Difference between revisions of "Thermionic Effects"

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* [[XT-2]] '''(out of production)''': "Xtortion" a distortion with controls as if paired with a fixed wah filter.
 
* [[XT-2]] '''(out of production)''': "Xtortion" a distortion with controls as if paired with a fixed wah filter.
  
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==[[Build Your Own Clone|BYOC / Build Your Own Clone]]==
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==[[Build Your Own Clone|BYOC/Build Your Own Clone]]==
 
(Kit Pedals)
 
(Kit Pedals)
  

Revision as of 08:47, 23 October 2018

Here is a list of the effects available for rent from Thermionic Studios. Every pedal listed here is one that we have in inventory (or have all the parts for and are in the process of assembling) and available for you to try out. We believe that if you're interested in tone-shaping for yourself, it might be nice for you to find out what you like before deciding that you're going to invest a lot of money in obtaining such pedals for yourself.

We have a few things listed along with the companies here for clarity - here's an explanation:

  • (Production pedals): This means that this company builds and sells full working pedals. Just buy, plug in, and play
  • (Built-from-PCB pedals): This company sells (mostly) only printed circuit boards (PCBs). We have purchased the PCB, and the necessary electronic parts to assemble this pedal.
  • (Kit pedals): This company sells kits that consist of the PCB, the enclosure, and all the electronics necessary. You're on the hook to assemble. Sometimes, despite the fact that the company offers primarily kits, low customer interest and lack of sales volume of certain pedals will prevent a company from putting together certain kits. In those cases, it's not uncommon for the company to offer just the PCB. When we believe there's an interesting pedal and only the PCB is available, we'll still buy the PCB and source the necessary parts.

We also have notes, where applicable, that are specific to each pedal - here's an explanation:

  • (pcb): We purchased this pedal as a PCB only and have sourced the parts to build it.
  • (kit): We have purchased this kit and have assembled or are assembling the pedal from the kit.
  • (modified): We purchased this pedal and have purchased and have applied, or are applying, a modification that we feel benefits the pedal.
  • "nothing": Where there is no indicator, this is simply a production pedal that we've not had to put any additional work into.

Where we have "(discontinued)" listed for a pedal, it means that the particular pedal that we have is no longer being produced by that company. For example, we have the Dunlop Uni-Vibe listed as (discontinued), yet if you go to JimDunlop.com, you'll see that they offer a uni-vibe pedal for sale. What we mean is that the VERSION of Uni-Vibe that we have is the older lamp-controlled Uni-Vibe with the original architecture, not the re-worked (non-lamp) version that fits into the smaller "deck-of-cards" sized pedal that is now available.

In other cases we specify, "(out of production)" meaning that no version of the pedal is made anymore - it's out of production, and there is no intended replacement. This pedal has reached end-of-life. This could happen because the company has decided to stop making the pedal completely. It could happen because the pedal company is out-of-business. A good example of this would be with the Build Your Own Clone Armstrong Twin kit. We spoke to BYOC and it was the case that not enough people were buying the Armstrong Twin for them to make it a product continuing forward. So we got one of their last PCBs for it.

With respect to pedals, and in keeping with our amplifier philosophy, please note that we ALWAYS attempt where ever and whenever possible, to collect pedals that we believe are artistically meaningful and musically significant. Our goal is to help you get to the "tone-nirvana" you either have in your head, or are perhaps still seeking.

Many of the pedals (production pedals) we have are no longer available at all (like our Electro-Harmonix Holiest Grail, or our Damage Control pedals) and must be long-sought on eBay and other used-equipment sites like Reverb.com. In most cases, clones are not available, and when another such pedal will be available for sale is questionable. Once these pedals break and can no longer be fixed, unless we can source others, they will likely be gone for good.

