chris.knudson
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Ok, first I have to say, I was extremely excited to see this build as an option. When I built my original gigging board, I really wanted to include a Noble, but I couldn't justify it since I already had a CIOCS 7 power supply. Instead I opted for the DarkGlass pre-amp, but I always felt like I was missing out. Sure the DarkGlass gives you more tonal control than the Noble, but the Noble has a presence that you can't get from just any pre-amp.
I actually debated posting a build report on this one since there have been a lot of recent build reports for the Nobelium, but ultimately, I spent a lot of money building this pedal (which kind of warrants a build report), and I think I have something useful to contribute, so here we go...
As soon as I saw this pedal, I wanted to build it. I am a huge fan of the Noble, but I could never swallow the price. This pedal is a nice option for the cost sensitive. It gives you all of the tone qualities without the power supply of the Noble. It is a really great (cost-effective) option. The thing really does deliver on the hype. Sure, it's a very subtle effect (this ain't no fuzz face), but what it does better than any other pedal is deliver a clean boosted signal and it gives a really warm rounded tone that you can't get from a non-tube pedal. The tubes give it a nice warm quality that delivers super clean and fat tones, especially on the low end.
This thing was super easy to put together, but one lesson I learned from this one is that the drill template is off by a couple MM. (See imsges below). I actually bought the faceplate and the enclosure form C2CE, and they aligned perfectly, but I ran into an issue trying to mount the stand offs. I didn't have the same issue as @Silver Blues where I had to file the board or anything, but I did find it necessary to mount the stand-offs before I soldered up the pots. That gave me just enough play to get it to work, but in my case, the holes were a couple of mm too far to the right, which definitely presented a bit of a challenge.
I didn't do anything special with the graphics or the enclosure. I thought about painting the enclosure, but I was just too excited to get it boxed up. I didn't want to add a couple of days letting the enclosure cure before I could play with it. And with the faceplate, I didn't feel like I needed to do much with it anyway. I did use blue LEDs to give it a little something different.
This thing sounds amazing. I did have to dial the trim pot down for the XLR output because at 50% it was way too hot for the board, but with some minor tweaking it dialed in nicely.
I originally had some concerns about the cost of this build, but now that I have it, I can definitely say it was worth every penny. This one is going take the place of DarkGlass on my gig rig, but I may end up building another one for my studio. I'll probably spend a little more time on the enclosure for that one.
I actually debated posting a build report on this one since there have been a lot of recent build reports for the Nobelium, but ultimately, I spent a lot of money building this pedal (which kind of warrants a build report), and I think I have something useful to contribute, so here we go...
As soon as I saw this pedal, I wanted to build it. I am a huge fan of the Noble, but I could never swallow the price. This pedal is a nice option for the cost sensitive. It gives you all of the tone qualities without the power supply of the Noble. It is a really great (cost-effective) option. The thing really does deliver on the hype. Sure, it's a very subtle effect (this ain't no fuzz face), but what it does better than any other pedal is deliver a clean boosted signal and it gives a really warm rounded tone that you can't get from a non-tube pedal. The tubes give it a nice warm quality that delivers super clean and fat tones, especially on the low end.
This thing was super easy to put together, but one lesson I learned from this one is that the drill template is off by a couple MM. (See imsges below). I actually bought the faceplate and the enclosure form C2CE, and they aligned perfectly, but I ran into an issue trying to mount the stand offs. I didn't have the same issue as @Silver Blues where I had to file the board or anything, but I did find it necessary to mount the stand-offs before I soldered up the pots. That gave me just enough play to get it to work, but in my case, the holes were a couple of mm too far to the right, which definitely presented a bit of a challenge.
I didn't do anything special with the graphics or the enclosure. I thought about painting the enclosure, but I was just too excited to get it boxed up. I didn't want to add a couple of days letting the enclosure cure before I could play with it. And with the faceplate, I didn't feel like I needed to do much with it anyway. I did use blue LEDs to give it a little something different.
This thing sounds amazing. I did have to dial the trim pot down for the XLR output because at 50% it was way too hot for the board, but with some minor tweaking it dialed in nicely.
I originally had some concerns about the cost of this build, but now that I have it, I can definitely say it was worth every penny. This one is going take the place of DarkGlass on my gig rig, but I may end up building another one for my studio. I'll probably spend a little more time on the enclosure for that one.
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