HISTORY / INFO:
Got this pedal from a friend who got it from a friend. Said friend attempted several times to give back said pedal to other said friend but other said friend did not want it or care about it so said friend kept it and then decided to give it to me (follow all of that?).
Prior to being bent, this was a Brownsville Super Distortion guitar effects pedal. It runs on either a 9 volt battery or a DC adpator. It contains 3 settings: Level (which controls volume), Filter (the equivalent of a Tone knob on a guitar, determines the amount of low and high end) and Gain (which determines how much the signal is increased prior to being modified).
This project, I have to admit, was a labor of love (or insanity or obsession/compulsion). I spent many hours finding bends on the pedal. I used a delay pedal to play a series of notes over and over and over while I poked around on the pedal. I sometimes used an amplifier, but more often than not I used headphones (in order not to wake the sleeping wife at 7am :). I started finding quite a few bends; some were minor tone changes similar to a wah pedal being slightly engaged to massive feedback. After I had about 20 bends mapped, the brain took a side step and said 'Hey, I wonder if you could make a bend for ALL of the points on the board (or at least the ones known not to reset to pedal). In the end I ended up with 32 bends based on 59 points on the board.
I then had to figure out how to contain all of these bends. At the local re-use store I found an old wood VHS tape storage unit for $2.50. Cha-ching! After finding the perfect container, I then had to decide where the pedal would be mounted and also where all the switched would be mounted. I took measurements of the pedal, drew lots of dots on a piece of graph paper and settled on a configuration which I liked alot. I dilly-dallied for a few days getting up the nerve to take a drill to the box. I was going to have to first cut a hole so the solder side of the circuit board would be exposed so I did some more careful measuring since some of the bend points were on the edge of the board. Then I had to drill the holes so I could screw the pedal to board using the existing screw holes.
The next thing was to wire up the 59 points on the board. I put this off for quite a while. Eventually, on a wonderful Labor Day weekend day, I took my soldering stuff outside and soldered away. It took me close to 4 hours to complete just soldering the wires to the board. I took a day or so off and then spent another 10 or so hours (spread over 2 days) wiring up the pots and switches.
The last thing to do was attach all the pot knobs and figure a way to close up the front of the case (since the trays weren't going to be able to go back in as they would have snagged on all the wires and what not). I was originally going to cut a piece of board to seal it up, but would have had to reinforce the front part, so instead I created a see-though panel using yellow cardboard and some thin plastic and stapled it on. To cover up the staples, I handmade some 'caution tape' using some of the yellow colored sticker scraps I had from the OXIDIZER stickers.
This was the short version. Click here for the L-O-N-G version.
PRE-MODIFICATION PICTURES:
MODIFICATIONS: (completed: September 2005)
The bend names are based on what I wrote in the notebook that I used to log bend points. Not
that it matters, but bends are listed from top to bottom going left to right.
1) Muffled low, Clean high - This uses a 100k pot. You can tune how muffled the lower
frequencies are. For the most part, the high end freqs are clean through the range of the pot.
2) Tweety bypass - This uses a 250k pot. At zero k, the sound is 'chirpy' (Whatever that means)
3) Tunable Robot Wah - This uses a 250k pot. I believe this adds a bit both 'wah' and
robotic noise.
4) Low screech feedback distortion - This uses a 250k pot. The feedback has a low pitch (in
comparison to the other feedback settings). The pitch of the feedback can be tuned using the pot.
5) Stutter distortion - This uses a 1 meg pot with an additional 100k in resistance for stability.
On the lower end of resistance, the stutter slows down.
6) Feedback-y to stutter - This uses a 1 meg pot. At the higher end of resistance, there is
feedback, on the lower end there is more stuttering.
7) Adjustable wah sound - This uses a 10k pot. The amount of wah sound is tunable.
8) Electronic noize - This uses a 50k pot. At zero k, there is 'electronic noize'. I believe
this means that the sound gets very 'electronic sounding' instead of distorted. And that really
doesn't make any sense.