1776 Effects

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

AMT Electronics

(Production pedals)

  • E1: Engl-emulated Preamp and distortion pedal
  • SS-11B: Modern Tube Preamp and distortion pedal

Boss / Roland

(Production Pedals)

  • BD-2 (modified): "Blues Driver" Overdrive / Distortion pedal with Monte Allums BD-2 upgrade.
  • BF-2 (out of production): "Flanger" Japanese version
  • CE-5 (modified) / (discontinued): "Chorus Ensemble" older (pre-2001) analog version chorus pedal.
  • DD-3 (discontinued): "Digital Delay" (older Made-in-Japan version) up to 800ms, including a "hold" function.
  • DD-20 (out of production): "GigaDelay" dual pedal with delay, editable configurations, and sampling up to 23 seconds.
  • DN-2 (out of production): "DynaDrive" varies from overdrive to distortion based on how hard strings are struck.
  • OC-2 (2)(out of production): "Octave" effect with dry signal, one octave down, and two octaves down.
  • RC-2 (discontinued): "Loop Station" - build loops for practice or rehearsal. Considered "more immediate" than RC-3, no hiccups on drum tracks.
  • TU-3 (2): "Chromatic Tuner" A simple LED/visual pedal based tuner for your instrument.
  • XT-2 (out of production): "Xtortion" a distortion with controls as if paired with a fixed wah filter.

BYOC/Build Your Own Clone

(Kit Pedals)

  • 855 Drive (kit): Tube Screamer work-alike with twice the gain.
  • Amp Selector FX Router (kit): selectable between two different amps, or two different effects loops, or creating a stereo effect.
  • Armstrong Twin (pcb): (out of production) combination of Dan Armstrong's Orange Squeezer and Green Ringer in a single pedal.
  • Envelope Filter Fixed Wah (kit): Similar to the MXR KFKQZ1(QZone). Envelope filter *and* fixed position wah.
  • Large Beaver (kit): (discontinued) Big Muff work-alike with four tone stack selections to create different muff tone textures.
  • Lazy Sprocket (kit): clone of the famous but limited and out-of-production Boss SG-1 Slow Gear pedal.
  • Parametric Multiband Compressor (kit): Unique compressor pedal with parametric tone controls for both bass and treble.
  • Phase Royal (kit): An MXR Phase 90 work-alike with many additional controls for greater flexibility.
  • Tri Boost (kit): (out of production) select between three different boosts for different boost/overdrive textures.

Catalinbread

(Production Pedals)

  • Manx Loaghtan: (out of production) - Big Muff Pi with enhanced tone control
  • Naga Viper: A silicon-transistor based treble booster with a couple of additional controls.
  • SCOD: (out of production) - Called the "Super Charged Overdrive", it's based on Orange's amplifier overdrive stack.
  • SFT: An emulator of the older Ampeg SVT amplifiers.

Damage Control

(Production Pedals)

  • Demonizer: (out of production) - Modern high gain tube preamp with boost.
  • Solid Metal: (out of production) - Damage Control's highest gain tube distortion pedal; not a preamp.
  • Timeline: (out of production) - Tube-based multi-delay/repeat pedal.
  • Womanizer: (out of production) - Classic tube preamp with boost capable of JCM-800-style hot-rodded distortion.

Delptronics

(Kit pedals)

  • Thunderclap (kit): emulates the old Roland TR-808 "hand-clap" sound. Boss originally released the HC-2 "Hand-Clapper" in 1984, but this is now only available second-hand.

Digitech/DOD

(Production Pedals)

  • Grunge (out of production): A distortion pedal that sounds a lot more like metal than "grunge". Many hate it. We think it's great.
  • Hyper Phase (out of production): A phaser with many additional features.
  • Synth Wah (out of production): An envelope filter that has many additional features.
  • Distortion 555-A: (out of production) A very poor-sounding distortion from the early 80s that we obtained for the Bad Device Chain Challenge!

Dunlop/MXR

Dunlop

Jim Dunlop is probably best known for their association with (ownership of) the Crybaby Wah-wah pedal, and both the MXR and Way Huge brands. That said, it was Jim Dunlop who took the wah-wah pedal from the brink of obscurity, purchased the business and rights for the wah-wah from Whirlpool Manufacturing in the mid-1980s, and kept the legacy and the effect going. Dunlop is also known for reissuing the Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face as well as the Roger Mayer-developed Jimi Hendrix Octavio effect.

