rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is a report on my build of the EQD Acapulco Gold. This was one of my very first builds, and I've now built several. I started with the PPCB El Sol Distortion, but ended up making my own PCB for this one. I saw this in some "favorites" lists when I first started and I think this might still be the first pedal I'd recommend building to someone new.
Inspiration
I mean the inspiration is pretty obvious. Acapulco Gold is a legendary name and I wanted a riff on that. There's plenty of "Gold" birds, but the names are often pretty long. Acapulco Goldfinch just sounds great. Luckily, goldfinches live in Mexico. The American Goldfinch is what I and most people are probably most familiar with. It's the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa, and Washington. I like them, they're pretty birds, very common, with a sweet song. I do think it's ridiculous that all those states have the same state bird...
Anyway, there's also a Lesser Goldfinch, which is the one found in Mexico. And there are various color morphs for the Lesser Goldfinch (color morphs are different coat variations among the same species - sorta like shiny Pokemon). So I went with the color morph common in Mexico and Texas, one with a solid black back. Voila! Acapulco Goldfinch.
As for the design, I had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted - a geometric kind of bird with a SW aesthetic in the background - red rocks, saguaro cacti, etc. I live in the PNW but I have a soft spot for the American SW - I do think that Utah, Arizona and NM are the most stunning states. So I was excited to do a pedal that had some of that SW spirit - even if it's not as distinctly Mexican. I iterated on this design a lot, many were also somewhat problematic due to knob positioning. The one posted here is my favorite, but the text at the top is still compressed by the knob. The knob should sit lower or I might move the text below the bird. So it's still not perfect.
I do have a shameful admission (even more shameful than the fact that I had to use a white washer, having run out of metal ones). When I first started building pedals, I saw some of the cool designs y'all hand-drew or painted on pedals, so I tried my hand at that using a micron marker. This is the one and only time I did so. The result was absolutely tragic - it was hard to get my hand onto the surface so it was wrapped awkwardly around the pedal; as a lefty with slow-drying ink on a solid surface, I smeared it all over. The result was somehow vaguely testicular. I'll stick with a Wacom tablet and UV prints, thank you very much
.
The Build
This was the first one-knob pedal whose PCB I laid out myself and then put in an enclosure. Mistake! The first one-knob PCBs I laid out... for some reason I had the bright idea of putting the pot pins on the bottom of the layout. I think I was picturing cramming them into a tiny enclosure where the PCB could sit on top of the drum of the potentiometer, taking up the smallest space possible. This was a bad idea, since I had an enclosure where I'd drilled the hole high up, since I couldn't get the PCB + caps to not collide with the audio jacks. I had to rearrange the PCB and refab it, and also nudge the knob lower (I could have used perf board but I'm a perfectionist and I like replicable builds...). Luckily adjusting the layout is pretty simple with such a basic pedal. I'm pretty happy of the result, which is super-symmetrical. I've sold one of these at my local music store and hope to sell more, since they're cheap to assemble.
The Pedal
It's great, especially given so few components. The sound is raw, rich, and very loud. The components are simple, and it keeps things simple with an unpretentious single knob. I think it's a wonderful-sounding fuzz, although I rarely turn it up past 9:00. There's other one-knob fuzzes (for example, I also like the Dunwich Cthulhu), but for me this sounds the best so far. There are probably better ones out there of course and I'll keep poking around - or I could make one by just dropping some knobs from another fuzz. But still, there's something charming about the simplicity.
Ratings
Inspiration
I mean the inspiration is pretty obvious. Acapulco Gold is a legendary name and I wanted a riff on that. There's plenty of "Gold" birds, but the names are often pretty long. Acapulco Goldfinch just sounds great. Luckily, goldfinches live in Mexico. The American Goldfinch is what I and most people are probably most familiar with. It's the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa, and Washington. I like them, they're pretty birds, very common, with a sweet song. I do think it's ridiculous that all those states have the same state bird...
Anyway, there's also a Lesser Goldfinch, which is the one found in Mexico. And there are various color morphs for the Lesser Goldfinch (color morphs are different coat variations among the same species - sorta like shiny Pokemon). So I went with the color morph common in Mexico and Texas, one with a solid black back. Voila! Acapulco Goldfinch.
As for the design, I had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted - a geometric kind of bird with a SW aesthetic in the background - red rocks, saguaro cacti, etc. I live in the PNW but I have a soft spot for the American SW - I do think that Utah, Arizona and NM are the most stunning states. So I was excited to do a pedal that had some of that SW spirit - even if it's not as distinctly Mexican. I iterated on this design a lot, many were also somewhat problematic due to knob positioning. The one posted here is my favorite, but the text at the top is still compressed by the knob. The knob should sit lower or I might move the text below the bird. So it's still not perfect.
I do have a shameful admission (even more shameful than the fact that I had to use a white washer, having run out of metal ones). When I first started building pedals, I saw some of the cool designs y'all hand-drew or painted on pedals, so I tried my hand at that using a micron marker. This is the one and only time I did so. The result was absolutely tragic - it was hard to get my hand onto the surface so it was wrapped awkwardly around the pedal; as a lefty with slow-drying ink on a solid surface, I smeared it all over. The result was somehow vaguely testicular. I'll stick with a Wacom tablet and UV prints, thank you very much
.
The Build
This was the first one-knob pedal whose PCB I laid out myself and then put in an enclosure. Mistake! The first one-knob PCBs I laid out... for some reason I had the bright idea of putting the pot pins on the bottom of the layout. I think I was picturing cramming them into a tiny enclosure where the PCB could sit on top of the drum of the potentiometer, taking up the smallest space possible. This was a bad idea, since I had an enclosure where I'd drilled the hole high up, since I couldn't get the PCB + caps to not collide with the audio jacks. I had to rearrange the PCB and refab it, and also nudge the knob lower (I could have used perf board but I'm a perfectionist and I like replicable builds...). Luckily adjusting the layout is pretty simple with such a basic pedal. I'm pretty happy of the result, which is super-symmetrical. I've sold one of these at my local music store and hope to sell more, since they're cheap to assemble.
The Pedal
It's great, especially given so few components. The sound is raw, rich, and very loud. The components are simple, and it keeps things simple with an unpretentious single knob. I think it's a wonderful-sounding fuzz, although I rarely turn it up past 9:00. There's other one-knob fuzzes (for example, I also like the Dunwich Cthulhu), but for me this sounds the best so far. There are probably better ones out there of course and I'll keep poking around - or I could make one by just dropping some knobs from another fuzz. But still, there's something charming about the simplicity.
Ratings
- Build: 4.5/5
- Pedal: 5/5