9) Really muffled with feedback - Uses a 6.8uF cap
10) Tinny wah - Uses a 4148 diode. I believe this has a wah sound, but alot of the low end is
cut out.
11) Muffled distortion - Uses a 473 (.047uF) cap
12) Untitled zener diode bend - Uses a ZD4001 5.6v diode. I can't remember what this sounds like.
Probably adds a level of more distortion
13) Clean muffle (no extra dist) - Uses a .22uF cap. I believe this is like having a wah set on
the lowest setting and not having any distortion at all.
14) Scratch Distortion - Uses three .22uF caps in series.
15) Feedbacky when quieter - Uses a .22uF cap. Like most of the feedback bends, if there is
something going one, the feedback is less noticable. My guess is that for this bend the
feedback is almost non-existant when the quitar levels are high.
16) Super fuzz - Uses a 4148 diode. One of my favorite bends for this pedal. Very nice
fuzz sound.
17) Leslie - Uses 4004 diode. This bend, when I found it, made the sound fade in and out very
quickly. After being wired, it only gives out a very repetitive high pitched chirp with no
guitar sound coming though at all. Good for making 'self noise'.
18) Reverbed feedback - Uses a .22uF cap (I bought a bag of 100 of them, so I might as well use
them :). It definitely creates feedback, but I'm not sure the reverb is really there.
19) Stuttered distortion - Uses a 47uF cap. This is one bend that after completing it did not
work. I bravely cracked open the case and replaced the 47uF 50v cap with a 47uF 16v cap and now
it gives a very grainy distortion. You have to play almost as loud as you possibly can in order
for the guitar to even be audible. But I believe that it works great if the super fuzz is turned
on.
20) Robotic distortion (high eq???) - *gasp* A straight bend that does not need any extra
components to help it out! Based on the note above, I believe this cuts out much of the low end
frequencies but leaves the distortion in place.
21) Feedbacky - Uses a 683 (.068uF) cap. It, um, adds a little bit of distortion.
22) Feedbacky - Uses a 473 (.047uF) cap. Again, more feedback. According to my notes, it is
similar to bend #15.
23) Bad ass ray gun - Uses a 103 (.010uF) cap. This mod is another favorite. Depending on the
volume of the input, the amount of gain, etc... you can get this nice 'booooing' sound at the
beginning of each attack. Great when playing slow, single note leads and not chords.
24) Untitled 5392 BK diode bend - Umm... it uses a 5392 BK diode. I don't remember what it does.
25) Stonger distortion - This is my first bend ever which uses a transistor (an A854). The
switch is on the Q terminal. The description sucks though. I believe that you have to really
play hard in order for the pedal to even hear anything... the limits on this bend are so strong
you practically break the guitar trying to get it to make any noise. Ooops.
26) Extra bass (top end appears to be clean) - Uses a 4001 diode.
27) Extra fuzz - Uses a 4148 diode. Not as heavy as the Super Fuzz bend.
28) Muted distortion - Uses a 1uF cap.
29) Mid feedback - Uses a (surprise) .22uF cap. The feedback tone is in the middle of the range
of the feedback from other bends on the pedal.
30) Stutter distortion - Uses a 4001 diode.
31) Moogy distortion - Uses a 4.7uF cap. I don't know what the heck I am talking about because
it sounds nothing like a Moog. *shrug* It's probably yet another feedback bend.
32) Grainy distortion / no reverb - Uses a 4001 cap. Not sure why I thought there was reverb to
get rid of. I think the delay pedal I used when testing had a little bit of reverb so maybe this
cut that down or something.
POST-MODIFICATION PICTURES:
 front / top view |
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 back view |
 bottom and front view |
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 inside view |
 artsy view |
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SOUNDS:
Oxidizer Distortion Samples <--- Click here to hear some sound samples of the Oxidizer Distortion Pedal
-or-
If you are getting bandwidth errors, try this temporary alternate site.
FUTURE MODIFICATIONS PLANNED:
Are you kidding???
Last Modified: September 18, 2005