David’s Obsolete Devices feature rare NOS vintage components - which are the centre point of that circuit design typically - made to get the most our of those components.

For the inaugural Obsolete Devices OC201 Preamp it was a rare Mullard Silicon Transistor, and for this Distortion Filter it’s 3 long discontinued D312A Soviet Germanium Diodes - in Asymmetrical Arrangement - for maximum harmonics and  texture.

The Germanium Clipping results is some degree of volume-drop - while that is...

October was a super busy month - one of the busiest ever - with such a scope and scale and body of work covered - I’m quite shattered as a result!

We had of the penultimate Events of the year :

• The 2nd Woking Boutique Guitar Show
• Kempton Park London International Guitar Show

And around one dozen key posts  as below also :

• Letter from Dr.No
• Teaching Machines FuzzBillion Component Combinations Wheels Gain-Shaper
• Hangman fx DAGG’R Dynamic Auto-Gain/Gate Mighty Morphing Gain-Ramper

I have spent a week now with the magnificent analog mechanical marvel that is FuzzBillion - and I’ve been utterly dazzled by its brilliance. This pedal is genuinely extraordinarily high fidelity and is a superb enclosed  breadboarding device and analog sound-design machine.

Leon and his colleagues at Teaching Machines (+ Frank, Luke, and Mat) recommend you work left to right - and start off every sound design task - with all wheels at zero - and then mix your favourite sound cocktail from ...

I’ve detailed before how Spaceman Effects has various series of pedals at different price points - NOS Series (entirely hand-made THT), Standard Series (Hybrid SMT + THT), and the Affordable Cadet Series (Machine-made SMT) - there are further nuances - somewhat further conflated now by a PDX Custom Series, and a Mod Series.

For me I’m mostly concerned with the style of components and the process of manufacture. The machine-made flow-line Cadet series - is by far and away the most affordable...

The Power Driver & Booster is a Discrete Harmonic Overdrive - consisting of 2 x Transistor Gain Stages for the main Overdrive, and a further Transistor for the Clean Booster. Those well guarded Transistors have an exceptional breakup character, which is further enhanced by Symmetrical and Asymmetrical clipping 1n914 Diodes. That whole combination sounds superb - the core Overdrive is fire! And the Clean Boost is further warm and expressive - all the elements combine superbly for an exceptional ...

Another super busy month - where the lack of a holiday is really starting to impact my wellbeing - as I’m about as shattered and burned out as is possible without going entirely into meltdown - I’m teetering on the edge!

Here follow the highlights of the month - which I normally try to limit to around 10 elements - but stand at 12 for September. No show or onside attendances this month - while plenty of other activities - and some killer releases of course!

• Jo Quail @ the Roland Store,

I’m a huge fan of BJFE, and consider Björn Juhl a friend. I have several of his pedals across BJFE, OneControl, Mad Professor, and now disassociated brand Bearfoot FX. And several variants of the Honey Bee / Bee / Sweet Honey in both Compact and Mini enclosures.

So I’m super excited to experience Vitalii’s take on the circuit. Notably the original Honey Bee was based on the sound of a massively beaten up and maltreated 60’s Supro Amp.

For the Okhtyrka Honey Bee Vitalii added a Pete ...

When I first clocked the Tri-Harmonic Phalanx it brought to mind the VFE Triumvirate Multi-Band Distortion - which was the fist device I encountered that split the incoming signal into 3 different frequency band gain stages that you could adjust and combine in parallel. That Triumvirate seemingly has exactly the same 6-Knobs control topology (3 Big, 3 small)!

The Triumvirate is obviously a forerunner here - and that makes use of 2 x TLE2074 and 1 x TL7660 IC’s / OpAmps, and the 2 x BS170 ...

The Silicone Expander elegantly takes you up through the gears - in a not dissimilar fashion to the recent JHS 424 Gain Stage Console Amp - albeit that is more of a lo-fi variant overall. But with similarly expansive range - giving your Clean Tones more sparkle and then ramping all the way up to Fuzz tones - where the ’Choke’ Bass Input control is a key component. So many fuzzes are based on low-end distortion - and that’s why you often see pedals with Input Gain as well as Output Gain elements...