Simple Design, Low Price, Cool Sound....

[duhvoodooman***]

Check out this special on the General Guitar Gadgets "BSIAB2" pedal (Brown-Sound-in-a-Box-2; cranked Marshall emulation). $54 for the complete kit. This would be a good first-time build for any of you who have been screwing up your nerve to try a DIY pedal. Check out the YouTube demo links on the GGG page:

GGG BSIAB2

[Spudman***]

Thanks for the link and info. I also watched a video for the Blues Breaker and that one sounds really good too.

[street music]

Nice kits for those into building their own.

[duhvoodooman***]

Geez, this is an even better deal than I thought! I just "ran the numbers" for what the pedal would cost if you sourced all the parts yourself from places like Mouser, Small Bear and Pedal Parts+. Came out to just about $50. Considering that you'd be looking at at least 3 sources and the associated shipping costs, it would likely cost you MORE to buy the parts directly than just getting the complete kit from GGG! I may have to pick one of these up, just to give it a try....

[Adrian30]

I, too found their prices to be fair. They have a good selection of interesting clones.

[Tone2TheBone]

When ga$ hits it hurts. Ow!

[jasongins]

Really nice prices at this site...thinking about the stratoblaster for my first attempt at a build-your-own...

[M29]

Thanks duhvoodooman: Man those BSIAB2 and Bluesbreaker utubes sure do sound good! Shoot just when I was going to splurge on a new speaker....

M29

[duhvoodooman***]

At this price, I had to try one. Even if I decide it's too much like my Marshall Guv'nor Plus and I have to sell it, I want to check it out firsthand. Film at 11....

[Tone2TheBone]

You're on a roll Voo keep it up!

[tot_Ou_tard]

Is the design similar to any well known pedal?

[duhvoodooman***]

Is the design similar to any well known pedal?

Not that I know of. This is touted as an original design by a fellow named Ed Guidry, and uses a network of five junction field effect transistors (JFETs) of two different types to generate the signal distortion. No opamp at all. The all-transistor approach is like many fuzz effects, but it sure doesn't sound like one.

[tunghaichuan***]

Is the design similar to any well known pedal?

There was some speculation that this pedal might be the BSIAB2 circuit:

http://www.lovepedal.com/purpleplexi100.htm

http://lovepedal.com/bigEDWARDtone.mp3

They sound similar.

tung

[duhvoodooman***]

There was some speculation that this pedal might be the BSIAB2 circuit:

http://www.lovepedal.com/purpleplexi100.htm

That's a lot of money for a pedal that contains $50 worth of parts. And that's at the part prices that I pay as a DIY'er!

Tung, was the speculation that the Purple Plexi was based upon the pre-existing BSIAB design, or visa versa?

[tunghaichuan***]

That's a lot of money for a pedal that contains $50 worth of parts. And that's at the part prices that I pay as a DIY'er!

Tung, was the speculation that the Purple Plexi was based upon the pre-existing BSIAB design, or visa versa?

Again, purely speculation but maybe the purple plexi is a reverse-engineered version of the BSIAB2, or maybe Lovepedal came up with a similar design. It would be interesting to compare the schematics, but somehow I doubt Lovepedal would give me one

tung

[duhvoodooman***]

Again, purely speculation but maybe the purple plexi is a reverse-engineered version of the BSIAB2, or maybe Lovepedal came up with a similar design. It would be interesting to compare the schematics, but somehow I doubt Lovepedal would give me one

Yeah, that seems like a bit of a long shot!

I found two other commercial versions of this pedal (links below), but both explicitly mention that the design is licensed, and one mentions Ed Guidry by name. That would clearly indicate that the BSIAB is his original design.

Kaden Brown Creeper

CMATMODS Brownie

[tunghaichuan***]

Yeah, that seems like a bit of a long shot!

I agree, although I don't want to start rumors.

However, I remember RG Keen of Visual Sound products saying that he independently came up with a circuit that was almost identical to Kevin O'Connor's London Power Standard Preamp. It is a four-stage tube preamp using two 12AX7s. Keen remarked that there were only two slight diferences in the component values, but otherwise identical. I have no reason to doubt Keen, he is a straight shooter. So it does happen, not likely, but possible.

Who knows? Maybe Lovepedal licensed the circuit from Guidry but doesn't say so in their advertising copy.

I found two other commercial versions of this pedal (links below), but both explicitly mention that the design is licensed, and one mentions Ed Guidry by name. That would clearly indicate that the BSIAB is his original design.

Kaden Brown Creeper

CMATMODS Brownie

Good sounding pedals, although I didn't like the sound samples as well as the ones on the GGG site.

tung

[pie_man_25]

looks good, good price, any reviews?

[duhvoodooman***]

OK, the BSIAB2 kit was delivered late last week and I threw it together Saturday afternoon while taking a break from my Valve Jr mod work (hey, the soldering iron was already hot.... ). It may not be God's gift to pedaldom, but it does a pretty convincing cranked JCM impression. And you can't beat the price of the kit or the ease of the build.

In any case, here's a quick SAMPLE CLIP, recorded with my Epi Elitist LP Std. through the Valve Junior. After a quick "clean" intro, it's straight to the effect, with a couple of riffs stolen from the guy who brought the term "brown sound" into the musical lexicon. The first one is just the BSIAB2 pedal, and the second brings in my cheapy Behringer flanger with it. Hopefully, the playing is adequate enough that you can at least recognize the source. The gain was only set at about 60%, so this thing has no shortage of crank....