Here’s a video of the fuzz pedal in action. Direct in recording from pedal.
This is a fuzz pedal I created by adding a feedback loop and noise gate to a reissue EHX Big Muff Pi. It adds a bit of a more modern feel to the classic distortion pedal, while also keeping its original circuit intact. This video shows just a couple of the effects that can be achieved using the modified BMP, and I’m sure as I get more time to play with it on my board, I’ll find other settings I like. This one can go full spectrum- from a gentle gain boost to insane sub-octave bit crunching.
I’ve been kept busy during most of my free time by a lot of things, but my favorite has to be the new effects pedals I’m building. In this picture, the finished pedal (burgundy, lit LED) is the rehoused BMP from my previous post, fitted with a feed-back loop and noise gate. I then made it all pretty-like.
Tomorrow I’m going to capture a few clips of the pedal in action. This thing can generate everything from the standard BMP swarm-of-bees or bass-scraping to 8-bit-motorcycle revving. It’s a touchy little beast, with some odd settings combos leading to illogical results. For instance; the noise gate acts as normal with the feed-back loop off, quieting the pedal noise floor as its resistance is increased; but with the loop on, the gate acts as a way-around the loop, letting more clean-signal (though still colored by the BMP) through.
Anyway, it was a good experiment in pedal modding, and has given me more than a few ideas for future distortion projects. For now it’s secured a permanent spot on the pedal board.
The all-black pedal next to it is my EA Tremolo clone waiting for final wiring and lettering. I’m also about to begin work on a Green Ringer clone, which should be fun when combined with the FUZZ . .
Yesterday I posted about ripping the guts out of my favorite fuzz pedal, the Electro-harmonix Big Muff Pi. Today I show you how to do it.
The pedal has a really classic harmonic distortion sound- everything from woolly muffling to bee-hive droning. I must use the thing more than any other pedal on my board. But its sound might not be the only reason behind that; the thing takes up the space of two standard-sized pedals, dominating the real estate and sticking out like a big bully.
As I add more pedals to my board, the size of the Big Muff just gets more and more obnoxious. This is compounded by the fact that its electronics only take up about 40% of the housing! Look at the picture to the left- you can see all the free space that’s left after that tiny circuit board is installed. Electro-harmonix has themselves started housing their pedals in smaller, more manageable-sized enclosures, but I bought mine long before they ditched the nostalgia of these bread boxes.
So what was I to do? Well, rehouse it myself, of course. I wanted to share how easy it was (it only took me an hour or so, including drilling the new enclosure), in case you felt the urge to shrink down your own pedals. The techniques I use can be applied to a good bunch of the pedals out there, especially the ones in enclosures as easy to open as EHX’s.
The first thing I did was bring the guts of the pedal with me to Fry’s Electronics to find the right sized enclosure…
It certainly has been a while. You might be interested in one of the things that has distracted me this last week or so. I needed a pedal board, I couldn’t afford one, and so I built one.
Most pedal boards- especially those that don’t come with a power supply- are pretty over priced for what they are: board, carpet, case. I decided to cut out the cost of labor and the middle man by building one myself. I ended up saving over $100 when compared to the retail price of lower-quality boards.
I wanted to document the build, so I took some pictures along the way and I’ve written a detailed account of the process. So if you’re looking to build your own pedal board, you’re in luck- the photos and build notes can be found here.
Yesterday I posted about ripping the guts out of my favorite fuzz pedal, the Electro-harmonix Big Muff Pi. Today I show you how to do it.
