- Build Rating
I've been on a bit of a pedal building hiatus for the last four months or so. Prior the build in this report, looks like my last build was the Hard Rock Pinnacle. My building break was in part due to the Hard Rock Pinnacle really being nearly perfect for me. I've settled on using the Hard Rock Pinnacle as my mid-gain drive, but have gone back to looking for the "perfect" compliment light overdrive. I was rolling through some of my previous builds: Zorkmid, Red Herring, Colorsound Power Boost, Tommy III, Blue Steel, Dynamic Haircut. All are great - all can do the dirty boost/edge-of-breakup thing, and all sounded great pushing the Hard Rock Pinnacle into heavy(ish) drive. My favorite teetered between the Powerboost and Blue Steel (but that's splitting hairs).
I was starting to get the itch to build again, mostly just for the sake of building, not because I really need any more pedals! And now @MichaelW is back in the game, once again turning out great build reports and demos. His recent build report of the Cast Iron really got my attention. I mean, how could it not get the attention of PPCB regulars when he says, "man, this is probably the best overdrive that I've built yet in my pedal journey"?
Even without MichaelW's glowing endorsement, the schematic itself got my attention: it's pretty much a Timmy with an active mid control after the first gain (clipping) stage. And that's something I've always wanted. The next-closest thing I've seen is the Timbre Man. I actually made a PCB for the Timbre Man, but I've since sold that build and given away all the PCBs! I'm tempted to go back and revisit the Timbre Man PCB so I can compare against the Cast Iron Overdrive.
So, here is my Cast Iron Overdrive. I built it exactly per the PCB values, no mods(*) or substitutions. The enclosure is a limited edition Halloween Pumpkin vein hammertone from @StompBoxParts. My daughter suggested a spider and web to keep with the Halloween theme. I think it turned out decent. I somehow managed to reverse the input/output arrows, so they point the wrong way. And I didn't perfectly center the waterslide decal (or maybe I stretched it a bit), so the bottom border is more on the corner of the case, rather that the front face. (This was my second-to-last sheet of waterslide decal, so I think I'm finally going to hop aboard the UV printing train!)
I'm still not decided on the knobs. I think the smaller three knobs will stay, but I'm not sure about the two bigger knobs. I have some of the aluminum 1510 clone knobs on order, I have a feeling that's what I'll ultimately use.
The bypass (smaller PCB at the bottom) is my own CMOS inverter-based relay bypass design. I've been using this almost exclusively for my most recent builds. Cheap, simple, low-power, and all commodity/current-production parts.
Anyway, the sound - more or less what I expected, based on the schematic and MichaelW's demo. It can be set to be almost perfectly transparent/neutral, i.e. can't really tell if its on. But of course, it has an awesome EQ, and the mids control is clutch. I only played it a little last night (low volume, the family was in bed), and for about an hour today. But I'm definitely going to rock it for a while, and if it continues to touch me where I want to be touched, I might work on a custom PCB that combines this with the Hard Rock Pinnacle. (I've long wanted to build a design and build a custom dual-drive PCB, but I've never been able to settle on which two drives to use. The Hard Rock Pinnacle has lasted long enough that it's almost certainly going to be one half. And the utility of the Cast Iron's EQ makes it so versatile, it seems an obvious choice.)
(*) Edit: I ended up making a couple minor tweaks: I changed C5 from 10nF to 6.8nF to open up the treble a bit. I also added one additional series diode in one direction for more dirty boost/edge-of-breakup range. See post #6 below for discussion on these mods.
I was starting to get the itch to build again, mostly just for the sake of building, not because I really need any more pedals! And now @MichaelW is back in the game, once again turning out great build reports and demos. His recent build report of the Cast Iron really got my attention. I mean, how could it not get the attention of PPCB regulars when he says, "man, this is probably the best overdrive that I've built yet in my pedal journey"?
Even without MichaelW's glowing endorsement, the schematic itself got my attention: it's pretty much a Timmy with an active mid control after the first gain (clipping) stage. And that's something I've always wanted. The next-closest thing I've seen is the Timbre Man. I actually made a PCB for the Timbre Man, but I've since sold that build and given away all the PCBs! I'm tempted to go back and revisit the Timbre Man PCB so I can compare against the Cast Iron Overdrive.
So, here is my Cast Iron Overdrive. I built it exactly per the PCB values, no mods(*) or substitutions. The enclosure is a limited edition Halloween Pumpkin vein hammertone from @StompBoxParts. My daughter suggested a spider and web to keep with the Halloween theme. I think it turned out decent. I somehow managed to reverse the input/output arrows, so they point the wrong way. And I didn't perfectly center the waterslide decal (or maybe I stretched it a bit), so the bottom border is more on the corner of the case, rather that the front face. (This was my second-to-last sheet of waterslide decal, so I think I'm finally going to hop aboard the UV printing train!)
I'm still not decided on the knobs. I think the smaller three knobs will stay, but I'm not sure about the two bigger knobs. I have some of the aluminum 1510 clone knobs on order, I have a feeling that's what I'll ultimately use.
The bypass (smaller PCB at the bottom) is my own CMOS inverter-based relay bypass design. I've been using this almost exclusively for my most recent builds. Cheap, simple, low-power, and all commodity/current-production parts.
Anyway, the sound - more or less what I expected, based on the schematic and MichaelW's demo. It can be set to be almost perfectly transparent/neutral, i.e. can't really tell if its on. But of course, it has an awesome EQ, and the mids control is clutch. I only played it a little last night (low volume, the family was in bed), and for about an hour today. But I'm definitely going to rock it for a while, and if it continues to touch me where I want to be touched, I might work on a custom PCB that combines this with the Hard Rock Pinnacle. (I've long wanted to build a design and build a custom dual-drive PCB, but I've never been able to settle on which two drives to use. The Hard Rock Pinnacle has lasted long enough that it's almost certainly going to be one half. And the utility of the Cast Iron's EQ makes it so versatile, it seems an obvious choice.)
(*) Edit: I ended up making a couple minor tweaks: I changed C5 from 10nF to 6.8nF to open up the treble a bit. I also added one additional series diode in one direction for more dirty boost/edge-of-breakup range. See post #6 below for discussion on these mods.
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