MichaelW
Well-known member
This the next in my series of "Gifted from @DGWVI Boards" hahaha. Thank you again my friend!
Yesterday I posted about my Submarine Device (EQD Depths) build and how much I like it even though it was totally not on my radar.
This is another project I didn't know anything about. I believe that EQD discontinued the Talons. It probably overlaps a bit too much with their "Dunes" pedal.
It actually reminds me a bit of the Dunes and also a bit of the Plumes (I've built the Greengage).
There seems to be some TS roots in this pedal but in true EQD fashion, they opened up the tonal spectrum quite a bit, just like the Plumes and Dunes.
There's a boatload of knobs on this thing! It's got a 3 band active EQ plus a presence control that falls a little short (more on that later). Can be run at 9 or 18v but no charge pump. Diode Clipping provided by a pair of 3mm red LEDs, so again, the resemblance to the Plumes is there.
There's a very wide range of gain and drive to be had on this pedal and they ALL sound very good. It sounds great as a low gain pedal, and can actually do a pretty good transparent "Timmy" style sound, but crank the gain up and it can also do the high gain distortion thing very well too. (Think classic rock and not metal).
Lots of in between sounds and with the mid control can also do the TS808 thing too. A bit of a "jack of all trades master of none" type of pedal.
If you were really cramped for pedalboard space or just wanted to bring a single drive to a gig, this would definitely be the Swiss Army knife kind of overdrive/distortion.
Again, pleasantly surprised that there were no issues with this board from PCBGM. Although, I if were setting out to build this, I'd build the PedalPCB version (Chela Drive).
Now about the EQ section, you'd think that with a FOUR band EQ there would tons of tonal range. Well, the none of the controls are very responsive or have much range. I was kinda surprised and disappointed at that aspect of it. Then I found this thread from a couple years ago by our resident circuit wizard @Chuck D. Bones.
Explains a lot. I wish I had read up on his mods BEFORE I built the pedal
. I'm not planning on taking it apart or modifying it at this point because fortunately the pedal sounds really good with all the EQ knobs at noon. And it sounds good with single coils or HB's or P90's that I've tried with it.
The enclosure is a bit of an emotional milestone for me. It's actually a re-purposed enclosure from the very first DIY pedal kit I bought from GGG on Feb 6 of this year.
It was for a Bluesbreaker and I got the kit with the pre-drilled enclosure. I totally borked that build, burnt up the board trying to fix what I messed up, melted caps, had solder all over the place, burnt the wires, you name it I did it! hahah. I also tried to paint the enclosure and use a waterslide label for it. Totally F'd that up too.
So the empty, crappy looking enclosure has been sitting on my bench since then as a reminder of where I started not that long ago with my DIY pedal building journey.
Well, I finally decided it was time to move on, so I sanded off the old paint job and used a new rattle can color I just got yesterday. This has got to be my BEST looking rattle can job yet. It's also the best paint I've found so far for doing pedals. It's Behr brand and actually one of the cheaper spray cans. I think it was like $6 at Home Depot. Definitely planning to pick up a couple more colors next time I'm there.
I put a coat of primer down, then two light coats of this stuff. It was dry enough to build within a couple hours. No handling marks or anything goofy.
The color is "Oil Rubbed Bronze" or something like that. It's a beautiful flat bronze color. Looks better in person than in the pics. It's got little flecks of highlights that sparkle in the natural sunlight. Very cool color! I just wish I had some smaller cream knobs to go with it but I'm out.
The control knob alignment is a little wonky because the original kit was for a 3 knob pedal with 2 toggle switches. So it was a bit off to begin with. I tried to compensate with some creative leg bending but it still looks a little off to me.
Anyway, coming full circle for me, to use the enclosure from my first kit.
If you're thinking about building the Chela, check out Chuck's mods before starting.
Yesterday I posted about my Submarine Device (EQD Depths) build and how much I like it even though it was totally not on my radar.
This is another project I didn't know anything about. I believe that EQD discontinued the Talons. It probably overlaps a bit too much with their "Dunes" pedal.
It actually reminds me a bit of the Dunes and also a bit of the Plumes (I've built the Greengage).
There seems to be some TS roots in this pedal but in true EQD fashion, they opened up the tonal spectrum quite a bit, just like the Plumes and Dunes.
There's a boatload of knobs on this thing! It's got a 3 band active EQ plus a presence control that falls a little short (more on that later). Can be run at 9 or 18v but no charge pump. Diode Clipping provided by a pair of 3mm red LEDs, so again, the resemblance to the Plumes is there.
There's a very wide range of gain and drive to be had on this pedal and they ALL sound very good. It sounds great as a low gain pedal, and can actually do a pretty good transparent "Timmy" style sound, but crank the gain up and it can also do the high gain distortion thing very well too. (Think classic rock and not metal).
Lots of in between sounds and with the mid control can also do the TS808 thing too. A bit of a "jack of all trades master of none" type of pedal.
If you were really cramped for pedalboard space or just wanted to bring a single drive to a gig, this would definitely be the Swiss Army knife kind of overdrive/distortion.
Again, pleasantly surprised that there were no issues with this board from PCBGM. Although, I if were setting out to build this, I'd build the PedalPCB version (Chela Drive).
Now about the EQ section, you'd think that with a FOUR band EQ there would tons of tonal range. Well, the none of the controls are very responsive or have much range. I was kinda surprised and disappointed at that aspect of it. Then I found this thread from a couple years ago by our resident circuit wizard @Chuck D. Bones.
Explains a lot. I wish I had read up on his mods BEFORE I built the pedal
. I'm not planning on taking it apart or modifying it at this point because fortunately the pedal sounds really good with all the EQ knobs at noon. And it sounds good with single coils or HB's or P90's that I've tried with it.The enclosure is a bit of an emotional milestone for me. It's actually a re-purposed enclosure from the very first DIY pedal kit I bought from GGG on Feb 6 of this year.
It was for a Bluesbreaker and I got the kit with the pre-drilled enclosure. I totally borked that build, burnt up the board trying to fix what I messed up, melted caps, had solder all over the place, burnt the wires, you name it I did it! hahah. I also tried to paint the enclosure and use a waterslide label for it. Totally F'd that up too.
So the empty, crappy looking enclosure has been sitting on my bench since then as a reminder of where I started not that long ago with my DIY pedal building journey.
Well, I finally decided it was time to move on, so I sanded off the old paint job and used a new rattle can color I just got yesterday. This has got to be my BEST looking rattle can job yet. It's also the best paint I've found so far for doing pedals. It's Behr brand and actually one of the cheaper spray cans. I think it was like $6 at Home Depot. Definitely planning to pick up a couple more colors next time I'm there.
I put a coat of primer down, then two light coats of this stuff. It was dry enough to build within a couple hours. No handling marks or anything goofy.
The color is "Oil Rubbed Bronze" or something like that. It's a beautiful flat bronze color. Looks better in person than in the pics. It's got little flecks of highlights that sparkle in the natural sunlight. Very cool color! I just wish I had some smaller cream knobs to go with it but I'm out.
The control knob alignment is a little wonky because the original kit was for a 3 knob pedal with 2 toggle switches. So it was a bit off to begin with. I tried to compensate with some creative leg bending but it still looks a little off to me.
Anyway, coming full circle for me, to use the enclosure from my first kit.
If you're thinking about building the Chela, check out Chuck's mods before starting.
