MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Well @steviejr92, back to building pedals, after getting sidetracked with NGD's, NPUD's, Strat Builds, and SUAPYG demos....hahahah.
I think it's been 9 days since my last pedal build report....that might be a record for me....
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I've had this (and a few other pedals) drilled and ready to go for about a week now but have been up to my neck with work, and guitar and pickup related stuff.
Felt good to be soldering resistor legs again!!
I actually built the AionFX version of the Soul Driven for my brother, who returned it saying it wasn't working. (But I can't find anything wrong with it).
So when I found out that @Robert ALSO has the Soul Driven, I had to order one and build it.
The AionFX version takes the internal bass boost dip switches of the original Xotic pedal and puts in on a 25k pot, ostensibly to give you more fine grained control over the bass boost settings. (Total of +6db). The PPCB version is closer to the original in that it leaves it as internal dips.
As some you know, I can't resist exposing "useful" internal dip switches as toggles, and this is actually an extremely useful feature to dial the pedal in for different guitars, even different pickup settings. I also love that I could get the PPCB board into a 1590B enclosure and still have room for a couple of short bat toggles with bump washers. I set the 3PDT a little higher so you don't hit the toggles when stomping, but it's a moot point for me since I have my pedals on my desk anyway and actuate them by hand.
The only substitutions I made was 2N5088's for the BOM's BC549C's. When I looked in my stash I only had a single 549C, but plenty of 5088's. Ironically, that's what Aion specifies in his BOM.
Anyway, I had a chance to play them side by side. This pedal, like so many of Xotic's pedals has it's roots in a TS. But it's got quite a bit of "Zen Drive" flavor, although the clipping arrangement isn't quite the same as the Zen. It's a very smooth and warm sounding drive with a passive treble cut and a "Mid boost" control.
The "Mid Boost" isn't really a mid boost, but actually more like the "Voice" control of the Zen drive or the "Timmy" style bass control. It's very interactive with the gain knob. As mentioned the Bass Boost controls help tailor the pedal to brighter or darker guitars and with the full 6db of boost can fatten up the drive quite a bit.
I personally don't find having it on a pot helps that much like on the Aion version but I can see why some folks have modded the Solenoid to have the boost on a pot.
Tonally, between the Aion version and the Solenoid, they sound identical, except the Aion version is in a 125B and I much prefer @Robert 's layouts.
Definitely digging the sounds, even though it falls into the "Zen Drive" category like the Tater Tot. Glad to have another sound in the overdrive arsenal!
This is one of my $3.75 SmallBear 1590B enclosures. The Blue seems to be the best of the bunch of these enclosures in terms of how the powder coat looks.
I think it's been 9 days since my last pedal build report....that might be a record for me....
.I've had this (and a few other pedals) drilled and ready to go for about a week now but have been up to my neck with work, and guitar and pickup related stuff.
Felt good to be soldering resistor legs again!!
I actually built the AionFX version of the Soul Driven for my brother, who returned it saying it wasn't working. (But I can't find anything wrong with it).
So when I found out that @Robert ALSO has the Soul Driven, I had to order one and build it.
The AionFX version takes the internal bass boost dip switches of the original Xotic pedal and puts in on a 25k pot, ostensibly to give you more fine grained control over the bass boost settings. (Total of +6db). The PPCB version is closer to the original in that it leaves it as internal dips.
As some you know, I can't resist exposing "useful" internal dip switches as toggles, and this is actually an extremely useful feature to dial the pedal in for different guitars, even different pickup settings. I also love that I could get the PPCB board into a 1590B enclosure and still have room for a couple of short bat toggles with bump washers. I set the 3PDT a little higher so you don't hit the toggles when stomping, but it's a moot point for me since I have my pedals on my desk anyway and actuate them by hand.
The only substitutions I made was 2N5088's for the BOM's BC549C's. When I looked in my stash I only had a single 549C, but plenty of 5088's. Ironically, that's what Aion specifies in his BOM.
Anyway, I had a chance to play them side by side. This pedal, like so many of Xotic's pedals has it's roots in a TS. But it's got quite a bit of "Zen Drive" flavor, although the clipping arrangement isn't quite the same as the Zen. It's a very smooth and warm sounding drive with a passive treble cut and a "Mid boost" control.
The "Mid Boost" isn't really a mid boost, but actually more like the "Voice" control of the Zen drive or the "Timmy" style bass control. It's very interactive with the gain knob. As mentioned the Bass Boost controls help tailor the pedal to brighter or darker guitars and with the full 6db of boost can fatten up the drive quite a bit.
I personally don't find having it on a pot helps that much like on the Aion version but I can see why some folks have modded the Solenoid to have the boost on a pot.
Tonally, between the Aion version and the Solenoid, they sound identical, except the Aion version is in a 125B and I much prefer @Robert 's layouts.
Definitely digging the sounds, even though it falls into the "Zen Drive" category like the Tater Tot. Glad to have another sound in the overdrive arsenal!
This is one of my $3.75 SmallBear 1590B enclosures. The Blue seems to be the best of the bunch of these enclosures in terms of how the powder coat looks.
