For reference, the title is not about fruits, kittens, or apparel. It is instead about the couple of Kiss records when Peter Criss was secretly replaced by Anton Fig. Go figure.
These pedal circuits are nothing new to this blog, just cataloging some of my recent builds. They’ve all been posted here before in one form or another, so search them out if needed.
TS-808 Tube Screamer:
My buddy John Adams and I have this saying: “Frontiers”. It started a long time ago when John was kind of spaced out and said it to some automatic-opening doors at a Chevron station. The point is that, then and now, it has been slang for “next-level shit”. This is some next-level shit.
Enter the great Erick Coleman, who must be tired of just ordering single pedals from me because this time he ordered a whole rig of matching pedals. These were based on an original couple of MKII Tonebenders that I had built, one of which Erick possesses. Three new ones in matching style have been added to the original fuzz: a boost, an overdrive, and a tremolo. None of them have LEDs (by request), none have labels, and the whole rig will drive gearheads crazy trying to figure out what each box is. Frontiers.
From left to right they are the boost (ZVEX super hard-on variant), the tremolo (modified Diaz Tremodillo), the overdrive (TS-808 tube screamer with bass-boost), the fuzz (stock MKII Tonebender).
Tube Screamers! I *hate* Stevie Ray Vaughn and it makes me want to hate these pedals, too, but I cant stay mad at you, Tube Screamer….you totally rule.
This is spot-on recreating of the TS-808 classic. The buffers have been left in, it uses a new production 4558 chip, and man does it kick ass. These pedals are kind of subtle compared to a lot of others. There’s not a huge amount of boost, and there’s also not a huge amount of squishy overdrive…..there’s just enough.
