Pepper Spray/Mastotron

[muffin]

Hi all, I am new to the forum, but I have been building pedals for several years. My latest is an albini spec pepper spray and mastotron clone 2-in-1 pedal. I love the mastotron side, but the pepper spray is quite a bit tamer than I expected. I am considering changing the pepper spray to the stock specs, and I was wondering if anyone here had experience with the two. I am looking for something wooly and bassy, to compliment the velcro-y mastotron.

Also, I am curious what you all use to do lettering on the enclosure.

[Bret608]

I haven't had experience with the stock Pepper Spray since I went with the Albini specs--but having heard sound samples of the stock specs, they sound more squishy and compressed, whereas the Albini ends up sounding like an aggressive, fuzzy overdrive. I like that though--although Albini's sound on those gearwire clips is pretty crazy (I suspect that aluminum neck guitar with microphonic P-90s is part of the equation), I feel like my build sounds more like the Big Black albums. Listen to when he combines it with chorus on "Bad House" or "Tiny-King of the Jews"--pretty eerie and Joy Division-like. Even on the stock specs though, sometimes people call it a crazy fuzz, but that's not what I'm hearing. It's basically an oddball overdrive/distortion.

This is a really cool-looking build. I'd love to hear that Mastrotron!

[nzCdog]

Nice job Muffin...  love the alloy knobs and it sounds like a cool pedal to have on the board.
I use waterslide decals for most of my lettering... there's lots of different ways, have a look thru some build reports for ideas

[muffin]

Thanks Guys!

I changed the Pepper spray from Steve Albini specs to the stock specs. Agree with the above post that the Albini specs are more overdrive-y than all out fuzz. In fact I found that I had to dime the Harmonics knob to get anything interesting to happen. With the stock specs its much fuzzier. It still does the overdrive thing with the Harmonics control around 9:00. And with the Harmonics control turned all the way up it has a super fuzzy, super compressed sound. There is a sweet spot around noon where there is plenty of fuzz, but it still has a kind of touch sensitive overdrive layer beneath.

Definitely quite happy with the pepper spray now. Its more of a round, hairy fuzz, compared to the Mastotron, which is a crunchy velcro fuzz.

[Bret608]

Hmm...now you've got me wanting to try out a stock specs version!    Glad to hear it's working out better for you. I was messing around with mine last night. One thing that gets me is how touch-sensitive it is.  Even with the less fuzzy Albini version, just modulating the pick attack almost has the same effect as turning the guitar's volume knob.