Promethium-boss hm-2

[Thewintersoldier]

I want to preface and say that I apologize if you find my build reports as of late to be wordy, it's not my intent to ramble but I don't find one sentence very helpful. I also do not want to pretend I write for a food blog and describe a pedal as delicious or tasty, also not very helpful.

This pedal was one that I was always on the fence about building. It wasn't really on my radar as I felt it was a one trick pony. I don't play swedish death metal and every demo that you hear is THAT sound. It never really sounded good in demos, especially in isolation. There are two main reasons I built this pedal. One is @Harry Klippton , the master of the HM-2 has built a couple of these and has two originals and his praise was enough for me to give it a try. Two, I don't see a lot of build reports for this. It sells, I see troubleshooting threads, but not many build reports. So, I had to build one to assess for myself.

Pedalpcb was I believe at the time this project was originally released, the only other person besides byoc to offer a board for this project. Now Aion does as well but this is a much better layout. Props for using modern easily accessible components as well, unlike byoc who makes you look for hard to find expensive and inferior sip opamps. Also, this was possible thanks to Will coming in clutch with the 1.5uf cap😘. As usual with a ppcb project, the build was simple and smooth, so nothing new there. So how does it sound?

It's decedent 🤣. This is not the one trick pony I hear in every video on YT. It's far more versatile than I imagined. The gain range, while not having the widest range, is fine for a distortion that is made for metal. It can do some excellent med gain type sounds as well, but no one is building this for classic rock. As Will said, it's ragged but cuts. This is spot on. It's heavy and chugs in the bottom end but it's not blown out, and the mids are very cutting giving it a very pronounced EQ to sit in a mix. The gyrator EQ section is brilliant in execution, whoever designed this knew what they were doing. If I had to describe it I would say it's like a DS-2 with balls. Credit to @Paradox916 for his Photoshop skills.


For my enclosure I went with a matte black tayda enclosure with UV printing. My color scheme is based on the classic HM-2 palette. My inspiration for the artwork is a play off the promethium name. @peccary and I were discussing our love of ancient Greek, Roman and Norse mythology and riffing on the the tales of Promethium, the god of fire. I chose the skull of Surtur, a fire god in Norse mythology and the bringer of Ragnarok in the third Thor movie. I used the Thor Ragnarok font as well to tie it all together. Overall I'm really happy with the end result and see lots of use out of this pedal. The quick sound clip is from the pedal's POV and shows one of my favorite settings. Also in the clip is a future build report that I was testing with the pedal. For reference, the pedal is going into my blackface set clean with my HB SG.

TL DR, this pedals Fux and you should build it.

[blackhatboojum]

Hot Dayum!  This build is absolutely killer!  There's no need to apologize for a wordy build report.  I actually dig that shit.

[harryklippton]

You already know I like this

[jimilee]

Very. I've. I have a PCB I've been holding onto for a while now, for the very reasons you stated you weren't interested originally.


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[Bret608]

You know, in the '90s a lot of bands I liked were using the HM-2 including Swervedriver, My Bloody Valentine, Love Battery, Slint, and others. It's definitely not just for Swedish metal! I think they were kind of a thing in indie/alternative music before Russian Big Muffs became widely available. Your build rules, obviously. Now I'm wanting to build one too.

[jjjimi84]

Just stellar work! Sounds awesome too!

[zombie_rock123]

I love longer build reports, same as I love reading build docs for the comments from the designers. Gimme all the detail!

About the build, it's a bit messy innit?

Top drawer as always, you set the bar real fuxin high and I'd bet it beats the pants off a lot of commercial units!

[RDL68]

Congrats on the great looking build.
I still have my original hm2 & I'm familiar with its limitations. It sure has been regarded by many as a 1 trick pony for ages. I've tried the Swedish HM thing of turning all knobs on full, but nope, didn't do it for me, not even close.
I discovered putting a blues driver in front of it, with that much wider sort of clear transparent range it has, actually carried through the hm2 somewhat & opened up lots more tonal possibilities & tweaking with the hm2. That's how I got plenty of use out of mine.
But on it's own...suffice to say there's other options for those with only 1 spot for a dirt box on their board.

[jwin615]

Another clean build. Be sure to try it in the effects loop. Straight to the return, no send.

[Thewintersoldier]

Thanks everyone, looking forward to the next instalment of this series.

[Bio77]

Top shelf, dude! 

[BricksnBeatles]

You know, in the '90s a lot of bands I liked were using the HM-2 including Swervedriver, My Bloody Valentine, Love Battery, Slint, and others. It's definitely not just for Swedish metal! I think they were kind of a thing in indie/alternative music before Russian Big Muffs became widely available. Your build rules, obviously. Now I'm wanting to build one too.

Yup— Belinda Butcher is the reason I have an HM-2 PCB. Once I decided to record a sorta crappy trilogy of shoegaze albums I decided that an HM-2, FZ-2, and FZ-3 were in order, as well as some FV-1 stuff 

[Paradox916]

https://i.redd.it/1yp9cqc2ukv11.jpg

This one never gets old


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