The Catalinbread CB30 was first released in the summer of 2011 as their Foundation-series take on the Vox AC30. The tireless heroes at Freestompboxes traced it within a few weeks of release, with extensive photos detailing the process. …
The Karma Suture is Catalinbread’s take on the Interfax Harmonic Percolator, a unique and extremely rare fuzz/drive from the early 1970s. As with most of their pedals, they don’t settle for straight clones, instead using classic circuits as …
We’ve got a trilogy! The very first tracing journal we ever did was the Dinosaural OTC-201 Opticompressor back in August of 2019. A few months ago, we took apart the Tube Bender. And today, we tackle the last …
Here’s an interesting one. The Crowther Hot Cake is one of the original boutique distortion pedals, dating all the way back to 1976. They’ve been hand-built by Paul Crowther in New Zealand for the past 44 years. And …
Cornish says the CC-1 is an all-original design, but how accurate is that? Have a look underneath the goop.
We tear open a Cornish ST-2 to answer the question once and for all: is it an Overdriver?
There are only 150 of these pedals in the world. We were able to trace one of them. Check out the photos, schematic, and a DIY version you can build.
We took apart these three Xotic pedals to get definitive, accurate schematics.
Check out the tracing log for a schematic, 50+ photos of the degooping process, and… X-rays?
The second new Cornish pedal today is the SS-3 Soft Sustain. The SS-3 is an update of his earlier SS-2 circuit, an 1970s-style overdrive with roots in the MXR Distortion+. The SS-2 had already been traced… sort of. …
Xotic is best known for their AC & RC Booster pedals as well as the BB Preamp. The Soul Driven was released in 2016, making it a relatively new addition to the Xotic family, developed in collaboration with …
The Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster is a clean boost pedal with the added feature of being able to simulate the resonant peak of different pickups, letting a single-coil assume the character of either vintage or modern humbucker. It …
The SoloDallas Storm is a pedal conversion of the Schaffer-Vega Diversity System (SVDS), the first wireless system for guitar that was reliable enough to be used by major touring acts. The SVDS was designed by Ken Schaffer and …
A brand new trace of a rare & elusive optical compressor. This is the first entry in a series of new traces that will be documented in the next few months.