Well?

I really like the GGG ProCo Rat Clone... Sounds like I could get decent normal tones when my I'm not using my amp and turn it into a good fuzz for a change of tone when I am using my amp.



Anything else I should consider? Doesn't have to be a kit, but I would like to keep the price under $75.

Depends on how much dirt you need.

For cleanish sounds, i am 100% all about the Timmy. I basically leave it on all of the time with my not-good amps.

For more dirt, there are lots of options at lots of dirt ranges.

The Box Of Rock sounds nice for bassy medium gain stuff, kind of like an older(pre-JCM) Marshall.

For heavier sounds, i like any one of a number of 386-based distortions, for JCM-sh stuff, the Lovepedal Purple Plexi 800 is nice, for heavier high gain stuff, the Krank Distortus Maximus is perhaps surprisingly, very good, and even cleans up reasonably well with the volume knob.

Another alternative for the heavy-ish JCM-ish hotrod marshall sound is any one of a number of pedals based on the Marshall Guv'nor. The Guv'nor itself is sweet, but with a not-very-useful tone control. The Danelectro Fab-Tone(this one: http://www.dextermods.com/wp-content/up ... abtone.jpg) is very decent for full-on heavy, though not much else. The MI Audio Crunch Box is similar to the Fab-Tone in this, it has a very nice solid highish gain sound, but doesn't do much else. The Suhr Riot is actually a pretty nicely modded guv'nor-style pedal that works well enough at low gain in addition to the normal good high gain of the circuit type.

Of these, the Fab-Tone should be available cheap and pretty much all of the rest are pretty easily DIY'ed. PCB boards are actually available for most or all of them. You should be able to acquire all of the parts you need to build almost any if them for somewhere around your price range.

Oh, and if you do go for a Rat, make sure you make a 4-knob one and add a diode switch to it to go between LED, Germanium, and Silicon diodes for clipping.

The Rat is IMO a classic and cool pedal, but i tend to like it more into nice amps than when used to make up for a crappy amp. I also prefer it most when used for mid to low gain. Something about the way it distorts. Into a solid state amp for instance, it starts to sound to my ears a little bit like one of those old Scholz Rockman headphone amps from the eighties. Which is fine if that is what you are on about, but it does not IMO sound so much like any real amp i know of.

That said, a Rat with LED clippers is kind of a different beast. Much more usable IMO. The germanium diodes are good for getting the more fuzzlike sounds out of it though.

ahhh, A Timmy would also be a good idea... I could probably sell the GE-7 I never modded as I wouldn't need it anymore(currently using it as a boost). Timmy for OD and my Big Muff for heavy's does seem appealing.

It seems like this is a rather simple and relatively cheap pedal to build? (I would be drilling the enclosure myself). I feel like I'm missing some info with the layouts and schematics I'm finding...

http://diy-fever.com/temp/timmy_layout.pdf (missing a 3.3k resistor on the drive pot)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y4AYtND8Hz8/S ... am2ed5.png

These seems interesting; probably not what I would go for though:
http://www.turretboard.org/?p=80 (10uf should be 10nf)

I will pipe in about the Timmy also. I got one just because everyone had talked about them. Well, there's a reason. It is good. I use it almost all the time I have my Bogner on the clean channel. (The Bogner is clean so so fucking clean... too clean for most applications) gain is down real low but I like that edge of breakup drive using just the volume. Wonderful little box.

Yeah the Timmy is a great pedal.


Mine also stays on most of the time, unless I turn the drive up on it which makes it a nice dirt pedal.

Initial shopping cart estimates makes it look like I would be way under my budget with this build after saving on a few things I already have. I think a purchase might be in the not too distant future

so you guys basically use it like a sonic maximizer... but it actually sounds good

Kind of.

It's my Swiss army knife pedal. I use it as a clean boost, EQ, and. OD as needed.

Yarr, i use it because i like a tiny edge to my clean sound, and a certain specific almost sparkle. If i pick lightly it won't break up at all, if i beat on it, it distorts nicely and naturally without any weird clipping artifacts or sudden gain increases.

These doods used to have a PCB for the od side of the Lovepedal Amp 11(which is a timmy copy - Paul C's shit luck for commercial cloners continues) but they aren't showing it now: http://www.guitarpcb.com/apps/webstore/

I don't know if they discontinued it there or if they are merely out of stock.

Otherwise it is a simple build, simpler than a tube screamer really, and can pretty easily be done on vero or perf.

I don't know that i would be into building it on eyelet board as in the layout you posted, it isn't a very convenient style for opamps.

The eyelet layout was really just for reference and its layout has an external switch for the diodes which I might borrow. I think I'll just get everything from Mammoth or another similar site. The perfboards from Mammoth and 25v for the 47uf electrolytic caps should be fine right?

Yarr. Make sure that the perf board is big enough for the circuit, and generally, as long as you keep caps under 63v ratings for film caps, and like 50v for electrolytics, they will be physically small enough for pedlols.

Oh also, i was just looking at their website and the guitarpcb kits that Mammoth carries are pretty well priced. The "Zenith drive"(aka hermida zen drive) is another nice opamp OD that might be worth checking out. A friend of mine built the Zendrive, and i was pretty impressed by its sound. I found it similar in some ways to what i use the Timmy for, but also with a little more gain available. A nice sounding pedal. And $65 for a kit with the PCB is a solid price. Just another option.

I think I'm going to stick to the Timmy. Initial shopping cart estimates half of what the kit cost (left over cables FTW!). Purchase should be made sometime this week

The TImmy is wonderful, and Other than my NOC3 stuff it's my favorite in the price range.

However if i'm using the house amp/rig these days at open jams I typically just bring my Caroline Wave Cannon for general distortion or boost, and a wah of some sort.

Señor Timmy está en camino...

Almost everything is wired... hopefully pics later

Can you point me to some good Timmy clips that demonstrate what it's like?

Almost everything i have recorded in the last year or two is the timmy into a cleanclean dull setting crate SS. Not that i would suggest that those things sound particularly good, but that is one sort of sound that can be made with the thing.

It is essentially a very clear overdrive with a good EQ section for tuning lows/highs. It really doesn't have much gain to it: maxxed out it does about AC/DC levels of crunch.

What i personally like about it, is that it doesn't sound like too much of anything. Meaning that, unlike say a tubescreamer, it doesn't squash the mids all the fuck up and it doesn't cut out all of the low end unless you set the bass control to do so. It is like what i thought a clean boost would do for me, because, really i didn't want a cleanboost, i wanted a clean dirt/OD.

It also has its low amount of gain well utilized, so that it makes the pedal behave as close to an amp as i have heard from a non-amp, with respect to how it reflects picking dynamics. It is essentially the reason why i have just been using my crate for recording everything lately, because i don't feel like i am missing anything from doing so. My real amp is more fun to play, and has more top end gain range, but it even at 20w it is loud as all kinds of fuck for recording, most of the time that i tend to record. So i just use the timmy as the "preamp" and the crate(which is really set to the worst dullest(meaning not at all sparkley or anything - it is like a jazz guitar setting) clean ever) as the "power amp".

If there is any minus to the pedal, it would probably be that i don't like it so much for lead stuff. For rhythm/chord stuff though it is my favorite ever.

I could TRY to make some good Timmy clips for you through my Vox LNT, but the quality will not be astounding.

That description sounds like the OD side of the Fulltone GT-500. Seriously.