MichaelW
Well-known member
Well, every once in a while you gotta build something that underwhelms you…..right @Dirty_Boogie?
This is another drive that was totally not on my radar, never even heard of it until I saw it on the website then watched Mike Herman’s video review. Not really a good gauge as much as I enjoy his reviews. He makes anything sound freaking awesome.
Billed as a low gain, edge of break up, kind of overdrive. I decided to build it this afternoon after a fairly busy work day for a Friday, I needed some bench time, solder therapy. I looked like a quick build and it certainly was.
It calls for 2 C150k pots which is a bit of an usual value but I knew I had a few so I went for it,.
Build went smooth and it came together pretty quickly. The only issue I had was the 470n output cap is silkscreened as an electrolytic. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a 470n electrolytic cap and certainly didn’t have one. So I put a film cap in its place. I really don’t think that could be contributing to what I’m hearing.
It‘s not a bad sounding drive, but nothing remarkable either. Definitely has a mid hump thing going on and sounds a bit TS-ish but I‘m not seeing the resemblence in the circuit schematic. Clipping provided by 4x 4148’s and a TL072.
There‘s a toggle called “Shift” which adds a 100n cap to fatten up the bass response, so it can definitely be tailored to a variety of guitars. The tone control is called “contour” and I was expecting it to be a bit more active than it really is. It sounds like a pretty pedestrian treble cut to me in actual use.
I dunno, I only spent about 20 minutes with it. Maybe it will grow on me a bit with some fresh ears tomorrow.
Doesn‘t help that i built a bunch of drive pedals this week and I’m reaching that point where they’re all starting to sound the same to me hahaha.
This is one of the $3.75 (plus 20% Black Friday discount) enclosure from SmallBear. Now i remember why I didn’t like the “red” enclosures……because it’s not red. Looks a bit fuschia to me.
I located the status LED according to the drill template and also remembered why I don’t like doing that. When I play sitting down at my desk with my pedals on the desk the knob completely hides the LED. This is the main reason you see in most of my builds I tend to wire my LEDs to the side of the foot switch, so I have a good view of it from a seated position. Obviously not an issue if you play standing up.
It sounded the best to me with my P90 guitars but I’ll mess with it some more tomorrow.
This is another drive that was totally not on my radar, never even heard of it until I saw it on the website then watched Mike Herman’s video review. Not really a good gauge as much as I enjoy his reviews. He makes anything sound freaking awesome.
Billed as a low gain, edge of break up, kind of overdrive. I decided to build it this afternoon after a fairly busy work day for a Friday, I needed some bench time, solder therapy. I looked like a quick build and it certainly was.
It calls for 2 C150k pots which is a bit of an usual value but I knew I had a few so I went for it,.
Build went smooth and it came together pretty quickly. The only issue I had was the 470n output cap is silkscreened as an electrolytic. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a 470n electrolytic cap and certainly didn’t have one. So I put a film cap in its place. I really don’t think that could be contributing to what I’m hearing.
It‘s not a bad sounding drive, but nothing remarkable either. Definitely has a mid hump thing going on and sounds a bit TS-ish but I‘m not seeing the resemblence in the circuit schematic. Clipping provided by 4x 4148’s and a TL072.
There‘s a toggle called “Shift” which adds a 100n cap to fatten up the bass response, so it can definitely be tailored to a variety of guitars. The tone control is called “contour” and I was expecting it to be a bit more active than it really is. It sounds like a pretty pedestrian treble cut to me in actual use.
I dunno, I only spent about 20 minutes with it. Maybe it will grow on me a bit with some fresh ears tomorrow.
Doesn‘t help that i built a bunch of drive pedals this week and I’m reaching that point where they’re all starting to sound the same to me hahaha.
This is one of the $3.75 (plus 20% Black Friday discount) enclosure from SmallBear. Now i remember why I didn’t like the “red” enclosures……because it’s not red. Looks a bit fuschia to me.
I located the status LED according to the drill template and also remembered why I don’t like doing that. When I play sitting down at my desk with my pedals on the desk the knob completely hides the LED. This is the main reason you see in most of my builds I tend to wire my LEDs to the side of the foot switch, so I have a good view of it from a seated position. Obviously not an issue if you play standing up.
It sounded the best to me with my P90 guitars but I’ll mess with it some more tomorrow.