Fingolfen
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I scream, you scream...
A lot of people on here seemed to really like the Frost Drive, so I decided I should try it out. And since the pedal had three variants in the instructions... well, you know...
Because I was building three pedals, I had to be fairly careful to make sure that I kept the three variants straight. The three varieties differ in four resistors (identified as low, vol, min, and max on the board) and two capacitors (max and hi). One of the potentiometers for this build (C10K dual) is really difficult to acquire, so the instructions helpfully include changes needed to substitute a C100K dual potentiometer instead - which is much easier to get! For this build, I'm using almost all modern components, as it is a modern pedal. The resistors are all 1%% metal film Yageo. The film capacitors are all WIMA or KEMET. The electrolytic capacitors are Nichicon. All of the ICs are original and socketed. the 1N914 diodes are all new production from Mouser (I think they're Onsemi). The 1N5817 reverse polarity protection diode is an older one I picked up from my local electronics parts store.
The original pedal has six potentiometers, but it appears a three are the 9mm variety based on the appearance of the pedal. This would make the interior a bit less crowded. Another challenge is the dual gang pot is in the bottom middle of the enclosure. PedalPCB offers a pot insulator, but these have been out of stock for a while. Fortunately I had a few left over from my Tone Geek Aqua Puss build I was able to cut down and use instead.
The wiring follows my normal process for all three pedals. I'm using a star ground on the input jack. The PedalPCB 3PDT daughter board is attached to the I/O jacks with aviation grade hookup wire, and it is attached to the main PCB with ribbon cable. The jacks are Switchcraft 111X.
For the enclosures I wanted to do something fun (as always). This time around the enclosure features an Azhdarchid - family of pterosaurs that includes some of the largest flying animals of all time. The ones on the enclosure are supposed to be on the large side (the largest Azhdarchids have wingspans between 33 and 39 feet!). I figured it would have likely let out a fairly significant screech, so it sort of (very) loosely fits in with the "scream" portion of the original name.
Since I used the same basic art for all three pedals, I needed an easy way to tell the "Vanilla" version of the pedal from the "Sherbet" and "Mint" varieties (anyone else getting hungry?). I decided to simply change the colors of the pterosaur on each - mostly cream colored for vanilla, orange for sherbet, and green for mint. I also changed the LED color using warm white, orange, and green for vanilla, sherbet, and mint respectively.
All of the pedals are working flawlessly at this point, and they do not only provide a huge amount of gain, but the multi-band equalizer gives you a lot of tone control. I'm honestly still experimenting with these at this point to see which one(s) I like best and with what guitars. The only downside is unlike the new Tone Geek Vemuram TSV808 board, the switches controlling the clipping modes are internal rather than accessible from the top of the pedal. That makes it more difficult to change the character of the clipping on the fly - so you really pretty much have to dial it in and leave it there until you're in a place where you can take off the back.
As an aside, with VFE shutting down, I'd picked up the Gerber files for what is currently being sold as the Ice Scream - here's that PCB:
It's a little different in spots, but I honestly haven't had time to go through and trace it to understand what the Frost Drive does that isn't included in the original Ice Scream... stuff to add to the to do list...
More gut shots and info at the blog: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2022/09/i-scream-you-scream-cloning-vfe-ice.html
A lot of people on here seemed to really like the Frost Drive, so I decided I should try it out. And since the pedal had three variants in the instructions... well, you know...
Because I was building three pedals, I had to be fairly careful to make sure that I kept the three variants straight. The three varieties differ in four resistors (identified as low, vol, min, and max on the board) and two capacitors (max and hi). One of the potentiometers for this build (C10K dual) is really difficult to acquire, so the instructions helpfully include changes needed to substitute a C100K dual potentiometer instead - which is much easier to get! For this build, I'm using almost all modern components, as it is a modern pedal. The resistors are all 1%% metal film Yageo. The film capacitors are all WIMA or KEMET. The electrolytic capacitors are Nichicon. All of the ICs are original and socketed. the 1N914 diodes are all new production from Mouser (I think they're Onsemi). The 1N5817 reverse polarity protection diode is an older one I picked up from my local electronics parts store.
The original pedal has six potentiometers, but it appears a three are the 9mm variety based on the appearance of the pedal. This would make the interior a bit less crowded. Another challenge is the dual gang pot is in the bottom middle of the enclosure. PedalPCB offers a pot insulator, but these have been out of stock for a while. Fortunately I had a few left over from my Tone Geek Aqua Puss build I was able to cut down and use instead.
The wiring follows my normal process for all three pedals. I'm using a star ground on the input jack. The PedalPCB 3PDT daughter board is attached to the I/O jacks with aviation grade hookup wire, and it is attached to the main PCB with ribbon cable. The jacks are Switchcraft 111X.
For the enclosures I wanted to do something fun (as always). This time around the enclosure features an Azhdarchid - family of pterosaurs that includes some of the largest flying animals of all time. The ones on the enclosure are supposed to be on the large side (the largest Azhdarchids have wingspans between 33 and 39 feet!). I figured it would have likely let out a fairly significant screech, so it sort of (very) loosely fits in with the "scream" portion of the original name.
Since I used the same basic art for all three pedals, I needed an easy way to tell the "Vanilla" version of the pedal from the "Sherbet" and "Mint" varieties (anyone else getting hungry?). I decided to simply change the colors of the pterosaur on each - mostly cream colored for vanilla, orange for sherbet, and green for mint. I also changed the LED color using warm white, orange, and green for vanilla, sherbet, and mint respectively.
All of the pedals are working flawlessly at this point, and they do not only provide a huge amount of gain, but the multi-band equalizer gives you a lot of tone control. I'm honestly still experimenting with these at this point to see which one(s) I like best and with what guitars. The only downside is unlike the new Tone Geek Vemuram TSV808 board, the switches controlling the clipping modes are internal rather than accessible from the top of the pedal. That makes it more difficult to change the character of the clipping on the fly - so you really pretty much have to dial it in and leave it there until you're in a place where you can take off the back.
As an aside, with VFE shutting down, I'd picked up the Gerber files for what is currently being sold as the Ice Scream - here's that PCB:
It's a little different in spots, but I honestly haven't had time to go through and trace it to understand what the Frost Drive does that isn't included in the original Ice Scream... stuff to add to the to do list...
More gut shots and info at the blog: https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2022/09/i-scream-you-scream-cloning-vfe-ice.html
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