Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

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vh1tone
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Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by vh1tone » Thu May 03, 2018 2:47 pm

:what:

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rdodson
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Re: Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by rdodson » Fri Jun 29, 2018 11:44 pm

I think the secret pedal was the EQ pedal. It lent a decent boost.
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VelvetGeorge
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Re: Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by VelvetGeorge » Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:38 am

I haven't removed any threads. Is it gone????

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Re: Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by mr.twistyneck » Mon Jul 02, 2018 12:56 pm

The very very first secret pedal thread got deleted because it turned into a pit of trolls - basically some arguments from another forum carried over here from what i understand.

However, there's the subsequent 50+ page Secret Pedal thread here:
http://www.forum.metropoulos.net/viewto ... l&start=30

There's a few other threads too, wherein other secret pedals are discussed - EP3 preamp, Vega wireless, etc

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Re: Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by VelvetGeorge » Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:06 pm

Oh right, not a recent deletion. Sorry to misunderstand and thanks for clarifying.

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Re: Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by plexified » Wed Aug 21, 2019 2:56 am

I know this is long paused, but I can throw in a few cents regarding this topic. I recently had a project with a friend and we mapped the frequency response and gain of a lot of pedals. What we discovered was the massive extent some pedals pushed the signal.

Now, for my own tastes, I occasionally boost with an original TS 808, Crother Hotcake, or mess with the elusive Fuzz to get that tree falling down tone from Hendrix Woodstock, otherwise its really plexi on 10 and work the volume knob and play hard and work for it.

That being said, I was freakin shocked at what we found. Initially I absolutely hated boosting the front end too hard. Why? Because it turned to flab, lost definition and farted out at best. Always. Even Lynch would rave about a Boss GE-7 boosting the front. I could never get it to work for me.

So here is the pay off. I'll cut to the chase. Its frequency based. If you boost too much below 200hz its over. You have to literally strip away the bottom to begin with. Next is the radical level of boosts. 20 db !!! , read it again. 20 db. Yes, its that high.

LIke I mentioned , in the past, I would try to boost it flat, with a frown and by this time, I had it unplugged and was back to jamming. We set up the GE-7 to mimick the curves we plotted, and I'll be damned , we began to create a plausible case for reverse engineering.

So , I don't want to 'out' other manufacturers here, so I won't, but what I will say is the more you boost the more you have to trim the bottom end. Its similar to when your working with the ' one wire mod' , you have to strip bottom or you loose it.

Like I eluded to very early on, Ed traveled with a toolbox of tone shaping tools after his first outdoor gig. Its a radical experience playing without a room so to speak, in fact its traumatizing. Nobody wants to be in front of thousands of people with shit tone. You would never let it happen again.

So His EQ was for this 'environment problem solving'. It also turns out to be VERY influential with the gain structure as you goose the heck out of it, and then introduce bottom end. Strip it all, then build it back up as you get the desired amount of gain.

20db will get you Meshuggah tones on a stock 1959 with the bottom rolled out of it. Its that impressive. Have fun! oh, and if you get a little flub with the low end stripped in the front with high gain, don't be afraid to back off the volume a bit to clean it up a tad, you will find a balance!

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Re: Well..... What did happen to the secret pedal thread ?

Post by PLX » Sat Nov 11, 2023 11:37 am

For anyone who's still here .. :lol:

The "Secret Pedal" is the Univox Uni-Drive UD-50

After having tried all the supposed "secret pedals".. this is the one. :rock:

:? Echoplex 3 Pre-amp (imparts some interesting frequency shift to the upper mids, a.k.a signal colorization, as well as a slight boost)
:? Boss GE-10 (was more than likely used to drive long cable runs while Ed played live)
:? MXR 6-band (noisy piece of junk) :palm:
:? Shaffer-Vega wireless preamp (maybe for AC/DC.. VH, not so much)
:? Sola ColorSound Tonebender MKII (no. just no.) :palm:

https://i.imgur.com/fKOILr8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/SQru7JG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GisBCc8.jpg

I built a clone using the circuit board from AionFX. Sourced the NOS transistors from England. This version has a mod in the form of a "tone" control, which was a common mod done to these pedals back in the 70's.

On Fire intro:
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14683248
Wax Capacitor. LoL!

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