My first BYOC build is now complete (except for the painting). I built mine to the "Triangle" specs becuase I'm a bit of a late Gilmour freak..
Maybe it's just the honeymoon, but this thing is killing me. I'll add my comments on tone at the end.
Here's a few action shots -
Getting started
God gift to soldering. If your still making do with a Radio Shack stick, throw it in the trash and invest a bit. Your solder joints will thanks you
Resistors all finished! Moving on to the caps . . .
Almost done with the board
Many 5 watt Zeners gave there lives to this project. We will never forget them . . . .
Their sacrifice was not in vain . . .viola - PC mount pots with STRONG mount points
Getting the enclosure ready
Board's in . . .
I used silver plated teflon that I have from wiring amps. Gotta love running the solder bead right up to the insulator with no melting. She's ready to rock now
My number 1 - a midnight wine MIM strat. I went through about a zillion strats to find this one - she is absolutely my favorite instrument ever, especially with the DG-20 rig. It can purr or scream and everything in between.
I ran the Large Beaver through a stereo Trademark 60 rig and my homebuilt Bassman and I have to say that I'm blown away. The treble just sings and if I wiggle it a bit, splits into awesomely gorgeous harmonics. The mid mod knob is absolutely brilliant - if I crank the Bassman I can set the mids to the original setting and boost the pedal a la Gilmour with my Bad Monkey and it just flat out kills. Monster Floyd tone for days with a bit of delay. It's pretty insensitive to the volume control, but who cares with tone like this. Into my Trademark 60 rig I kick the mids to the flat setting and hit it with my SD-1 in boost mode and it sounds like I've got a chocolate milkshake chainsaw cutting through my skull. A bit of stereo delay, reverb, and a hint of CE-2 on the left amp and I'm crapping my pants. The mids and treble of this thing are just that good.
It's interesting that hitting this pedal with a booster doesn't make it crap out, it brings it to life. It's like an entire spectrum of sound appears when the boost is on. It sounds good alone, but if you haven't done it yet, put something fairly clean in front of it and whallop this gal with a bit of girth. It's amazing. The SPC control on my EMG DG-20s kicks this things @ss.
Also, its amazing to me how it preserves that sound of each pickup position even with the sustain maxed out. It's a full on fuzz, but i can distinctly hear the difference between each and every setting on my guitar. Bumping any of the active controls changes the tone, which usually gets lost in high gain. I'm freaking stoked.
The bass is a bit muffled (LOL - I think that a pun). Its huge but it lacks clarity if you hit it. I've found that vintage effects work the opposite of how you would expect in the bass register . . . you have to pick lightly to get definition. If you hit it hard it woofs out. Also, single notes are far clearer than diads on the low strings. It almost sounds like the lower freqs change the bias of the gain stages somehow. Anyone know any mods to clear up the bottom end a bit without reducing the size of the bass note?
Other than that small niggle, I freaking love this thing. Solos just soar and the mids grind. I'm thinking about buying a Tri-boost and build it into an enclosure with this pedal. It would be "The Division Bell" in a box
Thanks for a great pedal!
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