Boss used to make the SD-2, which was a two-in-one overdrive/distortion pedal, conceptually similar to their current-production Angry Driver. The two modes were "crunch" and "lead". AionFX offers a PCB of the lead mode: Tachyon Amp Overdrive.
This pedal rips! I wish Boss would bring this back in the 2-in-1 format, but paired with the OD-3 circuit. The distortion is so tight, and the sustain is unreal.
If I had one nitpick, it's that the tone control is (at least for me) somewhat worthless for the first third or maybe even half of it's sweep. I'm using it with the tone around 3:00, and that's with a fairly bright rig. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like that, or if I used the wrong component somewhere. But it's good enough to be usable, definitely keeping this on the board!
The actual build was unremarkable. I was missing one component and ran out of another, so it had to sit in an almost-finished state while I waited on parts delivery. (And it was worth the wait!) The enclosure is Tayda "glimmer brown sugar"; I was worried the black waterslide decal wouldn't show up on it, but it turned out quite nice I think. As usual, my waterslide decal isn't perfectly centered. But what really distracts from the aesthetics is the ugly drilling job on the LED hole - I think the next step of my stepper bit started on that hole, and the LED bezel isn't big enough to cover it up. And of course the ugliest drill hole lights up to draw even more attention to it! I tried using a pot washer on the LED bezel, but it was like 1mm too small. I need to see if I can find a wider LED bezel or a slightly wider dress washer.
Either way, it sounds a million times better than it looks! I might end building a second anyway.
If you want to see a truly immaculate Tachyon build and demo, look no further than @Guardians of the analog. That build completely outclasses mine! But that's OK because it's so much fun to play!
I use my own relay bypass circuit. This is v1.1, which is a cosmetic improvement of v1.0.
This is a fairly interesting circuit too. At least as far as my limited knowledge is concerned, the circuit doesn't appear to be a modded version of any of the usual suspects. There's several gain stages. As @Guardians of the analog suggested, Friedman may have taken inspiration from this circuit for his own designs. I'm curious, for those who have played the Tachyon/SD-2 Lead Mode, and any of the Friedman pedals, if there are similarities in tone and/or feel?
This pedal rips! I wish Boss would bring this back in the 2-in-1 format, but paired with the OD-3 circuit. The distortion is so tight, and the sustain is unreal.
If I had one nitpick, it's that the tone control is (at least for me) somewhat worthless for the first third or maybe even half of it's sweep. I'm using it with the tone around 3:00, and that's with a fairly bright rig. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like that, or if I used the wrong component somewhere. But it's good enough to be usable, definitely keeping this on the board!
The actual build was unremarkable. I was missing one component and ran out of another, so it had to sit in an almost-finished state while I waited on parts delivery. (And it was worth the wait!) The enclosure is Tayda "glimmer brown sugar"; I was worried the black waterslide decal wouldn't show up on it, but it turned out quite nice I think. As usual, my waterslide decal isn't perfectly centered. But what really distracts from the aesthetics is the ugly drilling job on the LED hole - I think the next step of my stepper bit started on that hole, and the LED bezel isn't big enough to cover it up. And of course the ugliest drill hole lights up to draw even more attention to it! I tried using a pot washer on the LED bezel, but it was like 1mm too small. I need to see if I can find a wider LED bezel or a slightly wider dress washer.
Either way, it sounds a million times better than it looks! I might end building a second anyway.
If you want to see a truly immaculate Tachyon build and demo, look no further than @Guardians of the analog. That build completely outclasses mine! But that's OK because it's so much fun to play!
I use my own relay bypass circuit. This is v1.1, which is a cosmetic improvement of v1.0.
This is a fairly interesting circuit too. At least as far as my limited knowledge is concerned, the circuit doesn't appear to be a modded version of any of the usual suspects. There's several gain stages. As @Guardians of the analog suggested, Friedman may have taken inspiration from this circuit for his own designs. I'm curious, for those who have played the Tachyon/SD-2 Lead Mode, and any of the Friedman pedals, if there are similarities in tone and/or feel?
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