p_wats
Well-known member
Someone in my neighbourhood overheard me talking about building pedals, including my backlog of boards, and asked me to build a complete setup of 5 pedals for them, as they had none at the moment. I'm not sure either of us thought it was a legitimate proposition at first, but we talked through what sort of stuff he likes (high gain, delay, reverb) and any effects he doesn't enjoy (no chorus, tremolo or compression) and my brain started working through what I could do without needing to order anything.
Fast forward a few months of procrastination, holidays and general decision paralysis and here we are!
In the end, I went with the following:
DOOM = Parentheses Mini, as it satisfied his high-gain needs and then some (I also had 2 of these boards and planned to build at least one for myself anyway)
EXPLODE = Spasm Chasm (boutique Muff). Would you believe I've never built/owned a muff of any kind? Had 2 of these board kicking around for ages too and built this to somewhat Green Russian specs. Added a toggle to remove the clipping diodes of the second stage, to give it more of an overdrive character if needed. Populated one for myself while I was at it, but haven't boxed it up
SWIRL = ROG Tri-Vibe (on an ancient board), as I love subtle modulation after/between distortion and figured it's useful without being overbearing
CAVE = Neptune delay (Culture Jam's design on another ancient board). Dark delay with a "warp" switch that uses an LDR to jump the delay time up and down. I added internal trimpots to adjust the max delay time (to keep it from being too noisy, unless that's desired) as well as the onset of the warp switch. Also adjusted the max feedback to be just on the edge of self-oscillation. Super fun circuit
SPACE = Gravitation Reverb, which I initially populated for myself, but am also working on a Troglodyte that will serve me better. Cool reverb with some nice options. Labelled the "tone" control as "low", because I always forgot it was just adding/removing low end from the reverb signal (and can be very subtle)
Overall I forgot how good we have it now that things like LEDs/CLRs and reverse polarity diodes are included on modern boards. Ended up making a few little perf daughter boards for the LEDs of some of the older boards to keep it somewhat tidy (a losing battle)
Had some fun trying some acrylic markers for the designs and paint pens for the lettering. More considered than my usual spray splatter. More experiements to come on that front
The 5 pedals work really well together and the pictured order is where I've landed personally, as the Parentheses feeds very nicely into the Spasm Chasm (muff adding oomph to the harsh clarity of the rat), but I've gone back and forth on the Tri-Vibe between them, as it's sometimes nice to have a phaser before a drive pedal. They are off to their new home today, so we'll see!
In the end, it was a fun exercise, but it took a lot of playing around/modifying/mental energy to settle on these, so in future I'd prefer more direction (though I don't build for people often and have been winding down building in general, so we'll see)
Fast forward a few months of procrastination, holidays and general decision paralysis and here we are!
In the end, I went with the following:
DOOM = Parentheses Mini, as it satisfied his high-gain needs and then some (I also had 2 of these boards and planned to build at least one for myself anyway)
EXPLODE = Spasm Chasm (boutique Muff). Would you believe I've never built/owned a muff of any kind? Had 2 of these board kicking around for ages too and built this to somewhat Green Russian specs. Added a toggle to remove the clipping diodes of the second stage, to give it more of an overdrive character if needed. Populated one for myself while I was at it, but haven't boxed it up
SWIRL = ROG Tri-Vibe (on an ancient board), as I love subtle modulation after/between distortion and figured it's useful without being overbearing
CAVE = Neptune delay (Culture Jam's design on another ancient board). Dark delay with a "warp" switch that uses an LDR to jump the delay time up and down. I added internal trimpots to adjust the max delay time (to keep it from being too noisy, unless that's desired) as well as the onset of the warp switch. Also adjusted the max feedback to be just on the edge of self-oscillation. Super fun circuit
SPACE = Gravitation Reverb, which I initially populated for myself, but am also working on a Troglodyte that will serve me better. Cool reverb with some nice options. Labelled the "tone" control as "low", because I always forgot it was just adding/removing low end from the reverb signal (and can be very subtle)
Overall I forgot how good we have it now that things like LEDs/CLRs and reverse polarity diodes are included on modern boards. Ended up making a few little perf daughter boards for the LEDs of some of the older boards to keep it somewhat tidy (a losing battle)
Had some fun trying some acrylic markers for the designs and paint pens for the lettering. More considered than my usual spray splatter. More experiements to come on that front
The 5 pedals work really well together and the pictured order is where I've landed personally, as the Parentheses feeds very nicely into the Spasm Chasm (muff adding oomph to the harsh clarity of the rat), but I've gone back and forth on the Tri-Vibe between them, as it's sometimes nice to have a phaser before a drive pedal. They are off to their new home today, so we'll see!
In the end, it was a fun exercise, but it took a lot of playing around/modifying/mental energy to settle on these, so in future I'd prefer more direction (though I don't build for people often and have been winding down building in general, so we'll see)
