forward for the Mosfet Drive to come back in stock. Yet another Butler Tube Driver type circuit from Robert.
I used a Russian NOS HG5003 for the Ge diode. It measured ~.423 on my GM328 tester. Couple of tant's and low profile electrolytic caps to make it an easier fit into a 1590B.
Still working through my "odds and ends" knobs. The cream knob is the bias.....so there IS a reason for the two tone hahah. Love these new Tayda Sand texture enclosures.
I didn't have a C1k pot, so I had to hack a C5k. Seems to work fine, although I will say that there's not a lot of adjustment in the gain knob. Even with it all the way off it's pretty gainy, it's pretty much "in your face" as soon as you turn it on. As you turn the gain knob up you get more of the fuzz but the Zen Drive part of the circuit is "always on". This is not a "subtle" pedal by any means. Having said that you CAN get into low-medium gain territory with the guitar volume knob. Some nice tones in that range as well.
I used a B10k pot for the Bias trimmer. Note. If you're doing this mod, the trim pad silkscreen is flipped opposite from what's in the build docs. This must be a revised layout.
Just something to keep in mind as you wire up the pot and are trying to locate the ground lug pad. (I'm actually extremely proud of myself for using the schematic and examining the traces on the PCB to figure that out all by myself! Hahaha....)
"Sweeeeeet! Uninterrupted bench time!!"
Well, I think this is my last "Summer Fridays" 1/2 day Friday at work, nice little perk from my company. After wrapping up my last meeting around noon I got my tackle together and got the boat ready to go fishing with my buddy tomorrow before he has to have some major surgery.
With that out of the way, I set aside the rest of the afternoon to do some soldering.
I actually have 3 other pedals ready to go and I was planning to build one of them but the Blue and White truck of happiness dropped of the mail, which included my latest PedalPCB order.
I've been noodling on the Cattle Driver all day and absolutely loving it. In my latest order was the Grover Drive, I guess @PedalPCB has an overabundance of stock since he's blowing them out for $4. I had never heard of this pedal (as usual) but when I started researching it, it too is a Butler Tuber Driver inspired pedal and associated with both the Eric Johnson and David Gilmour "sound". So I couldn't pass it up and decided to build it instead of the other projects I had lined up.
It's an easy, medium-ish parts count build. Holy moly I LOVE this thing! Sounds really really cool.
Essentially it's a Zen Drive with a fixed "Voice" and fixed gain setting but it's got a transistor based fuzz in the front of it.
I was expecting it to sound pretty much like a Zen drive, and it kinda does, but with the fuzz running into the front of it really makes it more than the sum of its parts.
The stock build is a 3 knob pedal with an internal trimmer that adjusts the bias of the fuzz. You can dial it more towards a starved fuzzy kind of drive or dial the other way for a smoother distortion, singing lead type of sound. I think that it's kind of silly of have to choose where you want this, so I turned it into a 4 knob pedal by exposing the trimmer on a pot.
REALLY useful little mod to be able to dial the bias on the fly. Significantly changes the character of the pedal depending on where you set this.
Compared to the Cattle Driver, it definitely sounds more like a "pedal" than an amp. I'm still so impressed by how the Cattle Driver sounds. But the Grover has it's thing going on and is a KILLER sounding pedal. I definitely like it more than my stock Zen drive.
I ran it with a couple of different boosts in front of it but sounded the best with the GOTA LPB-1.
While both inspired to emulate the Tube Driver, they are different sounding pedals and come at it from different angles but both really great sounding.
The Dover can nail that "Cliffs of Dover" sound, the pedal's namesake.
I liked it so much that I ordered another of each of the Cattle Driver and Grover to build for my buddy who LOVES the Zen drive I built for him. I'm betting these will knock his socks off.
If you like the whole "warm, singing lead, sustain for days" kind of thing, I'd highly recommend this build. Really looking forward for the Mosfet Drive to come back in stock. Yet another Butler Tube Driver type circuit from Robert.
I used a Russian NOS HG5003 for the Ge diode. It measured ~.423 on my GM328 tester. Couple of tant's and low profile electrolytic caps to make it an easier fit into a 1590B.
Still working through my "odds and ends" knobs. The cream knob is the bias.....so there IS a reason for the two tone hahah. Love these new Tayda Sand texture enclosures.
I didn't have a C1k pot, so I had to hack a C5k. Seems to work fine, although I will say that there's not a lot of adjustment in the gain knob. Even with it all the way off it's pretty gainy, it's pretty much "in your face" as soon as you turn it on. As you turn the gain knob up you get more of the fuzz but the Zen Drive part of the circuit is "always on". This is not a "subtle" pedal by any means. Having said that you CAN get into low-medium gain territory with the guitar volume knob. Some nice tones in that range as well.
I used a B10k pot for the Bias trimmer. Note. If you're doing this mod, the trim pad silkscreen is flipped opposite from what's in the build docs. This must be a revised layout.
Just something to keep in mind as you wire up the pot and are trying to locate the ground lug pad. (I'm actually extremely proud of myself for using the schematic and examining the traces on the PCB to figure that out all by myself! Hahaha....)
Last edited:
) first though. Waiting for some A1M straight leg pots from Tayda before attempting it again.
Mm Goi Sai !
