New Non-BOSS Pedals

Discuss all non-Boss pedals here!
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fuzzbuzzfuzz
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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 am

Pepe wrote:
Sun Jun 09, 2024 9:49 am
I purchased this Rocktron Purple Haze a few weeks ago. It is an octave up fuzz with an octave below on demand.

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It is from the early series with the solid aluminium chassis. A really dumb design flaw (I utterly hate it! :x ) is that the boards were slid into the chassis and then a thin flexible black cover with the controls printed on it was put over the potentiometer shafts and glued to the top of the chassis. If you want to remove the boards for maintenance or repair you will inevitably destroy this cover. I wanted to treat the crackling potentiometers with tuner spray. I wanted to remove the boards, so I carefully lifted the one side of the cover ... aaargh! The label of the first potentiometer doesn't look too nice anymore. Stupid design! Why didn't they print it on a sturdy metal plate?! You also have to be careful with the printed labelling on the chassis. Avoid cleaners that contain alcohol! I wanted to remove some bits of residue - now it's an "OCKTRON" pedal. Aaargh!

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And how does it sound? Okay-ish. The octave up fuzz isn't half bad, but the octave down (octave up fuzz and the low octave can be blended with the MIX knob, each to full wet sound; the MOD knob is like a tone knob for the low octave) despite sounding nice with a very synth-like square wave tone, is just too glitchy and it doesn't work on the whole fretboard. All in all pretty much a let-down. :|
Ah, I was always curious about this one and have seen one example locally. (This and the "Surf Trem"). Thank you for the write up.. How very frustrating with the labelling and design. I modded the similarly pink Vibrato too, which also had the slide out, though a narrower profile and less label trouble.

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by Pepe » Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:32 am

Just recently I sold the Purple Haze to a guitarist in Cologne and he simply loves it. It does sound good, but the tracking for the low octave ... :?

I have had the Vertigo Vibe twice, but both times I didn't like it at all. What did you achieve by modding it?
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fuzzbuzzfuzz
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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 3:48 am

zentropa wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:33 pm
Finished up my DOD collection (aside from 1 more PRC-6 board) and slowly whittling away at my Ibanez 9 Series. Replaced my AD9 reissue with a vintage one and grabbed this AF9 recently.

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DOD Bass Board.jpg
Wow, what a great set of quite rare classics. The AF-9 is impossible to find in Japan these days (or very highly priced) as is the earlier orange AF model. Beautiful sounding filter I'd like to reacquire at some point.

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 3:50 am

Pepe wrote:
Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:32 am
Just recently I sold the Purple Haze to a guitarist in Cologne and he simply loves it. It does sound good, but the tracking for the low octave ... :?

I have had the Vertigo Vibe twice, but both times I didn't like it at all. What did you achieve by modding it?
I added a speed control knob to the side - to adjust the higher speed. I left it at that since the board is not so easy to work on and I already had other pedals of a similar nature. True bypass would be the next step, but that appears fiddly. Finally, some evening out of the wave form would be nice. Anyway, it looked nice with new cream white knobs too... :D
Last edited by fuzzbuzzfuzz on Wed Nov 20, 2024 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 3:52 am

zentropa wrote:
Tue Jul 30, 2024 5:11 am
I never thought I would have one of these, but I finally got an original TS9 when one popped up for $175.

Ibanez TS9.jpg
Far out! Thats a $500 + pedal right there. Score!

I missed a mint OD-9 (The Maxon version) for a good price....ouch.

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 3:55 am

Pepe wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2024 10:53 am
In late July I had the pleasure to meet fuzzbuzzfuzz in person. It was an awesome afternoon in Venlo (NL) and we have had lots of fun. He had a pedal for me that I bought through him a few weeks before that day: the yellow Ken Multi MOD-SS Overdrive. Now I am a happy owner of a full set of the rare see-through Skeleton Series. And I'm very grateful that fuzzbuzzfuzz snatched them all for me in Japan. A few months before I received a parcel with the blue MCH-SS Chorus. And my first pedal, the red MDT-SS Distortion, made it to me in 2019 (I did a demo video of it).

The pedals look great (also in the dark!) and they sound awesome, especially the Overdrive which has a very natural and smooth sound. Impressive! The whole series (originally by Aria) is very underrated. Don't be fooled by plastic enclosures, dear people!

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Yes, a great day. Thank you. I hope a 2025 meet up will also be on.

And wow they cleaned up beautifully. Almost a new-like shine to them, fab job Pepe!

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 3:58 am

Pepe wrote:
Wed Oct 16, 2024 3:08 pm
A few days ago I received another beauty, an Ibanez DSC10 Digital Chorus:

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It arrived in very dirty shape and I was surprised how clean it was in the end. It works perfectly and it sounds really good, especially with the Color knob in the "warm" region. Sadly, the stereo mode does only provide an inverted signal, as most stereo chorus effects do*, otherwise it could be a keeper.

PM me if you are on the search for this pedal from the legendary Ibanez 10-series!

