jeffwhitfield
Well-known member
Talk about Cornish pedals seems to come up now and then around various guitar-related forums. A few of them have been on my wish list, including the ones at AionFX. Ended up getting the PedalPCB options because...well...I like the PCB's better and there's an extra option that AionFX doesn't have. So...three Cornish's altogether.
All of the builds were very straight-forward with the one excaption of the Germanium II (more on that later). I had to hack a few of the components though. One of the resistor values on the Semi-Sweet (a 1.6k resistor) required combining two resistors in series to get the correct value. I also had to be clever with the 220uF capacitors due to their size.
First up is the Germanium II Distortion (Cornish G-2). After finishing the build and turning it on for the first time, I was surprised at just how damn dark this one was. I started with D9K diodes and figured that might be the issue. Switched them out with a few different options but nothing really helped. Just felt spongy as hell and really dark. I ended up using a set of BAT42's in the first clipping stage and 1N270's in the last one. That improved the attack but the pedal still felt dark....even with my single-coil guitar.
After reading up on the issue, I ended up switching out some caps with lower values. AionFX talked about this in the documentation for their version of the same pedal. Ended up going with their recommendations. Glad I did cause once I switched out the caps and fired it up it really came to life. Seems to match the demos a heck of a lot closer. Probably not the exact same but...hell, I don't care. Sounds really awesome regardless. Probably one of my favorite Muff derivatives yet.
I finished both the Semi-Sweet and Nugget Fuzz at the same time. Tried out the Semi-Sweet Distortion first, which was pretty uneventful.
It's a great distortion box for sure. Has a great character about it. Need to play with it some more and see how it fares with different amp models. The Hi-Cut and Low-Cut controls are a pretty interesting option with this circuit. They impact the tone in a way that is much different than what you see on most distortion pedals that utilize a two-band EQ. Usually it's some sort of Baxandall stack. With this one though it seems that the overall tone in the mids is always there with options to roll off the highs and/or lows. Interesting to say the least.
The Nugget Fuzz was the last one and, like the Germanium II, surprised me at how dark it is. With this one though, it seems that's just part of the tone of this pedal. I played with the bias a bit to see if I could improve things. Set the Drive and Sustain controls at different settings and messed with the bias a bit. Dialed in what I though resulted in the best range for both controls. Once set, the overall character of the pedal improved. It's a pretty ripping velcro fuzz that's just asking to be stacked. Should be fun to play with!
Overall, these are pretty darn good pedals. Really like the Germanium II, especially after updating the caps. The Semi-Sweet looks to be a great addition as well. The Nugget Fuzz is a fuzz that kind of stands out on it's own. Probably the last favorit of the three...but I still like it.
All of the builds were very straight-forward with the one excaption of the Germanium II (more on that later). I had to hack a few of the components though. One of the resistor values on the Semi-Sweet (a 1.6k resistor) required combining two resistors in series to get the correct value. I also had to be clever with the 220uF capacitors due to their size.
First up is the Germanium II Distortion (Cornish G-2). After finishing the build and turning it on for the first time, I was surprised at just how damn dark this one was. I started with D9K diodes and figured that might be the issue. Switched them out with a few different options but nothing really helped. Just felt spongy as hell and really dark. I ended up using a set of BAT42's in the first clipping stage and 1N270's in the last one. That improved the attack but the pedal still felt dark....even with my single-coil guitar.
After reading up on the issue, I ended up switching out some caps with lower values. AionFX talked about this in the documentation for their version of the same pedal. Ended up going with their recommendations. Glad I did cause once I switched out the caps and fired it up it really came to life. Seems to match the demos a heck of a lot closer. Probably not the exact same but...hell, I don't care. Sounds really awesome regardless. Probably one of my favorite Muff derivatives yet.
I finished both the Semi-Sweet and Nugget Fuzz at the same time. Tried out the Semi-Sweet Distortion first, which was pretty uneventful.
It's a great distortion box for sure. Has a great character about it. Need to play with it some more and see how it fares with different amp models. The Hi-Cut and Low-Cut controls are a pretty interesting option with this circuit. They impact the tone in a way that is much different than what you see on most distortion pedals that utilize a two-band EQ. Usually it's some sort of Baxandall stack. With this one though it seems that the overall tone in the mids is always there with options to roll off the highs and/or lows. Interesting to say the least.
The Nugget Fuzz was the last one and, like the Germanium II, surprised me at how dark it is. With this one though, it seems that's just part of the tone of this pedal. I played with the bias a bit to see if I could improve things. Set the Drive and Sustain controls at different settings and messed with the bias a bit. Dialed in what I though resulted in the best range for both controls. Once set, the overall character of the pedal improved. It's a pretty ripping velcro fuzz that's just asking to be stacked. Should be fun to play with!
Overall, these are pretty darn good pedals. Really like the Germanium II, especially after updating the caps. The Semi-Sweet looks to be a great addition as well. The Nugget Fuzz is a fuzz that kind of stands out on it's own. Probably the last favorit of the three...but I still like it.
