Introducing... the PoRSemeat - Overhyped Overdrive

[Dirty_Boogie]

Finished my Mystery Meat this morning... and it's quite tasty! Fired it up last night, and nothing. Really!? After my first PedalPCB build about 3 years ago, I have a 100% success rate with PedalPCB's, so obviously an operator error. Not having the build docs or schematic to reference, I figured I was in for a rough ride troubleshooting this. Made sense to start with the op amps, as I knew that on each, pin 8 should be close to 9V, and pin 4 should be at ground. Took about 2 minutes to find that on the bottom op amp, no continuity between pin 4 and ground. Pressed down on it, and got signal. Opened it up this morning, and saw that I had missed soldering that one pin... oops

Need to spend more time with it. Expected it to sound a lot like a Klon, but it doesn't. Definitely more dirt on tap, and definitely not transparent, thus my renaming it from "Transparent Overdrive" to "Transparent Overhype". I'm sure I'll find a lot of usable tones out of this thing - just need to spend more time with it this weekend.

 

[steviejr92]

Great build dude! Love how neat the insides are!

 

[MichaelW]

Finished my Mystery Meat this morning... and it's quite tasty! Fired it up last night, and nothing. Really!? After my first PedalPCB built about 3 years ago, I have a 100% success rate with PedalPCB's, so obviously an operator error. Not having the build docs or schematic to reference, I figured I was in for a rough ride troubleshooting this. Made sense to start with the op amps, as I knew that on each, pin 8 should be close to 9V, and pin 4 should be at ground. Took about 2 minutes to find that on the bottom op amp, no continuity between pin 4 and ground. Pressed down on it, and got signal. Opened it up this morning, and saw that I had missed soldering that one pin... oops

Need to spend more time with it. Expected it to sound a lot like a Klon, but it doesn't. Definitely more dirt on tap, and definitely not transparent, thus my renaming it from "Transparent Overdrive" to "Transparent Overhype". I'm sure I'll find a lot of usable tones out of this thing - just need to spend more time with it this weekend.

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How are you finding the Voice knob to work for you? I'm still trying to figure out what it's doing on mine. Definitely digging the drive though. Awesome looking build! And I agree, it's no Klone....

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

Great build dude! Love how neat the insides are!

I just glue it all together... it's Robert, our fearless PCB designer, that should get all the praise!

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

How are you finding the Voice knob to work for you? I'm still trying to figure out what it's doing on mine. Definitely digging the drive though. Awesome looking build! And I agree, it's no Klone....

I've only spent 5-10 minutes with it so far. I'd have to read what PRS say the Voice control does, but in my few minutes of knob twisting, it just seemed like a narrow-band midrange control.

 

[Robert]

The Voice control adjusts a pre-gain gyrator centered at around 2300Hz.

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

Ok, so after spending about an hour with this pedal, watching the PRS and other videos, and trying the same settings, I'm really underwhelmed with this pedal. I'm confident that I used the correct values for all components - made sure to measure everything to be as close to specced as possible - but there's nothing "professional" sounding about this at all. Trying not to compare it to my PedalPCB Klone, but that pedal is so much more "refined". It's just a little "rough" sounding. Maybe it's designed to be used with a high-end tube amp, but in my pedal platform, it's not cutting it. Tried it with 3 different PRS guitars (figured PRS used those as a testing platform), as well as a Strat.

How confident are we that the trace is 100% accurate? Were any assumptions made? I guess unless I have an actual Horesmeat pedal to compare it to, this is all I have to go on. Robert, or others who've built it... what were your impressions?

Now the Cetus/Kraken I built at the same time... it's all that, and a bag of high gain beauty!

 

[BuddytheReow]

Ok, so after spending about an hour with this pedal, watching the PRS and other videos, and trying the same settings, I'm really underwhelmed with this pedal. I'm confident that I used the correct values for all components - made sure to measure everything to be as close to specced as possible - but there's nothing "professional" sounding about this at all. Trying not to compare it to my PedalPCB Klone, but that pedal is so much more "refined". It's just a little "rough" sounding. Maybe it's designed to be used with a high-end tube amp, but in my pedal platform, it's not cutting it. Tried it with 3 different PRS guitars (figured PRS used those as a testing platform), as well as a Strat.

How confident are we that the trace is 100% accurate? Were any assumptions made? I guess unless I have an actual Horesmeat pedal to compare it to, this is all I have to go on. Robert, or others who've built it... what were your impressions?

Now the Cetus/Kraken I built at the same time... it's all that, and a bag of high gain beauty!

