REALLY GOOD new OD pedal kit at BYOC!

[duhvoodooman***]

Buildyourownclone.com has just released a new overdrive pedal kit that has really impressed me. It's called the Parametric Overdrive, and it based upon a rather obscure '80s pedal called the Pearl OD-05. There are about a million "dirt pedals" out there, ranging from mild overdrive to full-on death metal sonic cataclysm, but it's pretty rare anymore that one comes along that really grabs my attention. But BYOC's new Parametric Overdrive has done just that. Here's the write up from the BYOC product page:

"The Pearl OD-05 hasn't really caught on with many people yet. Very few of them were produced so not many people have had the chance to play an original. They don't fetch outrageous prices on the vintage market yet, but nonetheless, they are incredibly rare, so even if you've got money in your PayPal account to spend, you can still have a hard time getting a hold of one. The few schematics that are floating around on the internet are all erroneous, including the factory schematic from Pearl. Unless someone took the time to actually reverse engineer an original (like we did), any attempt to clone the pedal would have been a failure. It would "work", but it wouldn't sound good, so perhaps that's why the circuit hasn't gained popularity in the DIY/boutique community. But the people who have had a chance to play an original can tell you that it truly rocks. The parametric tone control is obviously the first thing people notice about the OD-05. It has a massive range from 100Hz to 4kHz, but that's just the icing on the cake. What really makes this overdrive special is it's retention of low frequencies and ability to be perfectly transparent. A transparent overdrive that can boost or cut any frequency, in practically the entire useful spectrum range of a guitar? Yes, please.

The BYOC Parametric Overdrive is an exact clone of the Pearl OD-05 with true bypass and Q mod - a 3-way switch that allows you to adjust the Q of the parametric EQ from narrow, medium(original specs), or wide. The PCB also has some extra spaces so you can modify the actual OD section to a circuit similar to the TS808, RAT, or other various overdrive circuits that have a similar op amp gain structure...not to mention all the usual clipping and gain mods you can do to dial it in to your exact tastes."

I built one of these on Saturday and it's the best sounding overdrive I've run into since their Overdrive II kit, upon which my Zonkin' Yellow Screamer Mark II was based. Three things really stand out about it in my mind:

1. The term "transparent" gets thrown around a lot and is usually an overblown claim, in my experience. But this circuit is as close to transparent (i.e. not altering the basic tonal character of your incoming signal) as any overdrive I've used. No harsh treble emphasis, no TS-style mid-range hump, no significant loss of bottom end. Just added overdrive. Obviously, you can change that with the sophisticated parametric EQ control, but if transparent is your thing, this pedal does it amazingly well.
2. I find the character of the clipping in the circuit to be very attractive. Built stock, it just uses the ubiquitous opposing pair of silicon diodes for clipping. In some overdrives, that tends to sound a bit on the raggedy, buzzy side, but it's a really pleasing, fairly smooth sound in this circuit. Subjective, I know, but it just has that "the-overdrive-I-hear-in-my-head" sound.
3. Besides its tranparency, the other really unique thing about the Pearl OD-05 circuit is the parametric EQ control, which gives you a tremendous range of tonal control over the output. This feature has been further enhanced by the addition of a "Q" toggle switch, which determines the width of the frequency band that the Boost/Cut control affects. The toggle gives you narrow, medium (stock OD-05), and wide Q choices.

The kit sells for $85, which is about half or less of what you could expect to pay for an original OD-05....if you can find one!

Here's a YouTube video posted for the Parametric OD. It's not a slick, hot-guitarist-playing-cool-licks sales video, but rather a demonstration of what the pedal's controls do, along with showing some circuit modifications that may be of interest to many players.

[Tig***]

I saw that last week. Pretty cool.