{"id":361,"date":"2023-05-04T19:32:30","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T19:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.4dex2.com\/?page_id=361"},"modified":"2023-05-06T09:59:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T09:59:10","slug":"skeleton-distortion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.4dex2.com\/?page_id=361","title":{"rendered":"Skeleton Distortion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I got the amp<\/a>, and it was time to build a distortion pedal. I found the Electrosmash<\/a> website with great analysis of the Pro Co Rat pedal. I also bought the ‘How to Modify Guitar Pedals<\/a>‘ book and found some common modification to the Rat pedal. First I built the prototype with a LM308 chip. I did it the old way, drawing lines with permanent marker on a PCB board.

As I mentioned somewhere else, my dad is an art restorer and, aside from other things he collects, he loves Japanese prints – and so do I. After looking through a catalogue, I found the image of a Samurai fighting a skeleton from Utagawa Kuniyoshi. I asked my dad to paint it on the enclosure of the prototype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The pedal sounded great, but according to the book and the internet, it could be modified to sound even better. So I did the 3-way switching to choose from silicon, germanium or LED diodes clipping. Then I read some post about one guy modifying it for a bass guitar. Great! Our bass player might need it for a few of our songs. By accident, I wired the add-on parts in the wrong sequence and it made the pedal sound even better with the bass guitar. So I added a 2-way switch for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ordered some nice knobs and switches from Tube Town<\/a>, downloaded some PCB creator software to design the final circuit I wanted to use, and asked the guys at Kavalir<\/a> (the printers that made all of my amp panels and logos) to print the circuit to the PCB board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also asked the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design<\/a> if I could use my version of the Skeleton from the Utagawa Kuniyoshi painting<\/a>. I redrew it, converted it to vectors, and ask the printers to print that to the top of enclosures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a video of me making the pedal and some photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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