Is there a 'better' MOAB-style pedal out these days?

drew.spriggs

drew.spriggs

Well-known member
Howdy,

Now I've had time to work through a couple of outstanding projects, I've finally got a chance to look at one of the white whale projects I've been poking at on and off for about two years - a two channel preamp. It's not anything too fancy or outrageous, I've just never really had ideas for it click unlike a few other pedals I've made. The idea is to get the best of both worlds with a preamp - a nice clean side that's got plenty of bass response, and a Plexi-ish scooped side.

The first channel was pretty simple - just a klutzed together Bassman-ish thing done with JFETS and a scaled Fender TB. Nothing too crazy and sounds great, but I probably need to drop the gain a little as it's a bit too gritty at full noise. Simple, effective, done.

Now, for the Plexi side - I've never found a single Plexi-style pedal that I've liked. I've listened to dozens of recordings, breadboarded a few but nothing has really sounded that good to me. Most of the ones I've looked at are the older MOAB schematics that have been floating around for a couple of decades, so I'm not sure if there's been anything released since then that does it better.

Are there any suggestions of things I can be looking at? I've got a little bit of board real estate to deal with, and also have a +/-18v onboard supply if I need it.
 
no idea if this will be to your standards/expectations, but i did a plexi-inspired build of the mofeta and i thought it was alright..
owlexifry

DEMO Thread '‘JMP Super FET’ - Mofeta (EAE Model feT) w/ Super Lead / Plexi inspired mods'

initially inspired by the mods described in this thread, i wanted to explore some plexi / super lead inspired values/mods with the Mofeta board.

so i started off by breadboarding the Mofeta as per the schematic in the build doc. sounds pretty good.
then I tried the mods seen in the annotated schematic below, and made some mods/omissions to suit my tastes, as described in this breadboarding thread. another mod was inspired from one of chuck bones' posts. (I didn't notice much difference between 3.3K or 10K for R10, so I went with 10K)

at the right gain /...
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My current favorite is the Mad Professor Amber Overdrive, available here as the Resinite OD. Oddly, it's a big muff circuit but sounds like a cranked Marshall Superlead. I wind back both the gain and volume to about 9 o'clock to get a warm and saturated tone with wonderful note definition and perfect EQ balance. At higher gain settings the fuzz comes forward, which is ok for that David Gilmour thing but I'm more about early AC/DC
 
falco_femoralis said:
My current favorite is the Mad Professor Amber Overdrive, available here as the Resinite OD. Oddly, it's a big muff circuit but sounds like a cranked Marshall Superlead. I wind back both the gain and volume to about 9 o'clock to get a warm and saturated tone with wonderful note definition and perfect EQ balance. At higher gain settings the fuzz comes forward, which is ok for that David Gilmour thing but I'm more about early AC/DC
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I'll have a listen - not a huge Muff fan but I might be pleasantly surprised!
 
There is a list of Marshall in a box circuits somewhere here--might be a good starting point.

Now, particularly for the verisimilitude of a Plexi voicing, I don't know, but the Colombo Plexi Breed/Golden Falk is pretty darn good.

Subdecay Variac OD also
 
ROG Thor is also fantastic. I think PedalPCB has a PCB for it. I built it on a PCB from TH Customs. It has some mods, like Baxendall tone stack.
 
I recently built a Golden Falk and while it is an excellent OD it sounds more like a hot-rodded Marshall than a regular plexi to me. One of the best plexi sounding ODs I have heard I only built this week! It's available here as the Jump Drive, based on the LPD 68. I have built a few '68 style plexis, and my current main amp is a '68 plexi style amp in a 1x12 combo. I built them after playing an original '68 small box 50W head, which was one of the best sounding Marshalls I have heard. The Jump Drive gets as close to that kinda sound as I have heard in a pedal. The pedal could perhaps be a bit brighter but it really does capture more of the overall timbre than any others I have tried.

I haven't tried the Skreddy but I would love to because Skreddy makes fantastic pedals. A lot of "MIAB" pedals can sound ok but not particularly like a Marshall. Of course it all depends on the guitar, amp, speakers and player. And I've played enough old Marshalls now to know that they all sound a bit different anyway.
 
HamishR said:
I recently built a Golden Falk and while it is an excellent OD it sounds more like a hot-rodded Marshall than a regular plexi to me. One of the best plexi sounding ODs I have heard I only built this week! It's available here as the Jump Drive, based on the LPD 68. I have built a few '68 style plexis, and my current main amp is a '68 plexi style amp in a 1x12 combo. I built them after playing an original '68 small box 50W head, which was one of the best sounding Marshalls I have heard. The Jump Drive gets as close to that kinda sound as I have heard in a pedal. The pedal could perhaps be a bit brighter but it really does capture more of the overall timbre than any others I have tried.

I haven't tried the Skreddy but I would love to because Skreddy makes fantastic pedals. A lot of "MIAB" pedals can sound ok but not particularly like a Marshall. Of course it all depends on the guitar, amp, speakers and player. And I've played enough old Marshalls now to know that they all sound a bit different anyway.
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Any idea if the schematic is missing because of some taboo I don't know about? It has been 4 years since the docs were updated.

I'm designing my own PCBs, so I'd be eliminating a stack of stuff I don't need (I've already got onboard bipolar power, don't need channel switching, etc)
 
Also, I feel the new Marshall pedals just released are quite good. Especially the PPCB Article 59 Overdrive and PPCB Eight Ball Overdrive. They certainly do the Plexi thing. I will also echo others and say the Golden Falk Overdrive is really good. My favorite MIAB.
 
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