Bricksnbeatles
Member known well
Well, it's May 25th, 2023, which means that it's been exactly 40 years since the theatrical release of the greatest Star Wars film ever created– the one that gave us Ewoks, Rancors, Scout Trooper speeder chases, force lightning, green lightsabers, Max Rebo, and sarlacc pits.
Return of the Jedi has been my favorite Star Wars movie ever since I was a kid– I know it's not the cinematic masterpiece that is ESB, nor does it work as well as a standalone film like A New Hope does, but for all of the criticisms it gets, it's (in my mind at least) the most fun Star Wars has ever been, and to me that's the whole point of a mystical space-fantasy about the family drama of wizard-cultists! It might be a bit campy, but that's what's so beautiful about it! Not to mention, between Endor, Dagobah, and Palpatine's throne room, it has the most visually stunning and exciting settings of the original trilogy!
Anyway, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of my favorite installment of my favorite film franchise of all time, I thought it would be fitting to build a thematically-relevant pedal today. I actually first intended to build this one a few weeks ago on the 14th to celebrate my and George Lucas' shared birthday, but I was too busy with finals, so I decided to save this build until today.
The Spirit fuzz, built on the PedalPCB Paper Scratcher Fuzz PCB, is a clone of the Electro Harmonix Ripped Speaker fuzz, which is somewhat meant to emulate the sound of Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky fuzz tone, and as such, Spirit Fuzz seemed a fitting name, especially given the visual concept I came up with to accompany it. All that said, it certainly has much more range than just doing that Greenbaum tone. It's quite a versatile fuzz, with tones ranging from muff-ish wall-of-sound darkness, to sputtery gated staccato, to languid buzzsaw leads, and beyond.
The only substitution I made is a TL072 in place of the original bougie hifi dual op-amp, but since it's socketed, I'll give the original chip a try when I eventually get my hands on it– though I'm skeptical it'll make any difference. White Gavitt pushback cloth-covered wire, just because I only have really ugly colors left of my regular stuff, but it does certainly add a touch of class. Pots are Cusack/SBP, and the film caps are all WIMA except the two 18nF caps, which I couldnt find WIMA versions of from any of the usual suppliers (and I wasn't going to place a mouser order just for one cap value). 1k CLR with a 10k trimpot allows for a wide range of LED brightnesses from the 3mm waterclear cool-white LED, from retinally-searing, to a mellow glow.
The graphics depict the force ghosts of Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, and Obi Wan Kenobi as they appear in the final scene of RotJ, during the celebration on Endor of the rebellion's success in defeating the Empire. I went with Sebastian Shaw's Anakin (no offense, Hayden) to keep things classic, because even though I grew up watching George Lucas' 'Special Editions,' the OG Anakin seemed more fitting for the aesthetic– Maybe in a few years I'll make a new version with Hayden's Anakin ghost instead! Ha ha! Anyway, I went with a semi-minimal aesthetic on the ghosts, with a limited color palette and simplified hand-drawn vector forms. Even though I unfortunately didn't learn any vector graphics in my digital design class this past semester, my enhanced understanding of adobe software in general through the class certainly helped me teach myself some new skills and improve my graphic design skills (how to do the halftone gradient was an especially exciting revelation). As a whole, I'd say this is one of my favorite, if not *the* favorite, of the designs I've done over the years. It's UV printed, with a matte 'gloss' layer, on the new matte clear powdercoat from Tayda, which allows the visual texture of the cast aluminum to come through, for what I think is a really nice look!
The Demo isn't quite to my liking, as it was especially difficult to get any sort of good idea of tone recording without headphones (they broke), and trying to mix was futile coming from crappy super-tinny speakers. Even still, I've recorded some Star Wars fanfare with the Spirit fuzz on all tracks– Guitar is a Les Paul with Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbuckers, Bass is a Bass VI with Fender Pure Vintage '65 Jaguar Pickups. Enjoy, and go watch RotJ tonight to celebrate!
Return of the Jedi has been my favorite Star Wars movie ever since I was a kid– I know it's not the cinematic masterpiece that is ESB, nor does it work as well as a standalone film like A New Hope does, but for all of the criticisms it gets, it's (in my mind at least) the most fun Star Wars has ever been, and to me that's the whole point of a mystical space-fantasy about the family drama of wizard-cultists! It might be a bit campy, but that's what's so beautiful about it! Not to mention, between Endor, Dagobah, and Palpatine's throne room, it has the most visually stunning and exciting settings of the original trilogy!
Anyway, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of my favorite installment of my favorite film franchise of all time, I thought it would be fitting to build a thematically-relevant pedal today. I actually first intended to build this one a few weeks ago on the 14th to celebrate my and George Lucas' shared birthday, but I was too busy with finals, so I decided to save this build until today.
The Spirit fuzz, built on the PedalPCB Paper Scratcher Fuzz PCB, is a clone of the Electro Harmonix Ripped Speaker fuzz, which is somewhat meant to emulate the sound of Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky fuzz tone, and as such, Spirit Fuzz seemed a fitting name, especially given the visual concept I came up with to accompany it. All that said, it certainly has much more range than just doing that Greenbaum tone. It's quite a versatile fuzz, with tones ranging from muff-ish wall-of-sound darkness, to sputtery gated staccato, to languid buzzsaw leads, and beyond.
The only substitution I made is a TL072 in place of the original bougie hifi dual op-amp, but since it's socketed, I'll give the original chip a try when I eventually get my hands on it– though I'm skeptical it'll make any difference. White Gavitt pushback cloth-covered wire, just because I only have really ugly colors left of my regular stuff, but it does certainly add a touch of class. Pots are Cusack/SBP, and the film caps are all WIMA except the two 18nF caps, which I couldnt find WIMA versions of from any of the usual suppliers (and I wasn't going to place a mouser order just for one cap value). 1k CLR with a 10k trimpot allows for a wide range of LED brightnesses from the 3mm waterclear cool-white LED, from retinally-searing, to a mellow glow.
The graphics depict the force ghosts of Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, and Obi Wan Kenobi as they appear in the final scene of RotJ, during the celebration on Endor of the rebellion's success in defeating the Empire. I went with Sebastian Shaw's Anakin (no offense, Hayden) to keep things classic, because even though I grew up watching George Lucas' 'Special Editions,' the OG Anakin seemed more fitting for the aesthetic– Maybe in a few years I'll make a new version with Hayden's Anakin ghost instead! Ha ha! Anyway, I went with a semi-minimal aesthetic on the ghosts, with a limited color palette and simplified hand-drawn vector forms. Even though I unfortunately didn't learn any vector graphics in my digital design class this past semester, my enhanced understanding of adobe software in general through the class certainly helped me teach myself some new skills and improve my graphic design skills (how to do the halftone gradient was an especially exciting revelation). As a whole, I'd say this is one of my favorite, if not *the* favorite, of the designs I've done over the years. It's UV printed, with a matte 'gloss' layer, on the new matte clear powdercoat from Tayda, which allows the visual texture of the cast aluminum to come through, for what I think is a really nice look!
The Demo isn't quite to my liking, as it was especially difficult to get any sort of good idea of tone recording without headphones (they broke), and trying to mix was futile coming from crappy super-tinny speakers. Even still, I've recorded some Star Wars fanfare with the Spirit fuzz on all tracks– Guitar is a Les Paul with Seymour Duncan Whole Lotta Humbuckers, Bass is a Bass VI with Fender Pure Vintage '65 Jaguar Pickups. Enjoy, and go watch RotJ tonight to celebrate!
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. Looks and sounds great!
