MichaelW
Well-known member
I've been sitting on a PPCB Episode Booster board for quite some time. I think it was in one my very first orders, when I was first starting the whole DIY thing I figured once I replaced all the retail pedals on my board I'd be done........(insert sardonic snickering).......
I had also bought the Clandestine and AionFX Ares Legacy boards. I wound up building the Clandestine first and it has been a staple and I didn't feel the need to also build the Episode or Ares as they all do essentially the same thing.
So fast forward to my recent intro the world of relay switching. I needed a platform to build out the relay board I got. So I decided to use the Episode.
This is where things started going south. My first mistake was assuming it would all fit into a 1590B.
I quickly found out that I needed more depth for the relay board. I so scrubbed that idea and decided to just go with a 3PDT.
Second mistake, the Episode Boost has an obnoxious number of electrolytic caps and really not a good candidate for a 1590B enclosure.
So in full disclosure, I borked my first attempt at building the Episode. Since I had already drilled the 1590B I decided to go with it, installed all the e-caps and did a LOT of bending to make it all fit. I think I overdid it. I was also having issues with my soldering iron not getting hot enough that day, (turned out to be a bad tip) but instead of stopping and investigating, I pushed forward with the build even though the solder wasn't behaving like it normally does. Suffice to say, it doesn't work, I have a pretty good idea why, but after messing with it for a couple hours I decided to toss it into my "box 'o' shame" of non-working builds to come back to later.
So what to do with the enclosure I drilled? Well, of course order another Episode board, which I did
This time around I decided to use Tantalums for most of the E-caps and it made life a lot easier. I only needed to deal with bending the 2 100u caps to get it all to fit.
I used a MMBF5457 pre-soldered onto an SOT adapter from AionFx. I used @Big Monk's formula for EP3 style preamp biasing of 65% of incoming voltage, which in my case wound up at 5.07v for Q1.
So comparing it side by side with my Xotic EP Booster and Clandestine Preamp. I think I like the Clandestine the best tonally, but it's somewhat limited in controls and dynamic range. The Xotic is cleaner sounding but a pain in the butt to access the dip switches so I didn't really do an Apples to Apple comparison. I can't remember how I left my Xotic configured last time I used it. The Episode is cool in that you have access to all the settings via toggles.
The "Fat" setting is definitely fatter and warmer than either the Xotic or Clandestine. But with the bright switch you can also get a nice neutral boost as well.
9v vs 18v I'm not really hearing much difference, as it's pretty high headroom already. The 3db gain toggle does just that, I'll probably run that turned off as I normally run this pedal at unity gain, which is about 8 o'clock for me on this build with Q1 biased as is. You CAN get a lot more gain with more aggressive biasing but that's not how I tend to use these types of pedals. It's more of a tone "conditioner" or "tone sweetener". (Incidentally, I also grabbed the EV Pre and Celsius Pre boards for future builds that kinda do the same thing.)
Another early morning pic, I was not originally intending to go with the Cream on Cream look but the only C10k pot I had was a split shaft knurled one. And I have a bag of these press on knobs that I bought by accident. Seems like they were made for each other
I had also bought the Clandestine and AionFX Ares Legacy boards. I wound up building the Clandestine first and it has been a staple and I didn't feel the need to also build the Episode or Ares as they all do essentially the same thing.
So fast forward to my recent intro the world of relay switching. I needed a platform to build out the relay board I got. So I decided to use the Episode.
This is where things started going south. My first mistake was assuming it would all fit into a 1590B.
I quickly found out that I needed more depth for the relay board. I so scrubbed that idea and decided to just go with a 3PDT.
Second mistake, the Episode Boost has an obnoxious number of electrolytic caps and really not a good candidate for a 1590B enclosure.
So in full disclosure, I borked my first attempt at building the Episode. Since I had already drilled the 1590B I decided to go with it, installed all the e-caps and did a LOT of bending to make it all fit. I think I overdid it. I was also having issues with my soldering iron not getting hot enough that day, (turned out to be a bad tip) but instead of stopping and investigating, I pushed forward with the build even though the solder wasn't behaving like it normally does. Suffice to say, it doesn't work, I have a pretty good idea why, but after messing with it for a couple hours I decided to toss it into my "box 'o' shame" of non-working builds to come back to later.
So what to do with the enclosure I drilled? Well, of course order another Episode board, which I did
This time around I decided to use Tantalums for most of the E-caps and it made life a lot easier. I only needed to deal with bending the 2 100u caps to get it all to fit.
I used a MMBF5457 pre-soldered onto an SOT adapter from AionFx. I used @Big Monk's formula for EP3 style preamp biasing of 65% of incoming voltage, which in my case wound up at 5.07v for Q1.
So comparing it side by side with my Xotic EP Booster and Clandestine Preamp. I think I like the Clandestine the best tonally, but it's somewhat limited in controls and dynamic range. The Xotic is cleaner sounding but a pain in the butt to access the dip switches so I didn't really do an Apples to Apple comparison. I can't remember how I left my Xotic configured last time I used it. The Episode is cool in that you have access to all the settings via toggles.
The "Fat" setting is definitely fatter and warmer than either the Xotic or Clandestine. But with the bright switch you can also get a nice neutral boost as well.
9v vs 18v I'm not really hearing much difference, as it's pretty high headroom already. The 3db gain toggle does just that, I'll probably run that turned off as I normally run this pedal at unity gain, which is about 8 o'clock for me on this build with Q1 biased as is. You CAN get a lot more gain with more aggressive biasing but that's not how I tend to use these types of pedals. It's more of a tone "conditioner" or "tone sweetener". (Incidentally, I also grabbed the EV Pre and Celsius Pre boards for future builds that kinda do the same thing.)
Another early morning pic, I was not originally intending to go with the Cream on Cream look but the only C10k pot I had was a split shaft knurled one. And I have a bag of these press on knobs that I bought by accident. Seems like they were made for each other