Pedal Board Projects

zentropa · Post by **zentropa** » Thu Aug 10, 2023 6:27 pm

So last year was the year that I decided to finally go beyond Boss and Ibanez 9 series pedals, first with adding DOD pedals to my collection and eventually going boutique. It started with a Fulltone Fulldrive 2 falling into my lap for $40. I didn't really know what I was going to do with it, but I decided to build a board focusing on distortion/fuzz/overdrive "classic circuits." It was originally going to be 4 pedals, then 12, but eventually it grew to 20+. Half of the fun of it was deciding what would be on that board. I wanted everything to be true bypass except for intentional buffers placed at various locations and I was lucky enough to track down a Pedaltrain Grande (42" x 16") board with tour case for a good deal. I placed things in approximate chronological order. I built this primarily as a teaching tool to help friends understand the progression of dirt pedals throughout history.

The current version is:
1966 - Dallas Arbiter Rangemaster (Snowman Effect Gruftah)
1966 - Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face (Wren and Cuff Your Face 70s, I preferred this to their germanium version)
1970 - EHX Big Muff Pi (Stomp Under Foot Pumpkin Pi, although I have had a couple of Ram's Head clones in this spot)
J Rockett Steampunk Buffer/Booster
1972 - MXR Distortion+ (The Mad Science Basement Script MXR Clone)
1974 - DOD Overdrive Preamp 250 (Chicago Stompworks Grey Spec)
1974 - Ross Distortion (Dat Pedal Co. Primate)
1978 - Proco Rat (Robo Pedals The Rodent)
1978 - Boss DS-1 (Keeley DS-9 2-in-1 DS-1 + SD9)
1979 - Ibanez TS808 (Originally had a JHS Bonsai since it would do the Boss OD-1/TS808/TS9/TS10, replaced by Chicago Stompworks Green Thing)
1981 - Boss SD-1 (The Mad Science Basement SD-1 Clone)
1983 - Boss HM-2 (BYOC The Swede)
1989 - Marshall Bluesbreaker + Guv'nor (Smiletone Audio Governors Blues 2-in-1)
1994 - Klon Centaur (Mojo Hand Sacred Cow)
1995 - Boss BD-2 (Keeley Super Phat Mod)
1995 - Fulltone Full-Drive (FD2 Mosfet)
2003 - Analogman King of Tone (Ly Pedals King of Clone)
2003 - Hermida Zendrive (Cleveland Music Co. The Heights)
2004 - Paul Cochrane Timmy (Z-Fx Rhino)
2004 - Fulltone OCD (OCD 1.4)
ABY Splitter

It was tough narrowing it down to these. I wanted them to be all pedals that either were staples that guitarists used and/or reached some form of legendary reputation (sometimes due to scarcity or cost). I avoided pedals that everyone owned but abandoned when they learned how to shape their tone (e.g. DOD Grunge). I also didn't go overboard on fuzzes, so I didn't include things like the Maestro Fuzz, Fuzzrite, Tone Bender, etc. or every important iteration of Big Muff. I fell out of love with the Bonsai, so now I'm missing the OD-1 and TS9, but I'm not sure I'm going to re-add those.

What was strange to me is that after 2004, there became far less consensus among players. When there are 109 boutique modified Rats and 102 modified Bluesbreakers available, people spread it around, and not very many individual pedals reach an extreme front-runner type level of success. It was also difficult to know where to stop at how many iterations deep a pedal goes. e.g. Treble Booster led to the OD-1 led to the TS808 led to the Bluesbreaker led to the King of Tone/Timmy, etc.

If you think I'm missing anything essential feel free to let me know.

For the record, I got the majority of these pedals in the $40-80 range.

A picture of the current version:

: Big Board New.jpg (89.38 KiB) Viewed 2479 times

zentropa · Post by **zentropa** » Thu Aug 10, 2023 7:05 pm

My next pedal board project was the result of experimenting for the big board. When I was deciding between whether I should include Dumble amp-in-a-box type pedals on it, I tried a few and really liked them. I decided my next board was going to be an amp-in-a-box board.

This was extremely frustrating because the descriptor of amp-in-a-box is used for pedals that supposedly sound like an amp but also pedals that are miniaturized amp preamp circuits that use high voltage transistors in place of tubes. I find I like the amp preamp types a lot, but rarely like the other type.

This board project was going to have 3 of these on it: high, medium, and low gain and I originally envisioned it as being 3 distinct amp types, Marshall, Dumble, and something lower gain like a vintage Fender or Vox AC30. I got the Friedman BE-OD very early in that project and I have to say it sort of ruined a lot of other pedals for me. I feel like the Friedman BE-OD and Smallbox do not roll off much treble (sort of like old DOD dirt pedals), which at lower volumes gives a feeling that they are much more high fidelity than most other pedals. Like... the difference between FM and AM radio, so matching a lower fidelity pedal with it just sounded... muffled in comparison.

High Gain: Friedman BE-OD (hot rodded Plexi)

Other notables in this gain level:
Friedman BE-OD Deluxe (2 channel version of the BE-OD)
Revv G3 (Revv Generator)
Revv G4 (Revv Generator)
Frostgiant Electronics Architect of Reality (Laney AOR which was a modded JCM800)
J Rockett The Dude (high gain Dumble)
Mojo Hand Extra Special (high gain Dumble)
Soldano SLO Pedal (SLO 100)
Friedman Dirty Shirley (modded JCM800/Plexi)

Mid Gain: Friedman Smallbox (lower gain hot rodded Plexi)

Notables in this gain level:
Greer Tomahawk (Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3)
JHS Superbolt (60s Supro)
EAE Model feT

Low Gain: Mojo Hand DMBL (low gain Dumble)
Greer Royal Velvet (Vox AC30 with a modified tone stack)
Catalinbread RAH (HiWatt)
Benson Preamp (Benson Chimera)

I can boost each of these with a Greer Lightspeed. I rounded out the drive section of the board with a Stomp Under Foot Violet Ram's Head and a Greer Southland.

