rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is a report on my build of a Spaceman Saturn V. You can find the gerber here.
Inspiration
I knew I wanted a retro-futuristic style for this pedal - like a Flash Gordon/Tom Swift or Queens/Seattle World's Fair style. For this batch of pedals I granted myself permission to start using some new fonts, and I'm really happy with this font for the pedal. Likewise, the design came together well.
The bird is a stretch and I don't feel great about it. I really wish that this was the Spaceman Saturn IX, but there's no such rocket. I named this purely off of the name, and suprisingly there is a bird with Saturn in the name, so I went with it. I have no connection to this bird and to be honest it's fairly boring-looking
.
Overall though I really like the pedal's design. The bright red paint is garish so I find it hard to use - I think I got an unprinted bright red enclosure early on in my pedal-building journey and didn't like it - but it works really well for the retrofuturistic look with the cream outlines, font and knobs. I like having more variety in colors on my pedalboard.
The Build
It's a very simple build and I laid out the PCB myself, going for a vaguely rocket-shaped board. Unlike the rocket, there's not many parts on this Saturn V. A few of them are a bit unusual - but not really hard to find. As with the other Spaceman pedals the layout does include the requisite mojo ferrite beads that people are skeptical do anything. The pedal worked fine for me the first time around so this was uncomplicated.
The Pedal
I like the Spaceman pedals I've built or heard. And this is a nice boost. Spaceman calls it a 'harmonic booster,' saying the drive knob controls a mix of odd and even harmonics, while the boost side is focused on even-order harmonics. Ok? I think right now it's my favorite boost pedal (of 3 that I can recall building) - it seems to have a nice sparkle and does a light overdrive, and it doesn't get muddy when playing chords. But really, at some point I need to do a side-by-side comparison because I think the difference between boost pedals are quite subtle in the end. I also think I've built enough boost pedals now...
Firsts
Inspiration
I knew I wanted a retro-futuristic style for this pedal - like a Flash Gordon/Tom Swift or Queens/Seattle World's Fair style. For this batch of pedals I granted myself permission to start using some new fonts, and I'm really happy with this font for the pedal. Likewise, the design came together well.
The bird is a stretch and I don't feel great about it. I really wish that this was the Spaceman Saturn IX, but there's no such rocket. I named this purely off of the name, and suprisingly there is a bird with Saturn in the name, so I went with it. I have no connection to this bird and to be honest it's fairly boring-looking
.Overall though I really like the pedal's design. The bright red paint is garish so I find it hard to use - I think I got an unprinted bright red enclosure early on in my pedal-building journey and didn't like it - but it works really well for the retrofuturistic look with the cream outlines, font and knobs. I like having more variety in colors on my pedalboard.
The Build
It's a very simple build and I laid out the PCB myself, going for a vaguely rocket-shaped board. Unlike the rocket, there's not many parts on this Saturn V. A few of them are a bit unusual - but not really hard to find. As with the other Spaceman pedals the layout does include the requisite mojo ferrite beads that people are skeptical do anything. The pedal worked fine for me the first time around so this was uncomplicated.
The Pedal
I like the Spaceman pedals I've built or heard. And this is a nice boost. Spaceman calls it a 'harmonic booster,' saying the drive knob controls a mix of odd and even harmonics, while the boost side is focused on even-order harmonics. Ok? I think right now it's my favorite boost pedal (of 3 that I can recall building) - it seems to have a nice sparkle and does a light overdrive, and it doesn't get muddy when playing chords. But really, at some point I need to do a side-by-side comparison because I think the difference between boost pedals are quite subtle in the end. I also think I've built enough boost pedals now...
Firsts
First retro-futuristic pedal (that I can remember).
First bright red pedal
- Build: 5/5
- Pedal: 5/5
