B.Y.O.C Kits

skay

I'm very interested in getting my hands on a Marshall Bluesbreaker V1 pedal, but the originals have become rather pricey!

There are a few nice looking clones on eBay from time to time, but they occasionally go for big money as well, and as I don't know how much i'll actually use this pedal I don't really want to shell out big money...yet...

...which leads me on to the whole point of this thread, has anyone built or just used the BYOC British Overdrive? This is meant to be a Bluesbreaker clone kit, could anyone enlighten me if it uses the correct chip, resistors, other bits etc to make it a decent copy? Does it sound like the 'real thing'? Do I even want the 'real thing' or are the updated eBay clones actually worth going for instead as they reputedly improve on the design? Did it need 'improving'?

I may add that i've never built a pedal before, so this is new territory for me, therefore buying a ready-made one will probably be more likely but there's always a first time...

Any knowledge and insights to this pedal, and the various clones, will be greatly received

ThePrettyDamned

I think poodle pedals do a kit. His stuff is great, and well priced I built an axis Fuzz, saving me about 200 quid... Sounds amazing, and I'd never built a pedal before.

skay

Had a look, great site but no sign of a Bluesbreaker pedal kit to my untrained eye. They appear to have some higher gain Marshall-esq pedal kits, but it's the low-gain thing i'm after, hence the Mk1 Bluesbreaker quest.

Thanks anyway, even though i'm tempted by some of their other stuff now!

stickyfiddle

Go on facebook and ask Poodle if he's doing a BB kit in the near future. He's very accommodating and likes doing new stuff, to the point that my request for a Stratoblaster kit got it prototyped within a week!

https://www.facebook.com/PedalParts

skay

Thanks for the advice @ThePrettyDamned and @stickyfiddle , although as i'm still undecided if i'm just gonna go and buy a ready-made clone from eBay or somewhere I think i'll keep researching what's out already there, I feel it would be unfair to tease the dog :-D

Fez

I've built a BYOC British Overdrive. Even with the mod to tame the treble it is quite bright and harsh.

ChrisMusic

Building stuff is pretty easy, and fun too, you might just get addicted.  Save's a bunch on your next pedal board.

jonnyburgo

Poodles Box of Rock is amazing, Can do the vintage JTM45 very nicely, cleans up fantastically with the guitar vol control, retains clarity perfectly. Its my favourite overdrive by far.

skay

Fez said:

I've built a BYOC British Overdrive. Even with the mod to tame the treble it is quite bright and harsh.

Well, that doesn't sound too promising @Fez ... It was mainly going to be used with my Tweed Deluxe amp (which is fairly dark anyway), but i would also like to use it on my Voxes, so the brightness thing is putting me off. Are the originals this way, or even the expensive King of Tone one, it seems to be very popular on a particular American forum but that may well be because its exclusivity :-)

jonnyburgo said:

Poodles Box of Rock is amazing, Can do the vintage JTM45 very nicely, cleans up fantastically with the guitar vol control, retains clarity perfectly. Its my favourite overdrive by far.

@jonnyburgo I already have the Zvex Distortron, it's a great pedal with my Vox, especially with the 'Subs' switch set in the middle position to lose some of that excess bass. I love the way it's very amp-like in the way it is so sensitive to your picking hand and cleans up extremely well with the guitars volume knob as you mentioned. I've never played through a real JTM45, so cannot say how accurate the sound is, but it gives my little AC15 that huge Marshall roar that I love!

Fez

It may well depend on what you rig is but I have built several BYOC pedals and some of the others work better for me. The 250+ is really good especially with LED's as clipping diodes. It's an easy build so is a good pedal to start on.

Fez

I just noticed BYOC have one called the Chancellor which is probably more what you are looking for.

skay

@Fez I have looked at that one before, this is based on the MXR Distortion+ and a DOD pedal of a similar name, very interesting especially now MXR are becoming popular again with their new Super/Custom/Modified etc Badass pedals.

As a big Fugazi fan (meaning I like them a lot, i've got a perfectly normal BMI) I have wanted to try something like this to give me some of those post-hardcore tones that my abundance of transparent low-gain overdrives don't do so well, which I probably won't do very often so don't want to splash out big money. 

The only issue I can see is that it doesn't appear to have a tone knob, is this a problem or is this not a very bright pedal to begin with?

Fez

It's not particularly bright, depends on how you set your amp up.

Have you tried the MKII Bluesbreaker pedal? Cheap, sounds great, rubbish knobs(Oo er) but there you go.

martinw

General Guitar Gadgets do a BB clone.

I've not had one, but the other 2 or 3  kits I had off them were excellent.

skay

Fez said:

Have you tried the MKII Bluesbreaker pedal? Cheap, sounds great, rubbish knobs(Oo er) but there you go.

Thanks @Fez for your replies, I have the Guv'nor MKII and if it's even 1% like that then i'm not going to like it, the thing sounds like a toy to me, very fake and reminds me of  'my first distortion pedal' type sounds. I bought it because of all the positive reports of the MKI and I figured they can't have strayed too far off their classic design, so either everyone else has got cloth ears, or I have!

@martinw I have the Xotic BB Pre-Amp already, its a really nice pedal and was my favourite for a while, but the midrange can sound kind of cardboardy with my Voxes. I'm not after the Marshall sound per se (my Distortron is filling that need for me anyhow), it's just that the MKI Bluesbreaker is claimed to be a great low-gain transparent drive pedal that I would quite like to try for myself, hopefully on-the-cheap :-)

I am reading quite a lot of positive comments about the Liquid Sunshine on this forum it seems, hmmmm, now that does sound like something i'd enjoy playing with...

martinw

skay said:

@martinw I have the Xotic BB Pre-Amp already, its a really nice pedal and was my favourite for a while, but the midrange can sound kind of cardboardy with my Voxes. I'm not after the Marshall sound per se (my Distortron is filling that need for me anyhow), it's just that the MKI Bluesbreaker is claimed to be a great low-gain transparent drive pedal that I would quite like to try for myself, hopefully on-the-cheap :-)

 

I meant BB as an abbreviation for Bluesbreaker, as that's what you asked about!

skay

martinw said:

 

I meant BB as an abbreviation for Bluesbreaker, as that's what you asked about!

Lol, this is the perils of living in an abbreviation, or is it an acronym, or is this even an initialism, world! IMHO, YMMV, HAND :-)

martinw

Yeah. Checkout the GGG kits. I prefer them to BYOC, and their BB is good. Or should that be BLSBKR?

DeeTee

Are there any decent pedal kits available in the UK?

ThePrettyDamned

DeeTee;92585" said:

Are there any decent pedal kits available in the UK?

Poodle pedals Top bloke running the show, and my axis Fuzz is sublime.

DeeTee

Just had a look. That could be an expensive little find! "Ooh, TS clones. Ooh, Dumble. Ooh, fuzz. Ooh, phaser... etc."