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First up is the BYOC Reverb pedal. This is a kit that you build yourself. The build level is beginner to intermediate: I am sure anyone who can solder neatly can tackle this pedal. I have sprayed the project box tan metallic and applied a decal with text and graphics. The interior of the kit is based on the Belton digital reverb unit surrounded by a single circuit board, and various controls and connectors. It is powered by 9V battery, wall transformer, or pedal power supply. A build article on this pedal will be available soon.
The following clips demonstrate various scales and songs with the BYOC pedal on and off. As you can hear, the range of the pedal goes from quiet to monster springiness. I am quite impressed by the low cost, quiet bypass and "over the top" range of this effect. Negative aspects would include the fact that you build it yourself and the narrow usable range of the dials: I wish the changes were more gradual, less all or nothing.
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I am very pleased with the sound of the pedal and the transparency of the tone. The big knobs are a plus, something you can adjust with your toes. The only negative for this pedal was the intensely bright seizure-inducing speed LED. As you can see in the photo, I have applied some acrylic paint to reduce the intensity.
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The tremolo is very good. It has very low noise and little tone coloration. The vibrato clips here sound phony at high levels, but gets better with mild or moderate use. The chorus clips sound nice and wobbly. I may have mixed up the vibrato and chorus recordings here. All in all a very quiet and excellent sounding
I don't like the odd speed settings on this device. First you select a rough range with one know and then a fine range with the next. The selector also acts as a hard/soft wave selector. I think the Voodoo-Vibe+ unit has revamped these controls so its a bit more organized. In general, the sound is excellent, and the 3 types of sounds makes this a versatile pedal.
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The kit is still a work in progress. I intend to publish more photos and thoughts in the near future.For one, I find I still have lots of work to do reducing the noise present in the unit. Noise may have been introduced into the design by my moving of the transformers,or it may come from the grounding scheme I have chosen. In either case, Weber provides no clue or instructions as to how to ground or lower the noise level of the kit. Luckily there are some self-help user forums to try to address the issue.
I can hear some good sounds in there, but the noise floor is very high. I will have to introduce some shielded signal wiring and new ground scheme to combat the noise. In the mean time, listen to what I could produce with the flawed kit.
BYOC Reverb
Fulltone Tremolo
Markbass Compressor
Roger Mayer Voodoo-Vibe
Weber 5G15 Reverb
Thanks for visiting the site and reading the article. I hope you enjoyed the detailed photos and comments and had fun listening to the sound clips. More articles are found at the parentGuitars and Music page.