(Production Pedals)

  • EP101 Echoplex: Echoplex EP-3 Preamp solid state preamp sweetener
  • JDF2 Fuzz Face: Germanium fuzz face
  • JH1B Hendrix Wah (2) (discontinued): Jimi Hendrix chrome top wah-wah
  • JH-OC1 Octavio (discontinued): Clone of the Roger Mayer/TycoBrahe "block of cheese" octave fuzz
  • JD4S Rotovibe (2): Treadle-controlled vibrato/chorusing (vibe) effect.
  • UV-1 Univibe (discontinued): Our Uni-Vibe is the model lacking the "vintage" switch. It's that old...

MXR

MXR is a brand that was started in the late 1970s. MXR obtained much of its notoriety by having been associated with Eddie Van Halen and his early artistic output. However, MXR has long been used and loved by many professional musicians. After MXR went out of business in the 1980s, the rights of the company were purchased by Jim Dunlop who has carried on the promise of MXR as a maker of premium analog-electronic pedals.

(Production Pedals)

  • CSP001 Variphase (out of production): MXR Phase 90 in a treadle where the sweep of the treadle determines the speed of the phasing
  • CSP101SL Script Phase 90: Updated version of the original MXR Phase 90 script version with LED.
  • CSP265 Bonamassa FET Driver (discontinued): An overdrive pedal designed for Joe Bonamassa with active EQ.
  • EVH90 EVH Phase 90: MXR Phase 90 with a switch enabling either the Block-era or the Script-era phaser intensity.
  • EVH117 EVH Flanger: Almost identical to the M117R flanger excepting paintjob and a button to set the flanger to "Eddie Van Halen" mode.
  • KFK1 10-band EQ: 10-band led-lit graphic EQ with 2 outputs and custom Kerry King graphics.
  • KFKQZ1 QZone (out of production): This pedal is like taking a wah-wah and fixing the sweep of the wah as a certain spot and leaving it on.
  • M108 10-band EQ (discontinued): 10-band led-lit graphic EQ with 1 output.
  • M109 6-band EQ (discontinued): 6-band led-lit graphic EQ with 1 output.
  • M117R Flanger: Reissue of the original pedal made famous by Eddie Van Halen and the song "Unchained".
  • M134 Stereo Chorus: A chorus effect with additional controls for wet volume and tone.
  • M169 Carbon Copy: An all-analog delay harkening back to the early days of analog, bucket-brigade delays.
  • M173 Classic 108 Fuzz: A silicon fuzz-face redesigned to include a buffer to allow greater versatility.
  • M182 El Grande Bass Fuzz (out of production): A classic fuzz design tuned to bass frequencies.
  • SF01 Slash Octave Fuzz (discontinued, then resumed): A fuzz pedal combined with both octave up and octave down.

Way Huge

(Production Pedals)

  • Swollen Pickle: Way Huge take on a Muff-style fuzz with maximum tone alteration capabilities.

Electro-Harmonix

(Production Pedals)

  • 22 Caliber (out of production): 22 watt solid state power amp - Pedal board friendly!
  • 44 Magnum: 44 watt solid state power amp - pedal board friendly!
  • Analogizer: Short analog delay combined with overdrive to "soften" or "analogize" an otherwise digital signal
  • B9: Multi-organ simulator, emulating sounds of the Hammond model B9 organ.
  • C9: Another multi-organ simulator, offering additional organ sounds.
  • Double Muff (discontinued): Older-version of two cascaded Muff Fuzz units housed in the older, folded-sheet metal enclosure.
  • Holiest Grail (out of production): Possibly the most flexible and customizable analog reverb ever made. Very rare.
  • Hot Tubes (with actual 12AX7 tubes) (out of production): The "other" EHX Hot Tubes pedal. This is the one with actual tubes!
  • Metal Muff: This is the first "full" Metal Muff with Top Boost.
  • Small Stone (discontinued): The famous phaser housed in the older folded sheet metal EH4800 enclosure.
  • Stereo Pulsar: Analog tremolo with controls for shaping of the tremolo wave, not just the tremolo intensity.
  • The Worm: Combination fixed wah / phaser / vibrato / tremolo; fixed wah can be changed with expression pedal

Fuzzdog's Pedal Parts

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

General Guitar Gadgets

(Kit pedals)

