Juansolo's pedal pimpage!

juansolo

I've decided, in the interests of keeping the capacitor fund healthy, to offer some stock pedals. These, unlike my DIY and occasional build to order stuff, will be a range of stock effects that what you see is what you get. Now I'm unlikely to carry built stock of these as the idea is that I have the parts in to build them so if you want one, I'll be able to turn it around quite quickly.

The effects on offer are some of my favourite things. In support of the DIY community, if you want to build any of these, PCBs (or equivalents) are available at Grind Customs, along with the docs on what goes into them. Well apart from Big Omar... But that may yet happen depending on the response.

http://juansolo.co.uk/stompage/images/grouphug.jpg

These pedals are built using a Camden Boss enclosure that is particularly compact and has is no space for provision of a battery. As such these pedals will only run with a 'Boss style' centre ground 9v DC power supply. Pretty much the stock supply in the pedal world.

I use optical bypass for the switching. This allows for near as damnit true bypass, but with the added advantage of minimising popping and being massively more reliable than the staple 3PDT stomp that many use. In all the years of making pedals, the most common thing to fail on them is the stomp, which is why I don't skimp in that area.

I don't have a warranty as such, being a bloke rather than a business. But as long as I have an iron and the ability, if it breaks I will fix it. If you break it, I'll fix it and you pay for the parts and return delivery. I've always done this to be fair, I just thought I'd put it in writing.

Pedals are £75 including UK delivery. £80 to the rest of the EU. They do not come in a fancy bag, printed box, with instructions, stickers or plectrums. You get a pedal in a plain brown box. Which as you're (hopefully) going to slap it on a pedal board, and the controls are pretty self-explanatory, you shoudn't need any of that shite.

Click me to go into more details on the pedals

"what is the TSM680 / Big Omar / UltraStoner?"

The TSM a different take on a muff. Lotsa mids, more fuzzy distortion than fuzz, really quite aggressive. It's been kicking around for a while now, the best one for DIYers to build is probably the v2 on Grind's UltraStoner PCB if you want options with it. It's in the docs.

We've simplified both the US and the TSM here because I wanted to concentrate on what I thought they did best. So the US uses 6 async Ge clippers and has the filter cap in place on the 2nd stage clippers, giving it that soft fizzy/sludgy thing (think Sasquatch sort of territory). The TSM doesn't have the extra filter and uses a pair of LEDS, so it's hard and loud.

Big Omar, for those interested, is a charge pumped FET booster. But it's based on the Baby BoobTube, which in itself was based on the first stage of a VOX AC15 amp. Unlike SHO's and the like, it runs flat out all the time and the knob just controls the volume at the end. It's amazingly close to the valve effect sonically, and can be used as a pseudo dirt channel on a single channel amp (how I've always used my Baby Boobtube), after a fuzz to give it some more oomph, or as a really nice sounding dirty booster.

As alluded to before, Big Omar is a rather infamous British porn star with a large knob... As FET boosters tend to be a play on that sort of thing (the Super Hard On springs straight to mind), and we put a large knob on ours, ours is Big Omar

"...and the other three?"

They're clones with knobs on. For the muffs, that's a mids knob. Dialled all the way CCW they're stock, turning them clockwise adds mids back in. For the JTB, the switch swaps a pair of components that change it from a Jumbo Tonebender into a B&M Fuzz Unit (Edwyn Collins uses a B&M). The FU is more scooped than the JTB.

DGM3 is a Violet Rams Head that we think gets Gilmour very well. It's not so great for chords, but for Floydian noodling we think it gets you there. The mids knob on this one goes to near as damnit flat.

71 Triangle is what it says on the tin. There are loads and loads of variants of muff. This is the one that I think most people have in their head when they say they want something that sounds like a muff. At least it's the traditional muff I like the most.

The JTB is based on a '76 Jumbo Tonebender we traced. Don't let the name fool you, this is a silicon effect that will play nice with your other pedals. It's also my favourite fuzz of all time.

impmann

FWIW - I have a Jumbo ToneBender/B&M Fuzz Unit clone built by Mr Solo.

It is without question or bullshit the BEST fuzz I have ever heard/owned (and I've had a LOT). It can be like a Muff without the middle hollowness, it can sound like a Wasp that's in the midst of an almighty comedown after a night of serious Coke snorting or in conjunction with some boost, the nastiest snarliest HUGEST fuzzed out lead tone.

