- Build Rating
This is a build of the Blue Shoe Gai Pan, based on the JHS PG-14. I chose this build because it seemed to be popular on the forum and I figured that was a good indicator of a fun experience and useful pedal.
The original pedal has a blue shoe, this is the Blue Shoe Gai Pan - what bird could possibly be relevant? The illustrious Blue-Footed Booby! This majestic creature lives along the Pacific Coast of South and Central America, including the Galapagos Islands. It's a really charming bird that sings and dances to impress a mate, including showing off its bright blue feet. Part of the dance includes synchronized neck wobbles with the mate, which is especially charming. I found watching videos after the build that the pedal is basically two JHS pedals glued together (haunting mids and an amp simulator). So having two boobies is appropriate
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Populating the PCB was straightforward, but I ran into some pain putting it in the enclosure. Even though I put electrical tape over the dual potentiometer, something seems to have shorted when tightening the pot nuts. I usually test board swith the Auditorium, then place it in the enclosure and hook up all the jacks, test again, and then tighten everything and add knobs... so the build passed everything and then was silent in the final stage. I took the pcb out a few times, covered all the pot legs with electrical tape, etc. But basically it would short as soon as the audio jacks touched the enclosure. Finally, I just didn't tighten the nuts as much and it seemed to work fine, but it was a frustrating experience basically re-installing the pedal 3 times. MAde me extra glad I use outie DC jacks now. I followed the short steps to bias the pedal here but haven't experimented much with adjusting the trim.
The enclosure pain is what gave the 4-star build rating; the pedal is amazing and clearly 5 stars, and I'm also very happy with the artwork. It's super versatile and it's kicked other distortion/overdrives off my small pedalboard. I haven't dialed in all the settings and I still can't quite visualize the interactions between all the knobs so I have a lot of experimenting and playing to do!
The original pedal has a blue shoe, this is the Blue Shoe Gai Pan - what bird could possibly be relevant? The illustrious Blue-Footed Booby! This majestic creature lives along the Pacific Coast of South and Central America, including the Galapagos Islands. It's a really charming bird that sings and dances to impress a mate, including showing off its bright blue feet. Part of the dance includes synchronized neck wobbles with the mate, which is especially charming. I found watching videos after the build that the pedal is basically two JHS pedals glued together (haunting mids and an amp simulator). So having two boobies is appropriate
.Populating the PCB was straightforward, but I ran into some pain putting it in the enclosure. Even though I put electrical tape over the dual potentiometer, something seems to have shorted when tightening the pot nuts. I usually test board swith the Auditorium, then place it in the enclosure and hook up all the jacks, test again, and then tighten everything and add knobs... so the build passed everything and then was silent in the final stage. I took the pcb out a few times, covered all the pot legs with electrical tape, etc. But basically it would short as soon as the audio jacks touched the enclosure. Finally, I just didn't tighten the nuts as much and it seemed to work fine, but it was a frustrating experience basically re-installing the pedal 3 times. MAde me extra glad I use outie DC jacks now. I followed the short steps to bias the pedal here but haven't experimented much with adjusting the trim.
The enclosure pain is what gave the 4-star build rating; the pedal is amazing and clearly 5 stars, and I'm also very happy with the artwork. It's super versatile and it's kicked other distortion/overdrives off my small pedalboard. I haven't dialed in all the settings and I still can't quite visualize the interactions between all the knobs so I have a lot of experimenting and playing to do!
