New Non-BOSS Pedals

[Pepe]

The ATO-1 is an Aria pedal, though, the Tube Overdrive. And I'm really thankful for this discovery!

[fuzzbuzzfuzz]

Brain fart .

I do wonder if it was a deliberate move by Arion to ape the Aria name a little to confuse the customer base enough to purchase...way back when.

Yes, I'll hunt for another one at somepoint, they really are thin on the ground.

[Pepe]

The one corporation was originally called Arai, founded in 1956 by Shiro Arai. Due to increasing exports, it was renamed "Aria" in 1958.

The other corporation began as Prince Tsushinkogyo Co. Ltd. in 1950. It was renamed to "Arion" in 1980. Arion is the name of a famous poet and musician in ancient Greece.

I admit, the names are similar at first glance, but the selection of each was quite logical.

[Pepe]

My latest acquisition: a mid-'80s Aria OD-10 Over Drive from the Dual Stage Series. I have owned three models of this series, the FL-10 Flanger, the AD-10 Analog Delay and the CH-10 Chorus, but none of them impressed me too much, so I sold them on. This one, however, is a keeper!



It is a really nice sounding overdrive, quite versatile with a more amp-like sound than the later AOD-1 of the Aria "Big Foot Series" (I have the yellow see-through version by Ken Multi, completely identical to the Aria model), which is also a very cool unit, but a bit different. It is nice having both units!

This pedal with the box-shaped metal enclosure is among the six models of this series that offer a second sound option when the pedal is kept depressed. You can use the small, flat knob to tweak the gain for "Stage 2". I like to use a mild overdrive in normal mode and then step on the treadle to achieve a punchy solo sound. The maximum gain doesn't produce high distortion like the AOD-1, which can sound quite extreme, but it sounds nice all the way. The EQ sculpts the tone effectively, and set above noon, there is a noticeable mid-hump that I find very pleasing, while the later AOD-1 has a more balanced tone and its EQ acts like a traditional tone control. There is little tonal overlap only, plus it wasn't too expensive, so I can justify keeping both of them.

It has the JRC 4559 opamp, plus the famous orange/blue diodes that also some BOSS SD-1 pedals of this era (around 1984) feature on their boards.

[laurie]

Very nice!!

[chromandre]

love the gut shots!

[Pepe]

This pedal purchase was a real steal! A very early Jen Cry Baby (Model 310.001), sold at ebay last Monday. It was declared as defective by the seller, who apparently just had no clue how to test it. I was the winner of the auction at a total sum of merely 19.50 EUR including shipping! I couldn't believe my luck that there was no other bidder in the last remaining minutes. I had expected to be outbid in the last seconds - but no!

Despite some crackling noise of the potentiometer, dirty jacks and missing rubber parts at the toe-position, everything came in working and 100% original condition. After my maintenance, the pedal is in great shape and works wonderfully. The sound surprised me a lot, because it sounds very "hi-fi"! Neither warm and muffled, nor sharp and biting. It has a distinct "wah" sound, but very well-tailored.

After some research and discussion with fuzzbuzzfuzz, I seem to have caught an early treasure here! As you can see it doesn't have one of the famous Fasel inductors, and neither a "trash can" version. Instead, it has an even earlier type, a black horizontal inductor. The switch is a German Marquardt industry quality switch (they were used in the German Schaller pedals, too), the bipolar electrolytic capacitor is from Ducati. The potentiometer is not an "ICAR" model, it has no distinctive labelling, and no engraved date code. But all in all, this model seems to be made around 1971 or 1972. Such a unit would fetch a lot of money at Reverb, but I am going to keep it.

[laurie]

Very nice score