ESTE FORMULÁRIO É PARA RESIDENTES DE FORA DO BRASIL, SE VOCÊ MORA NO BRASIL, POR FAVOR CLIQUE AQUI.
Handmade pedals with germanium transistors for 2021
This is a temporary initiative to keep Deep Trip operating through 2021, while the pandemic in Brazil still rages on and we’ll still have restrictions for quite some time. The idea is to reduce the complexity of our assembly process and the need to visit suppliers, take our builds back and forth etc. while the situation of the pandemic in our country won’t allow us to go back to regular work in the workshop any time soon.
All of these pedals will be assembled by hand at home, by Du and Danuzza Menegozzo, and 10% of each unit sold will be donated to food bank initiatives in our country.
The concept
The idea here is to put a big collection of vintage germanium transistors, that we have amassed over the years, into tonal proposals that perfectly explore their specific properties. The circuits are simple, elementary and well known; the most important thing here is choosing the right transistor. Each one has been selected according to numerous specific characteristics to fit each of these proposals. They include hFE (gain) and leakage, but also other electrical and tonal properties, like the frequency bandwidth of amplification.
That’s exactly how we are using put our almost two decades of experience and research work on germanium transistors, classic guitar circuits and how to combine all that to get the tones we want. That’s the point here.
The pedals
All pedals will be true bypass (with indicator led), powered only by a 9V battery and slightly smaller than our current line in size.To be true to their 1960’s predecessors, all of them will have low input impedance (like the Fuzz Face and the Rangemaster), modern production carbon comp resistors (more stable and reliable than the old ones) and Cornell-Dubilier metalized polyester capacitors (former Mallory 150).
Due to their relatively low input impedance, they work best when connected directly to a passive instrument (guitar or bass) and interact with the instruments’ controls in a uniquely special way. They aren’t meant to be used with active instruments, high output pickups or after buffers and other pedals, but they can be connected that way, only sounding and behaving differently than expected.
Keep in mind that germanium semiconductors are temperature sensitive and can sound differently when subjected to radical temperature changes. Never leave your germanium-equipped pedal near a source of heat, like vacuum tubes.
Which of these would you be interested in buying? (all payments via Paypal)