Seriously - its the canine dangling sack.

ThorpyFX

They look wicked, best of luck with the range!!

juansolo

Cheers guys

Mkjackary

Having borrowed a tsm680 (and subsequently ordered a multi with it in) I proper awesome little thing. Great for chords and single note stuff, can be very aggressive if need be. Most usable fuzz I've tried too (a lot are cool but would never be used outside of pissing about at home).

Looking forward to having mine

juansolo

Still waiting for the box to land (supplier out of stock). Shouldn't be long. Klone and FatPants are ready to drop in. Just need to build the TSM.

Mkjackary

juansolo;1026371" said:

Still waiting for the box to land (supplier out of stock). Shouldn't be long. Klone and FatPants are ready to drop in. Just need to build the TSM.

Oh wow! Was expecting it to be a while longer than that, awesome to see it is already under way

juansolo

Box is holding us up and will take about a week to turn around when it lands. Got a few builds in at the moment that I want to get sorted and out the door.

monquixote

They look really cool. 

Love your boxes. 

tabbycat

i love your work, mr solo. you and cleggy both. i see your threads at madbean and your reputation is justly fearsome.

am into building (curiosity and poverty) so more interested in what you do on pcb. the pedal i most want but can't afford or find a schematic for is the smallsound bisgsound f*ck overdrive (with 'crackle'). that pedal blows me away. such a massive sound. i think because brian is a small builder the fsb tracing machine is going light touch on this one, which i totally respect (am a member there too).
but as it's something i want but can't afford am toying with attempting a 'kind-of' mutant trace for a one-off for my personal use, or trying to adapt a known (fairfield barbershop) to that purpose.
so if you have something of that kind i could adapt to hit the f*ck sound i would be interested to hear it. that supersaturated trashed amp crackle is something special.

failing that i may well finally get around to building a profundis delay (the 'to build' list that gets longer no matter how much i build) with modulation, if that pcb is still on.

will slip over to grind for a shufti...

menamestom

They look great John. Let me know if you want to pop down to the studio and get some clips done of them. We are due a session I believe. I think if you came with 6 pedals this time we might just get something done

juansolo

The Profundis is still around. I've been pestering Rej for the Profundis mk2 for ages (we've all got a wishlist of upgrades for that one). But as it stands it's still a great sounding delay that is one of two go-to's that I always use. The modulation is not something I tend to use, but I know he still does the boards.

I don't know of the smallsound/bigsound pedal, and if FSB haven't done it your only choice is really buying one and tracing it yourself. Which after you've bought one is a bit counter productive

juansolo

menamestom said:

They look great John. Let me know if you want to pop down to the studio and get some clips done of them. We are due a session I believe. I think if you came with 6 pedals this time we might just get something done

I will absolutely take you up on that!

We'll behave this time and not bring any other toys

Will have to see if @musteatbrain is up for it also. Though I know he's busy of late.

menamestom

juansolo said:

menamestom said:

They look great John. Let me know if you want to pop down to the studio and get some clips done of them. We are due a session I believe. I think if you came with 6 pedals this time we might just get something done

I will absolutely take you up on that!

We'll behave this time and not bring any other toys

Will have to see if @musteatbrain is up for it also. Though I know he's busy of late.

Great, will come back to you with a date in the next few days, it will aim for a Sunday in May.  I'll start a PM shortly.

If you bring your Princeton Reverb and the pedals, I have a new option for recording decent quality videos and audio (iphone 6 and Shure MV88) so we can do that, but also Mic up into the DAW with a 57 and Condenser some audio only clips.

I think with much less gear and a few hours we should get some really good clips.

marauder

There's still a pub opposite, must resist!

menamestom

marauder said:

There's still a pub opposite, must resist!

I've never even been in there tbh, must try it one day!  It's not as if I'm shy with propping up a bar......

menamestom

Quick question while I think about it.  The optical bypass, is it possible to convert existing 3PDT pedals to this method?

marauder

Yes, if there's enough room to fit the board, usually is.

menamestom

Great, just found some on Grind Customs.  May give it a go.

menamestom

menamestom said:

Great, just found some on Grind Customs.  May give it a go.

2 really dodgy looking fellas on that website though

marauder

There's more than 2.

Our board is smaller, got loads mate.