DIY Octave Pedal

The
Octave pedal in it's earliest form was a fuzzy nasty pedal that produced an octave up effect if played around the 12th fret with the tone knob rolled off.  In more recent years, pitch shifter pedals have given us the ability to produce clean octave up and octave down tones

Still, these early crude octave pedals such as the Tychobrae Octavia or Green Ringer were used to great effect and produced some great tones

Many years back I fancied myself one of these old school octave pedals.  With an infant in the house and no disposable income I decided to learn how to build one of these beasts. With the abundant information on the internet and a lot of trial and error I got into the hobby of pedal building.

Below is a demo of the pedal that came to fruition based on my shear determination and want of a simple Octave Pedal.

Joyo Tremolo

Tremolo is one of the earliest effects guitarists had at their disposal.  Whether Optical or Bias based tremolo the warbling throb of the volume fluctuation in he guitar signal conjours a hypnotic feeling.

While most of us don't have a use for tremolo frequently, it is something the working guitarist should have in their
arsenal.

The Joyo tremolo is an inexpensive decent sounding tremolo that won't break the bank, yet give you that swampy throbbing goodness when you need it.

Check out my demo of the Joyo Tremolo.

Will it slide

Slide guitar is a staple for the blues guitarist.  Legends like Robert Johnson, Ry Cooder, and Dwayne Allman took slide guitar to amazing heights.  While I'm by far nowhere near proficient in slide guitar I got to thinking, what else could you use a slide on.

Join me as I investigate the musical and not so musical instruments that a slide can or cannot be played on in my quest to find out, "Will It slide?"

Zoom Choir

Back in the mid 90's Zoom released a few pedals that had some really cool functionality.  The pedals had a number of different types of sounds as well as the ability to set a preset and a current setting that was foot switchable.

I was fortunate enough to purchase the Zoom Choir 5050.  This pedal offered chorus,chorus and reverb,chorus and delay, delay, aura, and dimension.  While I mostly used this  pedal for chours and delay the other sounds came in handy at times.

Below is a video demo of my Zoom Choir 5050

Danelectro Pepperoni Phasor

Danelectro has had some great success with their pedals in the past decade.  Their small food themed pedals while not the sturdiest enclosures they are packed with sound.  I have purchased a few of these little gems and I think you get a lot of pedal for not a lot of money.

I decided to break out the Pepperoni Phasor and run it through it's paces. Its controls are super simple, just a speed knob.  Even I can handle that. Even if you only need this thing to get the EVH vibe going it's well worth it. Boba Fett says "Get one of these or I'll encase you in corbonite"

Check out the demo...

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