SAHARA

Not including my personal one, there are only two of these.

I have been overly concerned with how things respond to bass in most of my pedals. With this, I wanted to do the opposite and for the first time, chose to do something which actually rolled off some bass.

The result was that there was less boominess! Lower frequencies still come through, but their overtones get accentuated more than the fundamental tone, and that’s actually pretty cool. Bass guitar still works well with it, too.

At that point, it still sounded a little lopsided - rolling off some bass made it feel like there was too much in the higher frequencies. So I rolled those off as well, and the result was a fuzz with a bit of a mid-hump.

To really depart from other designs, I took the clipping diodes out. This not only allows the effect to get louder, but it also means it isn’t always clipping. You’ve got to turn the gain up some to get the transistor cooking - and that cooked transistor is all you’re really hearing.

To my ears, there’s just something sandy about it.

I built this with the intention of it being a standard part of my lineup, but I was also in the middle of moving to Australia.

Now that I’m here and have tools and everything again, I’m not so sure I want to continue any of my old designs and may take this as an opportunity to come up with an all-new lineup.

But it is hard to just build two of an effect and call it done. So if you are interested in one, contact me and I’ll see if we can work something out.

GRUMP & BURNT

Grump and burnt are different, but very similar effects.

They were both made around the same time - as you may know, part of the idea behind the Elements series was to make circuits that I could easily modify into new effects.

These were my first two swings at making something with Fire PCBs. It didn’t really go as planned with either one.

I wanted them to have more, but smoother saturation, and have wider ranging tone controls.

The tone controls worked as I expected, but nothing else did.

I didn’t build these on a breadboard, I just did some calculations on paper and built them. After two attempts at not getting what I was going for, I went back to designing on the breadboard.

These things weren’t what I wanted, but were still pretty cool and I’d play with them now and then.

When it came time to move to Australia, I decided to sell them. While I have no control over this actually happening, I always thought it would be cool for two friends/lovers/people with some weird connection to have them, because it is kind of like the pedal version of having half a medallion.

And that’s the story behind Grump and burnt.

GOBLIN MAGE

Yes, I have made a handful of fuzzes at this point. But for the most part, they all include very little filtering, and only Fire features any form of tone control.

“Fuzz with filters” was the guiding principle on this one.

Something unforeseen happened.

What was supposed to just passively roll off high frequencies ended up doing something strange. At the beginning of the sweep, it rolls off some highs, but it eventually hits a point where something else happens. Something mysterious. It’s like an additional gain stage is added, another fuzzy texture added in.

Rather than try to “correct” it, I renamed the control from “treble” to “sorcery.” I know how I could “fix” it, I just prefer it as is.

I changed the bass control to do something a bit more than roll off low frequencies to make things fit thematically. The “darkness” control filters out bass frequencies, but due to where it is placed in the circuit, it impacts the amount of overall gain the pedal has.

This is because the Goblin Mage is touch sensitive. More signal going into the pedal means more gain, less means less. Filtering out bass at the beginning means less overall signal - bringing the bass back in means there is more signal and thus more gain.

It sounds like this:

AIR

The third installment of the Elements series is here.

At it’s core, Air is an analog voiced delay. Despite how much I enjoy fuzz now, delay is the effect that really got me interested in playing the electric guitar. There’s just something about it.

When I started the design, I knew I wanted to base it around the PT2399 chip. BBDs are cool and everything, but they aren’t exactly easy to get, or reliable, and perhaps most importantly, I don’t really share in the nostalgia for that era or tones. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with them, I’m just saying I don’t have nostalgia for an age before I was born. That isn’t to say I’ll never touch a BBD… And while I am experimenting with the FV-1 (a digital chip), I wanted to go for a more analog sound.

I started by throwing in an input and output buffer—I mostly wanted this to make sure there wouldn’t be any volume loss. The thing is, it’s emotionally difficult not to add in a little gain, so there’s just a hint of gain at the input. Next comes the delay section and some filtering. Delay times range from about 60 milliseconds to 600 milliseconds. The amount of time is controlled by the Hourglass knob. Move the knob while playing to get a warping sound.

The repeats get dirtier the longer they are. The knob with the loopy thing controls this. At it’s lowest setting, the delayed sound will only repeat once. At it’s maximum, it will howl until the end of days.

All of this is fun and interesting enough. There’s a mix knob to control how much of the dry signal is mixed back in. But the fun hasn’t really started yet.

Hit the purple switch to begin the Storm. This engages a fuzz circuit within the delay line. This description does not give an accurate representation of it sounds, though. In fact, if you are aware of another pedal that injects fuzz into the delay line, please let me know! The idea started as a “tape age” but I found it was most fun when the tape came from between classical antiquity and the Jurassic.

Here’s what I like: beginning with all the controls (other than mix) back at zero and the Storm on, the fuzz is pretty mild. It adds a bit of warmth and saturation. But only to the delayed signal, your clean signal stays clean. Crank the mix knob almost all the way to drown out that clean tone, and with everything else at zero, and it’s a warm overdrive with the hint of the delay coming out as the harmonics bloom. Start turning up the thunder to get a little crazier. Then, start dialing repeats back in. In Storm mode, anywhere other than minimum repeats and lead to oscillation—with the fuzz, the repeats control kind of acts like a feedback looper. Let it howl. Finally, bring the delay back in for a wall of sound. Turn the repeats down and play a duet , one clear and one fuzzy and behind.

Air is weird. The Storm probably isn’t for everyone. Some way even say it’s too much fun. But for me, it’s about as fun as it gets. I used to use three pedals to get these kinds of sounds, and now I’m left wondering if I even need other pedals on my personal board. And every time I test them, I get sucked into them for like an hour or so. Beware.

Also works on bass! As bassists probably know, it’s all about that clean blend.