I'm probably forgetting a few notables. I demoed at least 60 different amp in a box pedals in this process, but some of them I wasn't able to try them on a rig that are even moderately similar to any of mine, so a few pedals likely didn't make the cut because of this. A lot of them were disqualified quickly because I didn't like how they felt. I was also kind of disappointed that I didn't find a regular type Plexi in a box that I felt actually played like a Plexi regardless of what type of amp I plugged it into.

Weirdest thing for me is when I really liked a pedal but rejected it because it didn't fit the project. This led to my current project, which is stuff that I really liked in my search but couldn't find a place for on the first two boards.

Pepe · Post by **Pepe** » Thu Aug 10, 2023 7:09 pm

Wow, this is impressive on many levels.

zentropa · Post by **zentropa** » Thu Aug 10, 2023 7:38 pm

Pepe wrote: ↑
Thu Aug 10, 2023 7:09 pm
Wow, this is impressive on many levels.

Thanks

I'm lucky in that I live near a small music store that specializes in pedals. It's safe to say they usually have about 500 pedals in stock at any time. While they have a few mass-marketed brands, Boss, EHX, MXR/Dunlop, Wah Huge, Ibanez, Aguilar, Maxon, Pigtronix, Supro, Walrus, Animals, NuX, Revv, BBE, DOD, Orange, Maestro, etc. they really shine when it comes to smaller brands. They deal Cusack, Mojo Hand, Rainger, Alexander, Greer, Stomp Under Foot, Source Audio, Warm Audio, Old Blood Noise Endeavors, ZVex, Beetronics, Henrietta Engineering, Thorpy, Fairfield, Benson, Acorn, Frostgiant Electronics, Electronic Audio Experiments, Wren and Cuff, Daredevil, Mutron, Dwarfcraft, Caroline, Chase Bliss, Diamond, IdiotBox, Spaceman, Cooper FX, Matthews, 1981 Inventions, and I'm sure at least 10 more brands that I am forgetting.

The owner is a really good guy and has a very good return policy. He has also offered to let me borrow pedals for a few days so I can test them on my home rig. He's also a major pedal nerd who sees gear in a similar way as I do. He was a big help in steering me in the right direction on things and I was able to figure out "that whole boutique thing" relatively quickly.

Pepe · Post by **Pepe** » Thu Aug 10, 2023 8:28 pm

Wow, that sounds great. We have NO similar shop in our near, maybe even not in whole Germany. Quite the contrary: we only have maybe a tenth of the music shops that were still alive twenty years ago.

zentropa · Post by **zentropa** » Thu Aug 10, 2023 8:31 pm

That sucks. We had a lot of closures, too.

25 years ago there were ~135 guitar shops in my metro area within a 60 mile radius. Now there are about 15.

bigtone23 · Post by **bigtone23** » Tue Aug 15, 2023 6:14 pm

Wow! Cool boards!
I like how they could be on the side of the road as a "Historical Marker" for travelers to get a break and learn something.
Because people on a road trip need to know about the history of dirt pedals, not just large balls of twine! haha

I also agree that in this boutique age, it's not just about simply finding a RAT, but ya gotta know which version it's based on and what tweaks were made to the circuit. I liked the simplicity of pedal shopping before 1995.

zentropa · Post by **zentropa** » Wed Aug 16, 2023 4:21 am

bigtone23 wrote: ↑
Tue Aug 15, 2023 6:14 pm
Wow! Cool boards!
I like how they could be on the side of the road as a "Historical Marker" for travelers to get a break and learn something.
Because people on a road trip need to know about the history of dirt pedals, not just large balls of twine! haha

I also agree that in this boutique age, it's not just about simply finding a RAT, but ya gotta know which version it's based on and what tweaks were made to the circuit. I liked the simplicity of pedal shopping before 1995.

Thanks

I'm currently in the works of trying to get a true bypass quad op amp OD-1 clone made to add to it since I lost the dual op amp version when I replaced the Bonsai.

I think I was inspired to make this board from the fact that I'm making new local guitar friends who got don't have the same history with tones that I do and when I would reference various famous pedals that I figured everyone knew what they sounded like they were clueless.

I also liked old school pedal shopping and found it tedious once everything started being XTREME with their marketing and branding and the entry of too many cheap plastic pedals. I think nowadays, I'm more down on the pedal nerds that drive the boutique pedal market than the builders, as they seem to be pushing for the builders to all make minor tweaks of whatever circuits are trendiest and designed to run through a Deluxe Reverb or a Princeton with a Telecaster or Jazzmaster. When everything sounds the same I get bored. When great sounding pedals don't sell or get discontinued because they are the "wrong" circuit, I get puzzled.

zentropa · Post by **zentropa** » Thu Aug 17, 2023 2:50 am

Pepe wrote: ↑
Thu Aug 10, 2023 8:28 pm
Wow, that sounds great. We have NO similar shop in our near, maybe even not in whole Germany. Quite the contrary: we only have maybe a tenth of the music shops that were still alive twenty years ago.

Here are some photos from the shop, including a panoramic view of the pedal wall.