This makes me never want to try horsemeat if its on a menu

 

[Fingolfen]

Ok, so after spending about an hour with this pedal, watching the PRS and other videos, and trying the same settings, I'm really underwhelmed with this pedal. I'm confident that I used the correct values for all components - made sure to measure everything to be as close to specced as possible - but there's nothing "professional" sounding about this at all. Trying not to compare it to my PedalPCB Klone, but that pedal is so much more "refined". It's just a little "rough" sounding. Maybe it's designed to be used with a high-end tube amp, but in my pedal platform, it's not cutting it. Tried it with 3 different PRS guitars (figured PRS used those as a testing platform), as well as a Strat.

How confident are we that the trace is 100% accurate? Were any assumptions made? I guess unless I have an actual Horesmeat pedal to compare it to, this is all I have to go on. Robert, or others who've built it... what were your impressions?

Now the Cetus/Kraken I built at the same time... it's all that, and a bag of high gain beauty!

I'm hoping to get mine finished up next week and then next Saturday compare it to the real thing at my favorite local guitar store, so I'll keep you posted...

 

[xefned]

This makes me never want to try horsemeat if its on a menu

Horse is tasty. Just not when it's deep fried in snake oil.

 

[music6000]

I noted that the Voice Knob seems to be critical in the make or break of this pedal!?
Most demo's seem to crank it (Voice) up or it loses note separation.
The Treble seems to be set low?
I was thinking it needs a Larger value Voice pot???

 

[Robert]

How confident are we that the trace is 100% accurate? Were any assumptions made? I guess unless I have an actual Horesmeat pedal to compare it to, this is all I have to go on. Robert, or others who've built it... what were your impressions?

Fairly confident, I really don't do assumptions when I can help it. This one was straightforward.

I feel like something must be going on here, this wasn't my experience with the pedal at all. I was skeptical, I expected to be disappointed, but I thought it was actually pretty dang good.

 

[MichaelW]

Fairly confident, I really don't do assumptions when I can help it. This one was straightforward.

I feel like something must be going on here, this wasn't my experience with the pedal at all. I was skeptical, I expected to be disappointed, but I thought it was actually pretty dang good.

Yah, pretty much the same experience, I was expecting to be underwhelmed but have been pleasantly surprised. I’m liking the pedal a lot but it’s not going to like replace a bunch of other pedals. As I said in my build report, a bit of a Swiss Army knife kind of drive, does a little bit of everything but doesn’t really excel at anything.

 

[Locrian99]

I haven’t boxed mine yet (I currently have kind of a back up at that stage of 5 or 6 builds holiday and catching Covid this week hasn’t helped). But my initial impression was of being under whelmed going to try and get it boxed this weekend and spend some more time with it. If you are looking for a klon with a bit more gain/dirt I’d go for the Aphrodite.

 

[MichaelW]

I have the Aphrodite in my queue. Somehow i keep forgetting about it and it keeps getting pushed aside. I need to build, it’s been highly recommended by my Chief Enabler @szukalski, so I’m fairly certain I’m going to like it.

 

[Locrian99]

I have the Aphrodite in my queue. Somehow i keep forgetting about it and it keeps getting pushed aside. I need to build, it’s been highly recommended by my Chief Enabler @szukalski, so I’m fairly certain I’m going to like it.

I really like it. I like to goose it with my timmy ish type thing I built in front of it (one of these days I’m going to remember to order a Tommy board) sometimes then have my 6 band eq right after as like all klons I find them to be a bit trebly

 

[dlew381]

Finished my Mystery Meat this morning... and it's quite tasty! Fired it up last night, and nothing. Really!? After my first PedalPCB build about 3 years ago, I have a 100% success rate with PedalPCB's, so obviously an operator error. Not having the build docs or schematic to reference, I figured I was in for a rough ride troubleshooting this. Made sense to start with the op amps, as I knew that on each, pin 8 should be close to 9V, and pin 4 should be at ground. Took about 2 minutes to find that on the bottom op amp, no continuity between pin 4 and ground. Pressed down on it, and got signal. Opened it up this morning, and saw that I had missed soldering that one pin... oops

Need to spend more time with it. Expected it to sound a lot like a Klon, but it doesn't. Definitely more dirt on tap, and definitely not transparent, thus my renaming it from "Transparent Overdrive" to "Transparent Overhype". I'm sure I'll find a lot of usable tones out of this thing - just need to spend more time with it this weekend.

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How did you do the graphics on this pedal? Looks nice.

 

[szukalski]

Chickenhead into an Aphrodite is one of my favorite sounds.

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

How did you do the graphics on this pedal? Looks nice.

Thanks! I use PowerPoint for laying out my pedal graphics. I found an image with that swirly pattern, filled it into a rounded rectangle, and then just used text boxes for the text. Inkjet water slide decal.

For my enclosures, I sand the top to expose the bare aluminum - I like the contrast with the colored sides. The powdercoat Tayda uses is really thick - takes a lot to get it off, using a power palm sander, hand sanding block, steel wool, and then an automotive scratch and swirl paste.

 

[Feral Feline]

"PoRSemeat"