rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is my build report for the Carcass Fuzz, based on the DOD Carcosa Fuzz. This pedal was recommended on the forum and on Reddit on a bunch of threads. This was an early build for me, but took a long time to actually complete.
Inspiration
With a name like Carcass (and The King in Yellow), it's easy to think about vultures, so it was an easy theme to go with. I chose the ubiquitous Turkey Vulture, latin name Cathartes Aura. I just gave the latin name to the pedal. I didn't want to call it a Turkey Fuzz
.
This was one of my first three UV prints (along with the the Caesar/Pelagia Chorus, and Horus/Dung Beetle Fuzz). Overall I'm happy with the design, which is basic but clean.
There's a bunch of design differences from my more recent pedals, though, so it's still a little off-brand. First, I've started putting the type of effect in the name of the pedal. So today I would call this the "Cathartes Fuzz," which makes a lot more sense than what I chose. I'd also go with a more stylized vector art (I stylized the head but the wings have too much detail). I got one label slightly wrong - it's Hali, and not Thali. And I'd make the borders thicker, with rounded corners rather than square - something @Brett recommended just after I'd placed my Tayda order. But these are minor things and the design is still satisfying to me.
The Build
What a mess. I made some kind of mistake on my original build (which was probably among the first 10 that I built), and I spent maybe 2 late-night hours ineffectually debugging it before I finally gave in, said "the pcb and parts are cheap enough" and bought another one. I still haven't figured out what I did wrong with my original pcb - it wasn't passing sound at all. Probing showed sound with some fuzz at different points in the pedal, but I'm just not that great at debugging. I bent the hell out of the pots in the process, swapped out a few capacitors, and so on, to no effect.
I don't mind having that busted pcb because I can go back when I have some spare time and maybe some more experience and do a proper job of debugging. And worst case it's a chance to practice desoldering, especially of pots and switches.
The second build, with more experience under my belt, was easy enough. It's not really a hard build if you don't mess up!
The Pedal
It's a pretty weird pedal. To be honest at the time of purchasing the second PCB, I wasn't looking for that much more fuzz and I probably would have just given up, except I had printed a design before deciding if I really wanted the pedal (now I audition and only go through the effort of designs for my favorites). So I had this printed enclosure sitting there and figured it would still be good to fill it.
First off, the knobs are weird. The manual is pretty solid and helps clarify things, but the labels are different than most pedals and I don't really have an intuitive sense for how they interact. When the manual says "BEFORE - Increases/Decreases the amount of fuzz"... I wish the knob was just called "fuzz!"
The cool thing about this pedal is that I think there's a very diverse set of potential sounds you can get with effectively 3 knobs and a switch (ignoring the output knob). I think there's more potential sounds in this than any other fuzz I've tried. There's some brassiness like the Trumpeter, sometimes, sometimes it's pretty glitchy/staticky, sometimes it's got a very dry thumping tone.
The bad thing about it is that I don't really enjoy any of them. Almost all the sounds have a sorta glitchy treble crunch - either very prominent or faintly in the background. It's obviously worse with the high-cut knob turned CW. And with the fuzz turned up (e.g. with the After or Before knobs up high) the fuzz is really abrasive. Its got a sound like sandpaper. Most settings either hurt my ears... or if I turn the fuzz/cut down, sound muted and dead. There's little in-between. In contrast, with other fuzzes I've built and enjoyed, like the Dung Beetle, Chalumeau, Glyph, Trumpeter, or Pyrocumulus, I love some or all of the sounds - they make me want to noodle and keep playing.
It might just be my taste, but overall I'm disappointed. It's just not my thing.
Firsts
Pedal rating: 2/5
Inspiration
With a name like Carcass (and The King in Yellow), it's easy to think about vultures, so it was an easy theme to go with. I chose the ubiquitous Turkey Vulture, latin name Cathartes Aura. I just gave the latin name to the pedal. I didn't want to call it a Turkey Fuzz
.This was one of my first three UV prints (along with the the Caesar/Pelagia Chorus, and Horus/Dung Beetle Fuzz). Overall I'm happy with the design, which is basic but clean.
There's a bunch of design differences from my more recent pedals, though, so it's still a little off-brand. First, I've started putting the type of effect in the name of the pedal. So today I would call this the "Cathartes Fuzz," which makes a lot more sense than what I chose. I'd also go with a more stylized vector art (I stylized the head but the wings have too much detail). I got one label slightly wrong - it's Hali, and not Thali. And I'd make the borders thicker, with rounded corners rather than square - something @Brett recommended just after I'd placed my Tayda order. But these are minor things and the design is still satisfying to me.
The Build
What a mess. I made some kind of mistake on my original build (which was probably among the first 10 that I built), and I spent maybe 2 late-night hours ineffectually debugging it before I finally gave in, said "the pcb and parts are cheap enough" and bought another one. I still haven't figured out what I did wrong with my original pcb - it wasn't passing sound at all. Probing showed sound with some fuzz at different points in the pedal, but I'm just not that great at debugging. I bent the hell out of the pots in the process, swapped out a few capacitors, and so on, to no effect.
I don't mind having that busted pcb because I can go back when I have some spare time and maybe some more experience and do a proper job of debugging. And worst case it's a chance to practice desoldering, especially of pots and switches.
The second build, with more experience under my belt, was easy enough. It's not really a hard build if you don't mess up!
The Pedal
It's a pretty weird pedal. To be honest at the time of purchasing the second PCB, I wasn't looking for that much more fuzz and I probably would have just given up, except I had printed a design before deciding if I really wanted the pedal (now I audition and only go through the effort of designs for my favorites). So I had this printed enclosure sitting there and figured it would still be good to fill it.
First off, the knobs are weird. The manual is pretty solid and helps clarify things, but the labels are different than most pedals and I don't really have an intuitive sense for how they interact. When the manual says "BEFORE - Increases/Decreases the amount of fuzz"... I wish the knob was just called "fuzz!"
The cool thing about this pedal is that I think there's a very diverse set of potential sounds you can get with effectively 3 knobs and a switch (ignoring the output knob). I think there's more potential sounds in this than any other fuzz I've tried. There's some brassiness like the Trumpeter, sometimes, sometimes it's pretty glitchy/staticky, sometimes it's got a very dry thumping tone.
The bad thing about it is that I don't really enjoy any of them. Almost all the sounds have a sorta glitchy treble crunch - either very prominent or faintly in the background. It's obviously worse with the high-cut knob turned CW. And with the fuzz turned up (e.g. with the After or Before knobs up high) the fuzz is really abrasive. Its got a sound like sandpaper. Most settings either hurt my ears... or if I turn the fuzz/cut down, sound muted and dead. There's little in-between. In contrast, with other fuzzes I've built and enjoyed, like the Dung Beetle, Chalumeau, Glyph, Trumpeter, or Pyrocumulus, I love some or all of the sounds - they make me want to noodle and keep playing.
It might just be my taste, but overall I'm disappointed. It's just not my thing.
Firsts
First pedal where I had to purchase the PCB twice 
Pedal rating: 2/5