  • BMP Civil War (kit): Big Muff with the "Civil War" version tonestack
  • BMP Green Russian (kit): Big Muff with the "Green Russian" version tonestack
  • BMP OpAmp (kit): Big Muff with distorting opamps instead of transistors, the sound made famous by Smashing Pumpkins
  • BMP Rams Head (kit): Big Muff with the "Rams Head" version tonestack.
  • BrassMaster (kit): Clone of the out-of-production Maestro BrassMaster Bass effect pedal
  • Bronx Cheer (pcb): PCB-only of the Bronx Cheer effect by Tim Escobedo. Buzzy-sounding, but not quite a fuzz.
  • BSIAB2 (kit): Brown-Sound-In-A-Box-2, excellent high-gain distortion pedal developed by DIY'ers.
  • Headphone Amp (pcb): Like it sounds, not even really a pedal - for practicing at home. We doubt anyone wants to rent this.
  • ITS8 (kit): Ibanez Tube Screamer 808 clone with additional modifications available.
  • Mini Mixer (kit): A simple four-channel mixer in a pedal-sized enclosure.
  • Orange Squeezer (kit): Clone of the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer.
  • Rodent (pcb): We bought this to rebuild our existing Rat2 into better "Rat".
  • TOCT (kit): Tyco Brahe Octavia clone. We spent way too much time describing this since it's going into a different pedal.
  • GGG Custom Wah (pcb): Customizable wah-wah pedal with 5 tone settings and 2 switchable inductors.

Grind Customs FX

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

  • Fluffgirl (2) (pcb): a "bouncy" envelope filter, inspired by the EHX Bassballs.
  • Goat v3 (pcb): a throaty overdrive modeled on the original Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal, this one's been pushed into full distortion.
  • Machette (pcb): a combination of Tim Escobedo's "Ugly Face" and a low-frequency oscillator (LFO).
  • Ultrastoner (pcb): a big muff circuit tuned to be a "doom machine".

Guitar PCB

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

Jeds Peds

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

JMK PCBs

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

Madbean Pedals

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

  • Bloviator (pcb): A clone of the BBE Sonic Maximizer effect
  • Bumblebee (pcb): A clone of the out-of-production Baldwin Burns "Buzzaround" pedal
  • Flabulanche (pcb): An original Overdrive/Compression pedal by Jon Patton
  • Freekout (pcb): A clone of the discontinued Electro Harmonix Frequency Analyzer
  • Green Bean (2) (pcb): A clone and rework of the ever-popular Tube Screamer
  • Honeydripper (pcb): A clone of the out-of-production Colorsound Diphthonizer
  • Karate Shop (pcb): A clone of the out-of-production Systech Harmonic Energizer
  • Mandroid (pcb): Originally a pitch-shifter project by Dean Hazelwanter hosted at GGG. Popularized by Death-by-Audio's "Robot" pedal.
  • Naughty Fish (pcb): A clone of the out-of-production Mutron V envelope filter pedal
  • Peacekeeper (pcb) (out of production): An original JFET-based distortion from Madbean Pedals.
  • RangeMaster (pcb) (out of production): A clone of the out-of-production Dallas Arbiter RangeMaster in a pedal housing.
  • Rustbucket (pcb) (out of production): A clone of the out-of-production Electro Harmonix Attack Decay pedal.
  • Sharkfin (pcb) (out of production): A clone of the out-of-production Maestro Filter Sample and Hold pedal

Maxon

(Production Pedals)

  • CP-101 Compressor
  • DS-830 Distortion Master
  • OD-9 This is the original Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer w/ true bypass

Morpheus

(Production Pedals)

  • Droptune (out of production): needs the 1.2 software update - we have the update, we just need to load it into the pedal

Music PCB

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

OL Circuits

(Kit pedals)

  • Dr. Watt (kit): Emulator of the distortion and tone stack of the HiWatt DR-103.
  • Flipster (kit): Emulator of the distortion and tone stack of the Ampeg Portaflex.
  • Orange Peel (kit): Emulator of the distortion and tone stack of the Orange OR-120.
  • Slow Century (kit): Emulator of the distortion and tone stack of the Soldano Lead Overdrive 100.
  • Tube Cricket (kit): Beavis Audio Research's 1-watt tube amp made real.

