The ABCs: Ambitiously Building Circuits

Not since September 12 2021 have I attempted to build more than one circuit in the same day. Heck, even last year, when I built a total of 45 circuits, I avoided doing more than one per week. Those two circuits were a Flapjack Overdrive (Crowther Hotcake clone) and a Danelectro Cool Cat Drive (reportedly based on a Fulltone OCD). Neither of which are tiny builds, but I was really excited to get both of them built, so I did it in the same day. Both circuits turned out to be some of my favorites. So much so that I've decided to build clones of the pedals they were inspired by. I already built the Crowther Hotcake, and I plan to build an OCD clone soon.

This time the circuits are both a bit smaller, being a Univox Uni-comp clone and Subdecay Stupid Box clone. I don't know what it is about compressor pedals, but since I managed to realize the Really Cheap Compressor circuit works I've been wanting to build them all, almost like Pokemon. Anyway, I planned these as backup February circuits, but since that all went pretty well I was left with these to build at some other point. I figured I should do something special with these, and building them both in the same day was the best idea I could come up with.

First I built the Univox Uni-comp, which went pretty well. However, a comment under the layout said that theirs doesn't work, so I went into this understanding this circuit most likely wouldn't work. Which it doesn't. Without even testing the Uni-comp I set straight to work on building the stupid box. This was a much quicker build, and I did test it immediately afterwards. I'm actually really surprised at how such a simple circuit can create such a nice sounding distortion. My only complaint about the Stupid Box is the tone works backwards to how it normally does, but that's ok. The Subdecay Stupid Box gets two thumbs up from me! The Uni-comp gets a big, steaming pile of crap. I knew it wouldn't work, but I wanted to try anyway. I'll do some troubleshooting later. The main thing is, regardless of whether the circuit works or not, the built date for every circuit is the day it was completed.