💖 Stay Alive ✨ Top Five of '25 💖

C

comradehoser

Well-known member
Again at the request of forum members, we have arrived at that time of year.

✨ ✨ 💖 Top Five 💖 time!!! ✨ ✨

Now with sparkles.

The rules are simple: what are your top five circuits this year? Not 6, not 10, only ✨ 5 ✨.

You decide the criteria: ranked/unranked, could be best of five categories, could be most used, could be what pushed your playing, could be of PPCB, or none. You can provide rationale, or just a list, up to you.

The idea is just to see what people have been impressed by. I'm always curious and have built MANY happy circuits from suggestions last year and the year before.

And the five limit intentionally pushes you to impose filters. I find it actually difficult.

Off we go!
 
*built this year

*Nutty Fuzz - I did not know about the Ugly Face until after I built this. This is very much my kind of thing. I don’t see it leaving my board anytime soon. I’m building a 3-knob version because I always leave the BLEND and THRESHOLD all the down.

Schadenfreude - It makes the list yet again. Really not too far off from the Ugly Face in terms of timbre, but different enough to keep both around.

Muroidea - I feel like I went all around the world in terms of dirt over the past few years. And I landed back right where I started- stock Rat.

*Schutone DM-3 - Simple controls, sweet sounding delay. I’m still trying others, but so far this one takes the spot.

Squidward - I don’t think I can have a top 5 without an octave up. And like the Rat, after a major deep dive, I’m back to the green ringer.
 
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5. PPCB Muzzle: Built my first one almost 5 years ago and has been a permanent fixture ever since, I have been running two for a while now.

4. C2C nobelium: it’s not super sexy or anything but a good bass DI

3. BBE HF-2: what I want a flanger to be smooth and not harsh or metallic

2. Anvil preamp: time will tell but right now this has been the holy grail Swiss Army knife of preamps with no redundancy, and no compromises, all three channels are voiced to perfection for my money.

1. Lexicon MX 300: (nothing was said about commercial gear). This has been an absolute game changer for me. There is so much that this unit can do, and it’s stereo capability has made playing through headphones so much more enjoyable.
 
So far this year (because I have about 3-5 that I might be able to finish before the end of the year), but in no particular order

1. Deeptronics Freeze module pedal
2. Nobels ODR-C
3. Fuzz Aldrin (but still testing a few transistors)
4. NPN germanium (Russian Ge) in a 1590A with only an input gain, input cap blend, and external bias potentiometers.
5. 1590A OD-1 clone with a slight tweak to the cap to cut a smidge of bass.
 
The first 3 of my top 5 are easily the Luxury 763, Amber OD, and Dielectric Boost. I love each of these so much for what they do for my guitar tone. They play nice with each other as well!

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I don't use 4 and 5 as much but they were both fun and challenging builds and sound great! They are the Deadend FX Rotary Chorus, and a AionFX Blueshift/ PPCB Electrovibe Mini combo

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1. PPCB Median Compressor
Just built this in the last week and I am completely in love. Very much a fit for my needs. I love its sound and the ability to blend it with my original tone to taste.

2. PPCB Circulator Phaser (w/Boneyard mods)
I can't praise this, especially with Chuck's mods, enough. Can go from slow and subtle in its cycle to rapid and sci-fi.

3. Moonn Electronics Time Waster
There's a zillion ways to fuck with a PT2399 for one's own strange and twisted ends, it seems, and this one gives you individual control over your dry signal and whatever wet fuckery you're making alongside it.

4. Feedback Looper (via Holy Island Audio's diagram)
Straightforward and built on a whim. These things are ubiqitous for noise people. AND I got to use one of the olive drab enclosures I bought a grip of a few months ago.

5. PPCB Daydream Delay
Bought this a long time ago, completed the board and verified it some time ago, but only boxed it up last week because I couldn't and STILL can't think of a punny Siamese Dream-referencing name/theme for the graphics. Well, it still sounds great even though I have the "real" Band Delay effect (relatively anwyay, as I have H9s and an H90 and not a Eventide rack unit) and is currently on loan, unlabeled, with an incredible local drummer. I already miss it, the filter and self-oscillation make it a great noise generator of sorts, too, not just a beautiful ambient tool. Bravo as always, Robert.

Also, per the thread title, the most known tune from one of the best and most criminally-underrated bands in the universe:
 
I'm going to pirate * = built this year

Last year my list was
Corroder
Trembling loon
Deflector/Afterneath
Moonn dromtydning
3 channel mixer


*1. Chuck D. Bones mod Diablo/Deofol
The OG pedal made my top five in '23, but mein gott, the modded version. I've already gone on and on about it, but the good tones and the RANGE, mon! It's well worth the price of patience.

*2. DuoPhase. What a nice phaser. Even with the LFO bleed.

3. Obsidius/Darkglass b3k/Yohualli Ehécatl or Mictlán (I built it before, but rediscovered it when i built it for 3 friends this year by accident). Filthy, filthy, feral and grimy bassery.

*4. Aion acoustic 360. Clean, clean, happy sparkly bassery. Until you kick on the fuzz. That's fun and all-- but the clean channel is so fine.

*5. Ooo, it's a toughie. I have several candidates in projects that I've breadboarded and not actually built and time exploring yet. CDB mod Animals diamond peak and germanium filter, I'm looking at you. Or I could do the Effects Layout EL-120 once I actually biased it correctly because it's a big gristly doom machine, or the Chalumeau because it makes my 5 year old laugh and it's a pretty neat modulation with not a bad fuzz to boot.

But it will have to be my Moonn Sojus-31 schematic PTP fuzz. It's just so peculiar sounding and looking that I love it and I did my very first breadboarding and circuit tweaking with it. Aw. My baby and the good old days of January 2025.
 
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