After approximately six months of correspondence with Joel (Weaver, brainchild of Homebrew Electronics), our first collaborative effort (dubbed the Twilight Drive) is on its way to me!
The Twilight Drive is not designed to replace any of my HBE pedals; instead, its purpose is to provide nearly one-stop shopping when it comes to tonal options, and to be a Swiss Army knife for live use and rehearsals. (Also a form of live use, if you think about it)
Those of you that know me (the ones I chat to online via IM or perhaps PM, and there are a lot of you; or, if you're unfortunate enough to live within my beer drinking radius) also know that pedal boards don't hold much truck with me; in fact, I hate bringing pedals to gigs. They're small, expensive, and tend to get lost. (Why not get a pedal board, I hear some of you asking ... the answer is I just don't like em!)
My solution to this problem was to work with Joel on a pedal that would combine the functions I need the most when I step into the studio or stage into one box. Each effect would have to be discrete, so that I can chain em together or use them seperately. That's when the Twilight Drive was born.
The Twilight Drive combines the following effects into one chasis:
1. Power Screamer overdrive
2. Uno Mos preamp/clean boost
3. Active buffer stage from the Dos Mos preamp/boost
It also has the same transformer-isolated input stage that can be found on the new line of Bytch'n Swytch'n pedals.
Don't expect this pedal to become part of Joel's regular roster, simply due to the expense of having so much stuff inside one chasis. Still, it was a fun project to work on, and I'm looking forward to the final result!
I now have two other pedal ideas that I'm going to have made, both of which address needs I see that are not covered by other pedals. One will be called the Black Flag Omni Boost (or similar) and will enable a guitarist with a single-channel amp to go from clean to distortion without having to touch the volume control on his guitar. (I hate control pots and try to eliminate them wherever possible) The other pedal is still in it's zygote stage, and I'll let you all know about it when it's ready.
