jwyles90
Well-known member
Got two pedals today. The first one is the Chop Shop that I put together for my father in-law's birthday. My partner does the majority of the artwork on the pedals I make, and this one is probably my favorite that she's done so far. It's so pretty, I was a little sad to see it go (even if my FIL is a significantly better player than I am).
The Sag knob is interesting on this one. I tried to get J201s that matched the recommended voltage as best I could, got one that was right at 6.6v and the other was at 6.8v, so I think it works the way it's supposed to. That said it's a fairly subtle effect that you really don't hear much of until the knob is set to at least 1 o'clock. Same goes for gain, it's got just a touch of crunch to it until you get it up to 3 o'clock or so and then it becomes more apparent. Definitely not a bad thing by any means, as I'm told this is supposed to be a relatively low gain pedal, it's just somewhat different than what I'm used to. With the sag turned up a bit it does have a really nice, kind of flubby saturated tone that I was really enjoying.
The second pedal is the Spirit Box. My partner asked me what kind of pedal it was to try and get some inspiration so I just told her it was a "spooky reverb" and then she must have forgotten because she threw a bunch of glitter on it haha. We decided to call it Spooky Disco Party. I love the way it looks, and think it's way cooler than anything my moody ol brain could've come up with. I thought using a Belton brick would be daunting but it was actually super simple and straightforward. I also heard that it was worth it to replace R4 with an 18K resistor, so I did that as well. I don't know what the original build with the 10K value sounds like, but this one at least doesn't have any issues with unity volume. I'm really enjoying the way the pedal sounds, especially with that little bit of pre-delay that it has. It can really add a lot of space to your sound, or you can dial it back a bit to get a nice little bit of reverb there. Pretty great pedal overall.
The first clip I have the gain and sag knobs dialed up a bit on the Chop shop so you can hear them a little more. The second clip I've got everything cleaned up a bit (with some phaser thrown in there because why not).
Clip 1
Clip 2
The Sag knob is interesting on this one. I tried to get J201s that matched the recommended voltage as best I could, got one that was right at 6.6v and the other was at 6.8v, so I think it works the way it's supposed to. That said it's a fairly subtle effect that you really don't hear much of until the knob is set to at least 1 o'clock. Same goes for gain, it's got just a touch of crunch to it until you get it up to 3 o'clock or so and then it becomes more apparent. Definitely not a bad thing by any means, as I'm told this is supposed to be a relatively low gain pedal, it's just somewhat different than what I'm used to. With the sag turned up a bit it does have a really nice, kind of flubby saturated tone that I was really enjoying.
The second pedal is the Spirit Box. My partner asked me what kind of pedal it was to try and get some inspiration so I just told her it was a "spooky reverb" and then she must have forgotten because she threw a bunch of glitter on it haha. We decided to call it Spooky Disco Party. I love the way it looks, and think it's way cooler than anything my moody ol brain could've come up with. I thought using a Belton brick would be daunting but it was actually super simple and straightforward. I also heard that it was worth it to replace R4 with an 18K resistor, so I did that as well. I don't know what the original build with the 10K value sounds like, but this one at least doesn't have any issues with unity volume. I'm really enjoying the way the pedal sounds, especially with that little bit of pre-delay that it has. It can really add a lot of space to your sound, or you can dial it back a bit to get a nice little bit of reverb there. Pretty great pedal overall.
The first clip I have the gain and sag knobs dialed up a bit on the Chop shop so you can hear them a little more. The second clip I've got everything cleaned up a bit (with some phaser thrown in there because why not).
Clip 1
Clip 2
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