rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is my report on a build of the Kokko Distortion. I built this pedal after @Cybercow requested a PCB layout (he called it the 'Ratstortion'). This is maybe one of my most unusual pedals because it's a clone of a knockoff generic pedal brand (the $15 Temu-type pedals), which Cybercow found to be an interesting Rat variant circuit. You can find the gerber for this build here if you'd like to make one yourself.
Inspiration
The pedal has a pretty generic name, but I figured I wasn't gonna be making a habit of designing pedals based on generic brands, so I'd name the pedal after hte brand, and Kokko sounded pretty similar to Kakapo, one of the two famous New Zealand parrot species.
Kakapos are flightless parrots (the other famous flightless bird in New Zealand is the Kiwi). Meanwhile, there's also Kakas, which are more typical parrots. Both species are very intelligent birds. The Kakapo is critically endangered, there a few fewer than 300 of these birds in the wild, although there's been a successful breeding program. I was lucky enough to see Kakas while visiting NZ in the past, but not Kakapo - I think they're almost all on islands that don't have land mammals to predate their nests.
I struggled with the design for the pedal for a while, before deciding to go all-in on New Zealand references. I made the Kakapo all-green, with some subtle whitish lines to reference Pounamu necklaces, a famous type of Maori jade necklace. And I went with a fern-inspired custom font. I'm happy with the overall effect but feel like the labels still aren't quite what I was hoping for.
I UV printed this on the "Chrome Green" Tayda coating. I know that Chromium paint has warnings about its durability, but I didn't notice such a warning when going with this one, so maybe it's not the same kind of Chrome (although it does mention cracking in cold weather). I haven't put the pedal through the ringer yet, but it seems relatively durable. Playing with the back plate, I couldn't scratch the paint at all with a fingernail. Taking the tip of a screwdriver to it, though, it scratched right up. The paint looks silky and I did notice subtle bumps near the pre-drilled holes. No sharp lines but the surface of the pedal was slightly uneven. I think it's honestly an incredibly striking color in perosn (I think I like it more than the metallic candy colors) and I'll probably use it more in the future.
The Build
This was a mostly straightforward build. I actually did two layouts, one with some requirements specified by @Cybercow for his Ratstortion (mostly getting the right control layout, and some of the offboard wiring jacks. Then I redid the layout according to conform to PPCB standard control spacing. There were a few component mistakes, and I forgot to include a few fixes from Cybercow in the first test version (without which the pedal sucked), but basically this worked from the start. It doesn't have a lot of components, so it came together fairly smoothly.
The Pedal
It's pretty wild! Cybercow recommends building with 2N5088 transistors, which I tried but I found it to be a bit too intense for my tastes, so I switched to 2N3904s.
Even with those it's quite gainy. I'd say it's about as distorted as the Katzenkoenig (also a Rat variation), although I think I prefer the tone on that one. This thing is a loud pedal, even with volume around noon it's plenty loud enough for me. The wild thing though is that there's basically no background noise at all with volume at noon, and it's surprisingly quiet even with the volume turned to 3:00. Whereas the Katzenkoenig or something like the Wave Cannon have some really terrible hiss. It basically feels like there's a built-in noise gate. So it's more usable than a lot of other really gainy pedals.
The gain and filter seem to interact a bit for me, and I found that with the filter down, it's a bit too dark for my tastes, while it also almost has a voltage-starved sound similar to the Durham Crazy Horse.
I think this is a fun pedal overall and I'll continue to play around with it.
Firsts
Pedal rating: 4/5
Inspiration
The pedal has a pretty generic name, but I figured I wasn't gonna be making a habit of designing pedals based on generic brands, so I'd name the pedal after hte brand, and Kokko sounded pretty similar to Kakapo, one of the two famous New Zealand parrot species.
Kakapos are flightless parrots (the other famous flightless bird in New Zealand is the Kiwi). Meanwhile, there's also Kakas, which are more typical parrots. Both species are very intelligent birds. The Kakapo is critically endangered, there a few fewer than 300 of these birds in the wild, although there's been a successful breeding program. I was lucky enough to see Kakas while visiting NZ in the past, but not Kakapo - I think they're almost all on islands that don't have land mammals to predate their nests.
I struggled with the design for the pedal for a while, before deciding to go all-in on New Zealand references. I made the Kakapo all-green, with some subtle whitish lines to reference Pounamu necklaces, a famous type of Maori jade necklace. And I went with a fern-inspired custom font. I'm happy with the overall effect but feel like the labels still aren't quite what I was hoping for.
I UV printed this on the "Chrome Green" Tayda coating. I know that Chromium paint has warnings about its durability, but I didn't notice such a warning when going with this one, so maybe it's not the same kind of Chrome (although it does mention cracking in cold weather). I haven't put the pedal through the ringer yet, but it seems relatively durable. Playing with the back plate, I couldn't scratch the paint at all with a fingernail. Taking the tip of a screwdriver to it, though, it scratched right up. The paint looks silky and I did notice subtle bumps near the pre-drilled holes. No sharp lines but the surface of the pedal was slightly uneven. I think it's honestly an incredibly striking color in perosn (I think I like it more than the metallic candy colors) and I'll probably use it more in the future.
The Build
This was a mostly straightforward build. I actually did two layouts, one with some requirements specified by @Cybercow for his Ratstortion (mostly getting the right control layout, and some of the offboard wiring jacks. Then I redid the layout according to conform to PPCB standard control spacing. There were a few component mistakes, and I forgot to include a few fixes from Cybercow in the first test version (without which the pedal sucked), but basically this worked from the start. It doesn't have a lot of components, so it came together fairly smoothly.
The Pedal
It's pretty wild! Cybercow recommends building with 2N5088 transistors, which I tried but I found it to be a bit too intense for my tastes, so I switched to 2N3904s.
Even with those it's quite gainy. I'd say it's about as distorted as the Katzenkoenig (also a Rat variation), although I think I prefer the tone on that one. This thing is a loud pedal, even with volume around noon it's plenty loud enough for me. The wild thing though is that there's basically no background noise at all with volume at noon, and it's surprisingly quiet even with the volume turned to 3:00. Whereas the Katzenkoenig or something like the Wave Cannon have some really terrible hiss. It basically feels like there's a built-in noise gate. So it's more usable than a lot of other really gainy pedals.
The gain and filter seem to interact a bit for me, and I found that with the filter down, it's a bit too dark for my tastes, while it also almost has a voltage-starved sound similar to the Durham Crazy Horse.
I think this is a fun pedal overall and I'll continue to play around with it.
Firsts
First collaborative pedal
First chrome pedal
First homemade PCB with dual-gang pot
Pedal rating: 4/5
