rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is a report for the Dyl-Ei Fuzz Apprentice, a variation of the Shin-ei FY-2 Companion Fuzz. I was looking for a simple circuit to try laying out a PCB, which hadn't previously been laid out, and this seemed to fit the bill. I found Dylan159's page via the @szukalski pedals.
It's an easy build and I've made the gerber available on GitHub, with Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licensing.
Inspiration
I was struggling a bit trying to figure out what would be appropriate - thinking about the Apprentice/Companion name, but nothing stood out to me.
In the end I settled on the Shiny Cowbird as the bird for this pedal. The Shiny Cowbird name was chosen for two reasons:
The Build
I wanted to try learning KiCad and this was my first effort. I actually built the pedal twice - easy because it's about 20 components, all very common. The first layout I wasn't sure how spacing would work and figured I'd just fabricate it and see what happened, and I built that and housed it in a plain enclosure. But I messed up one capacitor footprint and also used footprints for the transistors with very little spacing, so I made another set of PCBs to test out... then had to wait for my next Tayda order for the enclosure and A100K pots.
In both cases the PCB worked fine. It's a very simple, enjoyable build if I say so myself.
The Pedal
I like it. It's not a pleasant-sounding pedal, with a somewhat nasally tone, but I think it's unique - I can't think of another fuzz that sounds like this. I don't think it'll be a permanent fixture on my board, but might play a role in some songwriting. The 'notch' control has a huge impact on the voicing, much more than I've seen on other pedals. There's no background hiss at all, and the gain is not overwhelming.
Dylan159 has a demo at the bottom of his page, though I'd say in person it sounds a bit less nasally than the recording (0:50 is probably the most usable sound).
Firsts
Pedal rating: 4/5
It's an easy build and I've made the gerber available on GitHub, with Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licensing.
Inspiration
I was struggling a bit trying to figure out what would be appropriate - thinking about the Apprentice/Companion name, but nothing stood out to me.
In the end I settled on the Shiny Cowbird as the bird for this pedal. The Shiny Cowbird name was chosen for two reasons:
- The original pedal is the Shin-ei Companion Fuzz, so I wanted to have Shiny in the name.
- Cowbirds are obligate brood parasites. This means that they cannot construct nests or incubate eggs on their own. Instead, they lay eggs in the nests of other birds, and then the cowbird hatchlings will try to dominate the other hatchlings - by growing faster and often pushing the host hatchlings out of the nest! Quite nasty, but I felt this fit with the "Companion/Apprentice" naming in a dark way!
The Build
I wanted to try learning KiCad and this was my first effort. I actually built the pedal twice - easy because it's about 20 components, all very common. The first layout I wasn't sure how spacing would work and figured I'd just fabricate it and see what happened, and I built that and housed it in a plain enclosure. But I messed up one capacitor footprint and also used footprints for the transistors with very little spacing, so I made another set of PCBs to test out... then had to wait for my next Tayda order for the enclosure and A100K pots.
In both cases the PCB worked fine. It's a very simple, enjoyable build if I say so myself.
The Pedal
I like it. It's not a pleasant-sounding pedal, with a somewhat nasally tone, but I think it's unique - I can't think of another fuzz that sounds like this. I don't think it'll be a permanent fixture on my board, but might play a role in some songwriting. The 'notch' control has a huge impact on the voicing, much more than I've seen on other pedals. There's no background hiss at all, and the gain is not overwhelming.
Dylan159 has a demo at the bottom of his page, though I'd say in person it sounds a bit less nasally than the recording (0:50 is probably the most usable sound).
Firsts
First self-designed PCB
First metallic green pedal
Pedal rating: 4/5
