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Just some fuzzes in progress
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I thought I would do a couple of posts about the tone that I am after in my head. Everyone has their favorite guitar players and the reasons that they like their specific tone. For about 15 years I have been captivated with David Gilmour and his tone. His breakup is perfect. His guitar never seems to be to saturated, and too much gain is a big pet peeve for me.
While I am not as big of a fan of his use of compression, when someone is able to get to the volume of Gilmour (He regularly notes how loud he feels guitar has to be to really sustain well), that much compression is needed. He also is a fan of gain stacking, instead of using one drive unit for all of the needed overdrive/distortion.
While not a part of his overall guitar tone, Pink Floyd and how they use delay/reverb to create atmospheric space is a big influence. I can’t count how many times I have listened to 71-75 era Floyd just because of the atmosphere. Before my DL-4 went down, the Binson Echorec was one of my favorite models.
There are parts of Gilmour’s tone that aren’t constantly on the front of my mind, but overall he is a main contributor to the sounds that I try to conceive. For more information on David Gilmour and his guitar gear, check out gilmourish.com
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This is a Belkin based reverb from a BYOC kit. I wanted a reverb that I could use with any amp…and serve as a massive texture/ambient reverb when using an amplifier with reverb (such as my Fender DRRI). I have to say this came out well, and sounds great.
The name came from the color. My wife suggested a pedal the same color as our dachshund, and I was going to do a brown speckle. The other colors didn’t work out as well…so it stayed dark brown.
Labeling is with stamps. This is a quick and easy option for pedals that need labeling, but also need to be done quick. It can be hit or miss, but most of the time it looks great.
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This is a clone of a popular boost with a rather inappropriate name. I have started using these stamp on letters for my own pedals, because I usually don’t want to take the days for the way I normally label my larger pedals. I labeled this on a sweaty late summer evening so the ink seemed to run more than normal.
The theme is somewhat based on my own odd apocalyptic fascination…and it fit with the beat up red enclosure I had laying around. This pedal will never come off my board. I would call it essential to the type of gain stacking tone I really go for.
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The Black Sunshine is a prototype overdrive designed for a cascading gain approach to a pedal board. Since I play guitar primarily in church, and many of my customers do as well, I wanted to design a pedal that would work well at lower volumes and wouldn’t have a large amount of saturation.
Based of the classic DOD 250, the Black Sunshine follows the mid-70’s grey schematic, but has some changes within the gain structure as well as the clipping section. It performs great with a boost in front of it, and can get pretty hairy on its own if needed.
It has a HUGE volume boost, and works best with non-master volume amps. Demo to come soon.
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Off the Bench
Just a few pedals right of the bench. Its nice that the weather is warm enough to work again.
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Some New Pedals
An A/B/Y Box
Iron Horse Plus
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The swirl phaser/vibe is a tweaked out Phase 90 clone. It gets great tone and is really versatile. It is probably the most expensive pedal I will ever make (but its still cheaper than a SHO), but I love mine. It is one of the few builds I have ever done that really makes me excited to show it off, just because it has so many options. If you are interested, email at chadbrooksis AT gmail DOT com
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The Recession Buster Overdrive-a good cheap deal.
Why? Because we all need one right now. I am selling these puppies for 45 dollars and only for 72 hours. Friday night at 10pm, I will take the last order. Orders will be filled as they are recieved, but I imagine a max turnaround time of 4 weeks. I will take up to 5 orders, because that is about all I can handle on my bench at a time (if there is a good bit more demand, I will work something out).
To keep it cheap, your choice of colors is limited to black, tube screamer green, and a standard blue. The knobs will be the larger mxr style that you see on fender Jazz basses. LED color will be white with a black bezel. These are green builds, meaning that unless you request it-THERE WILL BE NO BATTERY SNAP. OneSpots are cheap enough now for you to have a whole string of pedals powered.
The Demo was recorded with my 72 reissue tele deluxe (with tele bridge and humbucker in the neck) into a Peavey Classic 50 with a 4/10 Cab. I had a little bit of reverb and I kicked in some delay at one point in the demo. The controls were fairly flat. Since I don’t talk during the demo, here are my notes. Unless noted, the pedals single knob (a volume/intensity) was at 12 o’clock.
.15 both pu’s on around 40%. I did roll the neck up later on.
.45 bridge at 60% neck at 100%
.56 bridge at 100%
1.05 bridge from 60%-85%
1.30 bridge 100%
2.15 both 100%
2.30 pedal at 100% volume. The bridge at 100%
3.20 bridge to 20%
If you want to order, you can contact me at chadbrooksis AT gmail DOT com
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I don’t think I have ever made a list of pedals/descriptions. I wish I could do a permanent price list, but suppliers have been changing prices lately, so I have to have a fluid range. If you are interested in a pedal, email me at (chadbrooksis AT gmail DOT com) and we can talk. I actually like to find out what you are playing with to make sure this will be the right fit for your rig.
BOOSTS-
I make a clean boost and a dirtier boost. Check out the post a few down to find out exactly what these are.Fuzz-
ThunderFuss-This is a fuzz faceish circuit that can either be tailored to be higher gain or more classic. I can add a bias knob if you want, to give you real sputtery tone. It is normally a single knob controlling volume/intensity.Iron Horse-A diode based fuzz, with clipping controls (giving you two options). This can be run as a overdrive in one setting if you work with your volume control.
Overdrive-
Wagonwheel-This is a single knob overdrive that easily will get you into that great classic rock territory. I have installed several different clipping circuits to make it either heavier (sabbath) or raunchier (ZZ TOP).
Gunslinger-This is a great tubescreamer type pedal, with volume, gain and tone controls.
Modulation-
Shake Tremolo-a good all around trem circuit with a volume boost (switchable) and 2 rate controls. This is an expensive pedal (around 150 dollars), but if you want to cut out some of the crazy options it could get cheaper.
Swirl Phaser/Vibe-a tricked out Phase 90 type pedal, with switchable 2 and 4 stage phasing as well as a cap change to get you more of a vibe/leslie tone. Another expensive pedal (around 225) but well worth it.
Both of the modulation pedals are in large 1790 (Deluze Memory Man size) boxes, the rest are in your standard pedal enclosure that most small shop pedals come in.
With all pedals you pick the enclosure color, knob choice (depending on whats in stock), LED color and anything else. I have done a few swirl finishes for folks, that is an extra 15 dollars. Unless requested, I don’t put battery snaps in pedals….pedal power has gotten cheap and batteries are bad for the environment. Scroll through the site (it isn’t that big) if you want to hear demos and see more pictures.
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