Parasit Studios

(Built-from-PCB pedals)

  • 0415 Guitar Synth (2) (pcb): Transforms instrument signal into a square wave; two octaves up can be mixed with two octaves down.
  • The Corruptor (pcb): A CMOS-based ring modulator and a glitchy octave up fuzz.
  • Sentient Machine (pcb): An LFO-modulated resonant lowpass filter with two voice settings: a wah sound, and a vowel sound. Very phaser-ish.
  • The Sidescroller (pcb): A video-game'ish fuzz that does octave down, octave up and pulse width modulation.
  • Sonic Reducer (pcb): A crude analog-to-digital converter to produce bitcrushing sounds.
  • Theremin Fuzz (2) (pcb): Produces a sound similar to a real theremin, but controlled with the input from your instrument.
  • The Xor'cist (2) (pcb): A glitchy and gated fuzz and a ringmodulator with a squarewave modulation feature.

Peterson

(Production Pedals)

  • StroboStomp II (out of production): This is a "simulated strobe" instrument tuner with additional guitar and bass sweetenings

ProCo

(Production Pedals)

  • Rat II: Currently, a standard Rat II distortion pedal. We have modification plans for this.
  • You Dirty Rat: Our plan is to actually use the USA-made guts of this to modify and create a "sleeper" Rat II pedal.
  • Whiteface Rat (out of production): Reissue of the 1985 "whiteface" Rat that had an unusual black-on-white faceplate label. 100% stock.

Retro-Channel

(Production Pedals)

Rullywow

(Built-from-PCB Pedals)

  • Arcadiator (pcb) (discontinued): Design from Parasit Studio first made into PCB by Rullywow. No longer made by Rullywow. Parasit Studio originally designed this and now makes the PCBs
  • Canned Yam (pcb): Bass Preamp based on Yamaha's NE-1 Nathan East preamp.
  • Serpent Boost (pcb): recreation of Catalinbread Naga Viper
  • Superjudge (pcb): We wonder if the name from this was inspired by the band Monster Magnet

Skreddy Pedals

(Production Pedals)

  • P19: Pink Floyd "The Wall"-tuned Big Muff
  • Pig Mine (out of production): Tight and aggressive fuzz/distortion
  • Zero (out of production): Sounds like a cranked up, distorted, high-gain amp

Subdecay

(Production Pedals)

  • Variac: Pre- and Power Amp Tube distortion modeler

Throbak

(Production Pedals)

Zoom

(Production Pedals)

Miscellaneous

Power Adapters

Pedals to be fixed

  • ISP Decimator - needs factory fix
  • Thermionic-Modified Rotovibe (True Bypass + altered LEDs)

Pedals to (perhaps) be obtained

  • Boss MO-2 Multi Overtone
  • Boss PS-6 Harmonist
  • Boss RE-20 Space Echo
  • BYOC 5-Knob Compressor
  • BYOC Leeds Fuzz
  • BYOC Parametric EQ
  • Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra
  • Digitech Dirty Robot (synth)
  • Digitech Freqout (auto-feedback)
  • Digitech Luxe (detune)
  • Digitech Whammy
  • Dunlop DVP-1 Volume Pedal
  • Dunlop 105Q Crybaby Bass Wah
  • Electro-Harmonix Crash Pad
  • Electro-Harmonix EHX-Tortion
  • Electro-Harmonix Freeze
  • Electro-Harmonix Frequency Analyzer
  • Electro-Harmonix Iron Lung
  • Electro-Harmonix LPB-1
  • Electro-Harmonix Micro-Synth
  • Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork
  • Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar
  • Electro-Harmonix Ring Thing
  • Electro-Harmonix RTG
  • Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai
  • Electro-Harmonix Stereo Talking Machine
  • Electro-Harmonix Super Space Drum
  • Electro-Harmonix V256
  • Electro-Harmonix Voice Box
  • GrindCustomsFX Kwawk Wah - uses ICs instead of transistors
  • GuitarPCB Hot Chilicon Fuzz
  • MXR M-103 Blue Box
  • MXR M-75 Super Badass Distortion
  • MXR M-135 Smart Gate
  • MXR M-195 Noise Clamp
  • MXR M-80 Bass D.I.+
  • MXR M-181 Blowtorch Bass Distortion
  • MXR M-288 Bass Octave Deluxe
  • MXR M-81 Bass Preamp
  • MXR Iso-Brick power supply
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