Tag Archives: boost

Pedal Build: Clean Drive Clone

I had just watched some videos about the Steel String Clean Drive pedal made by Vertex. It sounded killer! I was curious to learn about its design. To my surprise PedalPCB.com makes their version of the pedal. I purchased the PCB and went through the parts list. I ordered what I needed through Mammoth Electronics. In total I spent under $40. The last of the parts showed up last Friday. I woke up early on Saturday and got to work. I was done by 2 p.m.

The pedal has a great texture to it. I’ve never put together pedals with JFETs. I guess there are a lot of pedals that finely tune JFETs to get “amp like” tones.

I’m excited to plug this one into my 5150 half stack. I forgot to buy knobs for this build. I pulled these off a pedal I’m not using right now.

Pedal Build: Boost / Electra Drive – Part 2

This pedal is a mashup of a few different pedals.

The Double Barrel by JHS

The LPB-1 Boost by EHX

The EM Drive by Emerson

I like the idea of the Double Barrel,  where you  have two distortions with an order selector. This way you can slam one into the other for different tones.  I used a 4PDT toggle and this wiring diagram I found HERE

The left hand side pedal is my version of LPB-1 Boost. I added a toggle to the input capacitor value. 220nF or 47nF. This comes in handy when I slam the boost into another pedal on the Neck pickup. The 47nf cuts off some the low end to let it breathe. I also added a clipping diode selecting toggle. It’s similar to the tube screamer side of the Double Barrel. The CENTER position is off. The DOWN position is Silicon Diodes. The UP position is Red diffused LED’s.

The right hand side pedal is my version of an EM Drive. I added another clipping diode selecting toggle. This time a negative germanium diode remains in the circuit, but the toggle chooses between a positive Silicon or a positive Red Diffused LED.