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*Negative plus positive effect signal, each at 100% on the left and the right side result in a spacious sounding stereo effect, but this method is not mono compatible. The more you pan the signals towards the middle position, the effect signal becomes more and more inaudible. Both effect signals combined as a pure overlayed mono signal makes the chorus effect vanish completely so you can only hear the bypass sound, even at the most extreme effect settings. Exceptions that I have are the BOSS DC-2 and the RCE-10 that don't provide inverted signals for the stereo option only.
Ah, excellent explanation. I had this unit - briefly - and only ever used it in mono configuration, a rather flat and thin sound. Now I know :roll:

Another series that was tempting to collect but seemed rather ambitious based on sheer volume of models!

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by fuzzbuzzfuzz » Tue Nov 19, 2024 4:02 am

Pepe wrote:
Tue Feb 06, 2024 12:24 pm
Here are finally a few pictures of the MXR distortion +. The potentiometers are from Dec '79 and Jan '80, so I think it's been made in 1980. The original blue tantals were replaced by new ones. I used thin foam rubber to isolate the electronic parts and a thick layer of soft foam for the place where the battery goes. Is there any replacement for the bottom rubber? It is by no means skidproof anymore.

Since it's a keeper I'll tell you what I paid for it. The seller put up an ad and he wanted 20 EUR for local pickup in North Germany. I immediately offered him 40 EUR including shipping and he was okay with it. He repeatedly wrote me that it was broken and asked me if I really wanted to buy it. Well, certainly! He wished me good luck with the repair - and you see how it went. Easy fix!

I'm still amazed how many good sounds are inside this little beast!

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remarkable, a fantastic score once again!

Fetching quite good money here in Japan, around 20,000yen upwards. MXR were always quite expensive, unlike for example the Coron clones of the time. I think I have the price guide from the late 70s somewhere, the prices for import items are absolutely eye watering!

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by Pepe » Thu Nov 21, 2024 4:42 pm

On Monday I received this vintage Schaller TV 66/67 "Tonverzerrer". It was defective, but after a thorough maintenance and small repair it works like on day one again!

I did a lot of research in the last few days. I am now absolutely certain that this model must have been made in the first months of production. This pedal is from 1966 or 1967! Apparently it has never been opened. It still contained the very first battery (non-leaking) and this one had no clip - it was directly soldered to the circuit. This user-unfriendly method cannot have been the standard procedure for a very long time. The potentiometers are from DRALOWID ("Drahtlose Widerstände", engl.: wireless resistors) in Berlin, a company that was closed in 1970. The Germanium transistors (labelled "A T E S AC192") are from the Italian company Ates Componenti Elettronici (not TES Tecnica Elettronica System as I thought at first).

Yesterday I tested the Tonverzerrer against a few of my fuzz pedals. Sound-wise it shares the most with the Keio (pre-KORG) Synthesizer Traveler, a huge pedal with wah-like treadle from 1973 that has fuzz, lowpass filter and a "singing" function. The fuzz of this Keio unit sounds very similar, but very noisy in comparison. The second closest match was the DingoTone CSF Classic Seventies Fuzz with silicon transistors, which is a tribute to the '70s Fuzz Face with silicon transistors.

So the Schaller Tonverzerrer is clearly a German variant of the Fuzz Face. It sounds more choppy and has less sustain, but it is significantly brighter and very gritty with a lot of bite. A very rough basic sound with the ability to easily produce deep and smashing heavy rock power chords. It has enormous amount of headroom. It gets really loud on demand, obviously to support the weak sounding pickups of the cheap guitars from that era. The noise performance is surprisingly good. Schaller offered a high-quality pedal with the TV 66/67.

The big switch doesn't really provide true bypass switching, although it looks as if it could route the input signal to the output without quality loss. But the basic guitar sound gets altered a lot without a buffered pedal in front or after it. It sound really "vintage" and somehow makes my Japanese Fender Stratocaster sound like a guitar from the early '70s. Well, I don't like that too much. But with a buffered pedal in the chain the guitar sound is normal again.

This early circuit doesn't handle the Fuzz Face-typical trick with the guitar's volume knob too well. It doesn't clean up as good. Later Schaller fuzzes with silicon transistors do, though. Maybe also the later revised versions with Germanium transistors that were made around 1969 until 1971. Actually I like my model the most with a buffered pedal in front. This way the Intensität knob has a much wider operating range and the overall performance is better in my opinion: less distorted sounds can be achieved more easily, it increases the sustain and it handles the individual pickups better than with the guitar directly plugged into the input. Otherwise only the combinations of my single coils lead to good results.

This pedal is really, really good. Definitely a keeper! Not least because it is one of the very first European distortion pedals. I have never had an older piece of electrical music gear in my hands. This one stays with me for sure! :)

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Re: New Non-BOSS Pedals

Post by Pepe » Thu Dec 19, 2024 2:32 pm

Yesterday I repaired this Japanese Arion SCH-1. Full repair report here.

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I also bought an Arion SDI-1 Distortion, because the Chorus came without the original knobs. The Distortion isn't half bad! I need to order replacement knobs for this one.

The Chorus is a keeper, especially at this low price. It has a really nice sound that is legendary for a good cause. I had a mint Japanese SCH-1 with the box and manual in 2015 (bought for 20 EUR including shipping!), but I sold it on, because I needed money at that time. That was a sale that I instantly regretted. At least I have a working model again, although not in collector's condition (especially inside!).
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