Fingolfen
Well-known member
So I'd built clones of the Lovetone Brown Source (the Firefly TV show themed Browncoat) using the AionFX Obelisk board and the Lovetone Big Cheese (the 2001 themed Monolith) using the AionFX Monolith board (one of the few times I've stuck with the trace name of a board for the actual pedal), and I'd been impressed with the overall quality of the pedals. So I decided it would be fun to try and do a Steggo version of the "Cheese Source" as my first combo pedal...
I had to make a few design decisions from the outset. The original Lovetone pedal has separate in/out jacks for both the "cheese" side and the "source" side, but it appears the cheese output is linked directly to the source input, so you could get away with just using the "in" and "out" jacks. This arrangement reminds me a bit of how the PedalPCB clone of the Mu-tron Bi-phase (the Duo-Phase) is set up. I'd considered going that direction, but ultimately decided to do something a bit different instead. While conventional wisdom indicates fuzz should go before distortion in a pedal chain, sometimes it's desirable to mix that up a bit, so I decided to add an order reversing switch to the combo pedal so either the "cheese" or the "source" can come first! With special thanks to the forum for coming up with an easy way to add a bi-color LED to order swtich!
This means the pedal only has one input and one output jack. I may decide to make up a version without the order switch and the four jack configuration in the future, but for now I like the flexibility that this configuration brings. Populating the circuit boards was really the easy part of this build and I used essentially the same mix of components I'd used on my previous builds. The wiring was a little more challenging as I wanted to lay out the enclosure a certain way. I normally solder the LEDs directly to the AionFX 3PDT daughter boards, but because of the layout, I had to run wires to one of them. Of course, the bi-color LED was hand wired to the 4PDT switch, and then I had to run extra ground and power connections.
For the enclosure I decided to stick with the Firefly / Browncoat theme of the Brown Source clone, as I could use a fun reference from the show to bring dinosaurs into the mix. It's hopefully an enclosure that will not only speak to fans of the show, but dino fans as well.
Once the pedal was together, I needed to test it - not only to check basic functionality, but to determine which pedal came first in the chain on the two different order settings (and their corresponding color). To do that I set up my Browncoat and Monolith pedals in series, matched settings, and went by ear. I tend to like the fuzz first on many settings, but not all - and given both of these pedals have individual four-way switches controlling tone modes and even clipping response there is a host of ways to set them up. I did notice one thing though, I've used some of the AionFX mods to increase the gain of both pedals, which is great when using them alone, but when using them in series (as either the discrete pedals or this combo pedal), you have to watch those volume knobs or you can go into some overload regions your amp won't appreciate!
A little more at the blog: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2022/10/steggos-first-combo-pedal-sudden-but.html
I had to make a few design decisions from the outset. The original Lovetone pedal has separate in/out jacks for both the "cheese" side and the "source" side, but it appears the cheese output is linked directly to the source input, so you could get away with just using the "in" and "out" jacks. This arrangement reminds me a bit of how the PedalPCB clone of the Mu-tron Bi-phase (the Duo-Phase) is set up. I'd considered going that direction, but ultimately decided to do something a bit different instead. While conventional wisdom indicates fuzz should go before distortion in a pedal chain, sometimes it's desirable to mix that up a bit, so I decided to add an order reversing switch to the combo pedal so either the "cheese" or the "source" can come first! With special thanks to the forum for coming up with an easy way to add a bi-color LED to order swtich!
This means the pedal only has one input and one output jack. I may decide to make up a version without the order switch and the four jack configuration in the future, but for now I like the flexibility that this configuration brings. Populating the circuit boards was really the easy part of this build and I used essentially the same mix of components I'd used on my previous builds. The wiring was a little more challenging as I wanted to lay out the enclosure a certain way. I normally solder the LEDs directly to the AionFX 3PDT daughter boards, but because of the layout, I had to run wires to one of them. Of course, the bi-color LED was hand wired to the 4PDT switch, and then I had to run extra ground and power connections.
For the enclosure I decided to stick with the Firefly / Browncoat theme of the Brown Source clone, as I could use a fun reference from the show to bring dinosaurs into the mix. It's hopefully an enclosure that will not only speak to fans of the show, but dino fans as well.
Once the pedal was together, I needed to test it - not only to check basic functionality, but to determine which pedal came first in the chain on the two different order settings (and their corresponding color). To do that I set up my Browncoat and Monolith pedals in series, matched settings, and went by ear. I tend to like the fuzz first on many settings, but not all - and given both of these pedals have individual four-way switches controlling tone modes and even clipping response there is a host of ways to set them up. I did notice one thing though, I've used some of the AionFX mods to increase the gain of both pedals, which is great when using them alone, but when using them in series (as either the discrete pedals or this combo pedal), you have to watch those volume knobs or you can go into some overload regions your amp won't appreciate!
A little more at the blog: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2022/10/steggos-first-combo-pedal-sudden-but.html
Last edited:
