Official Entry, by Travis Pike aka Beo, in Seattle
Well, the holidays are a great time to veg out on movies, especially the classics. My pedal integrates three well-known and well-acclaimed circuits, and I have tried to pay homage to them (without being too obvious) with some abstractly related movie themed graphics, which I have adapted for etching. I also used this build to work on my Eagle layout skills, trying to get all three circuits laid out cleanly on a single board, with on board pots and well isolated ground paths.
My submission is a triple combo pedal, with three overdrive circuits in one. These are three circuits I always wanted to build and play. Also, I'm a big Trey Anastasio fan, he uses dual Tube Screamers for his dirt tones. While this pedal doesn't have any tube screamers (I've already built a few of those), I was curious how these three different overdrive circuits would interact with each other when stacked.
For my video demo, I have all three ODs set up with the similar level and gain, for comparison purposes (ignore the knob positions in the pics). I have a lot of fine tuning to do, but I'll likely set up my two favorite as low-medium gain, or med-high gains, and have the third OD set to boost when stacked. At bedroom levels, it's hard to tell how well these pedals would differentiate from each other when amp is cranked up. However, even at these lower levels each circuit does seem to have it's own tone and characteristics, with all three giving nice and very usable dirt. Stacking gets to high gain craziness with ease.
Right now, I'd say my favorite is The Enchanter, with the Psycho Drive a close second. So far I'm not nearly as taken with Top Secret, but I need to play with it some more. I notice the original designers have a MKII out and I suspect I might like the changes they have implemented.
Anyways, enough rambling. Here are the pics:
Here's the component layout. I haven't provided the full schematic and layout with components identified. The schematics are out there for anyone wanting to build any of these.
And of course, here's the demo. I'm mostly a rhythm player.. after twenty years, I still can't play lead to save my life. Hopefully I don't get docked points for my crappy playing!
