cdwillis
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I built this a couple weeks ago and just realized I never made a built report. No gutshot because I forgot and I'm too lazy to take it back apart.
Only had one real hangup on the build. The big film capacitor next to the filter knob is in a bad spot. If you're going to build one of these I recommend leaving the cap off the board, soldering the pots in place, bending the filter pot out of the way, then soldering in the cap, and bending the filter pot back. I hate bending pot legs once they're soldered to the board, but once isn't too bad. That way you don't have to try to avoid that cap with the soldering iron tip while you solder the pot to the board. I've started using these outie DC jacks and they're really handy. I highly recommend them. It's one less thing I need to solder while everything is in the enclosure. I'm mostly down to just the LED, besides touching things up.
Does it replace my Rat/Muroidea with the LED/Silicon clipping switch? Not exactly. Lower drive settings sound a fuller and more useable. Full on distortion settings sounds good and full without being as fuzzy and blown out as a Rat. I can see why people dig this pedal so much. EQD said that the Plumes is a tube screamer for people that don't like tube screamers. This is definitely a rat for people that don't like rats, but if you like rats you'll probably like it too.
The filter/tone knob has a good sweep to it. It's difficult compare it to the Muroidea because I used a linear pot there, which I liked the range and sweep on. With the logarithmic pot it almost seems like there's a fizzy high end in the upper harmonics that is less prominent hitting the amp set to at least edge of breakup. It does sound good throughout the sweep especially since lower distortion settings aren't so thin.
I haven't tried stacking it with anything yet. I feel like it's a good candidate for being second in line after a tube screamer or another sort of signal boost.
Only had one real hangup on the build. The big film capacitor next to the filter knob is in a bad spot. If you're going to build one of these I recommend leaving the cap off the board, soldering the pots in place, bending the filter pot out of the way, then soldering in the cap, and bending the filter pot back. I hate bending pot legs once they're soldered to the board, but once isn't too bad. That way you don't have to try to avoid that cap with the soldering iron tip while you solder the pot to the board. I've started using these outie DC jacks and they're really handy. I highly recommend them. It's one less thing I need to solder while everything is in the enclosure. I'm mostly down to just the LED, besides touching things up.
Does it replace my Rat/Muroidea with the LED/Silicon clipping switch? Not exactly. Lower drive settings sound a fuller and more useable. Full on distortion settings sounds good and full without being as fuzzy and blown out as a Rat. I can see why people dig this pedal so much. EQD said that the Plumes is a tube screamer for people that don't like tube screamers. This is definitely a rat for people that don't like rats, but if you like rats you'll probably like it too.
The filter/tone knob has a good sweep to it. It's difficult compare it to the Muroidea because I used a linear pot there, which I liked the range and sweep on. With the logarithmic pot it almost seems like there's a fizzy high end in the upper harmonics that is less prominent hitting the amp set to at least edge of breakup. It does sound good throughout the sweep especially since lower distortion settings aren't so thin.
I haven't tried stacking it with anything yet. I feel like it's a good candidate for being second in line after a tube screamer or another sort of signal boost.
