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Hi there, welcome to my blog - La Revolution Deux. It's an odd name - but I like it! Here you will find all the info on my various DIY Guitar effects builds, amplifiers and guitars. Everything from a humble Ibanez tubescreamer to the holiest KLON Overdrive.

You may also find a few effects builds that I am looking to move on - usually in exchange for other effects/gear/cash. You can always check my ebay account to see what I've got up for grabs.

Have fun, enjoy the blog - Fred Briggs :-)

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Monday, 12 March 2012

WEM (Watkins) - Project V Fuzz

Graham from the D*A*M forums is a huge collector of vintage Fuzz effects and he picked up this gem:





Here's how he describes the unit over on the D*A*M forums:  http://stompboxes.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1083 


"A TRULY OUTSTANDING FUZZ EFFECT WHY IT APPEARS TO HAVE NEVER BEEN "PROPERLY COMMERCIALLY" DEVELOPED IS TOTALLY BEYOND ME!!

Maybe there were patent infringements or it was just too costly to build - hopefully as time goes by we will get answers to the questions this remarkable pedal throws up!!

Unless people responding to this thread can shed some further light on it (my deepest hope) - We will just have to include it amongst those seemingly crazy anomalies - dead ends if you like - in the evolutionary development of excellent fuzztone - to my mind (and ears) it's exactly up there alongside the Burns Baldwin Buzzaround in its being an inexplicably unexploited opportunity.

Like some of our most beloved (and in the long term most influential) guitarists - those whose fame burnt oh so brilliantly for such a desperately short time and yet live on in our hearts - this is one of those pedals that in my humble opinion had the potential to make its mark on the entire history of British Rock music.....

I fully appreciate that these are extreme terms of praise and descriptive honorifics - I also hope most sincerely that I am not given to just throwing such praise about freely - at least I truly hope that my recommendations and opinions on these earlier fuzz pedals are not considered too freely given - or worse yet inaccurate by you guys who get to read them. Amongst the hundreds of pedals I have been lucky enough to own or play through, there have been only a mere handful of pedals that have had such an impact on me and really only two - this one and the Buzzaround which defy my ability to explain their apparent commercial failure.

I will make it a particular aim of mine to ensure that this pedal is put into the hands of someone here who can provide a decent recording or two so you guys can see what I am banging on about - because frankly the chances of ever finding one for yourself are effectively zero - I have seen two of the Pepe Rush pedals which come in the same hugely elongated case (13 x 4 inches) and managed to buy one of those - the pictures are already posted here (I'll have to check - if they didn't make it over from the old site then I will correct that error). With the Pep version I was taken aback by the tiny size of the board itself and the surplus of "real estate" that surrounded it - this one is the exact opposite - its a real job to get the case apart things are so tightly packed inside!!

I intend to place more than the usual number of pictures up here as I am really hoping that some of youtechnical types can make some observations on the design - in many ways it resembles (tonally at least) some of the earlier Shin-Ei fuzzes or some of the earlier output of the Italian Pescara factory - but those "Drive" and "Edge" sliders open up a whole different world!"


Check out this demo of a clone unit in action:


And here's a schematic drawn up by GrizzlyTone:

As you can see it's pretty unique! There's all sorts going on in there... Here's a vero layout by digi2t:


Along with some images of his build:



For more technical info check out the freestompboxes.org topic: http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6683

4 comments:

  1. The -9v wire goes to the ring of the input jack? And the ground goes to the tip as usual?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Conceptually it's similar to a Pignose or one of those Hughes & Kettner tube distortions.

    The schematic looks like a completely generic transistor power amplifier circa 1970. A handful of parts tweaks, and a 30v supply, and it ought to put out 20 or 30 watts into an 8 ohm speaker, and as is will make a VERY LOUD headphone amp.

    No wonder it's hard to build one that sounds the same.

    ReplyDelete

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