Category Archives: Super Hard-On

"Me Mates Crisps" for $1000, Alex.

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Roight, then.  I’ve built many a booster in my time, based around a few different circuits.  Usually they go away as quick as I build them, so this was an attempt to build all of them and have one of each at my disposal.  Four different boosters in a variety of autumnal colors.  How divine.

Left to Right they are: an AMZ Mosfet Boost,  AMZ Mini Boost, Balls Boost, and a ZVEX Super Hard-On.  The AMZ Mosfet is a pretty standard mosfet boost, which behaves like cranking a tube amp.  It provides volume and a little dirt, increasing toward the far end of the dial.  The Mini Boost is configured differently and provides a not-so-clean boost.  Its basically cranked and then the volume is attenuated at the pedal output so it always gets a *little* overdriven transistor tone.  The Balls Boost (formerly blogged as the “Orange Droolius”) is a modified version of the AMZ Mosfet which behaves similarly but adds a touch more filth and some extra bass.  The ZVEX SHO is stock.

Voltron.

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This fuckin’ thing!!

This was made on request by my buddy Johnny Pockets.  Its a five-up multi effect unit.  The goal seemed to be rooted in ridiculousness, and by god I like that.  The effects in this are (from right to left):

Fuzz Face:  a bog standard silicon transistor fuzz face.  universally awesome fuzz.

Boosters:  two (count-em) two ZVEX super hard-ons, with the trick being that one is always on, and one is switchable.  I have built that booster for a few people that immediately ask for another because they want to leave one on all the time, and switch the other one in as needed. 

Effects loop:  An effects loop in an effect pedal?  YEP.  Sometimes you need to throw some other boxes into your pedal chain, and sometimes you want em in the middle.  So I threw one in here after the dirt section but before the modulation section.  I dont know what you’d want to put in here, necessarily, but I thought a wah went damn well.

Delay:  analog delay based on the Madbean Aquaboy.  RAD sounding delay which can also do some slapback reverb if you really crank down the delay time.  Slapback reverb is kickass.

Tremolo:  using the modified EA tremolo.  a super-solid sounding trem that has the bonus of a whipass boost in it as well!  If you need a THIRD boost (who doesnt, really?) then you can crank down the trem depth and use this as a straight boost.

Phase:  bog-standard clone of the MXR Phase 45, my personal favorite phaser.

Frontiers.

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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).