Monday, April 20, 2015

Paging Grodan Freeman...Dr. Freeman?!

     This my friends is the BLACK MESA! The layout and design of the board was done by Madbeans Pedals. The circuit is designed around the gain stage of the Mesa Triple Rectifier. This, as you can see, was a complex build. There are quite a few parts and lots of things that could go wrong. So because I built this for a friend I decided to treat it as an "attention to detail" build. This was very fun and challenging at the same time. After the frustration on the Uproar I need this to go smooth. That's not to say that this didn't have it's own challenges. The decal took 3 attempts. On the fourth it worked. The fourth came out the "best", as you can see it came out wavy. I suspect it's because I used cool water instead of warm when applying the decal. This caused some of the edges to not adhere to the metal and allowed the clear coat to get under the decal.
     The circuit, overall, is VERY cool! The board is designed with a "boost" option. It's hard for me to call it a boost. I consider it more like a switchable contour setting. It does boost the signal a bit but not dramatically. Overall, The amount of gain available and the vintage / modern switch make this monster a substantial beast!. It's a great sounding build and this thing has all the tone you could ask for. The switch wiring was a bit difficult and it took a TON of patience and quite a bit of attention to detail. All in all it was a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoy reading. I'll post a video of it soon. Thanks for checking it out.

 





Video Coming soon.

-Mike-

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