Insane one-off arrived: Godbox Test Pattern from Hell
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:41 pm
First off, let me say that when you're a strange cripple living in the mountains, knowing a genuine wizard can help when you need real assistance with an audio project. Even if I had the window of health and patience in my life, my vision ain't what it used to be, and I can't solder for the life of me with one bad eye. So when I need a specialty circuit or strange noisemaker, I'm forced to look to the pros. Sometimes, it works out. Sometimes it doesn't.
In this case, I've been wanting a backup (and possibly expanded) version of the extremely, extremely limited run Devi Ever Test Pattern. Between that company's less than stellar reputation for build quality, delivering product, and the like, plus a recent buyout that made it clear that the new owner had no interest in producing a Test Pattern again in my lifetime...I was forced to go outside and find someone who'd pick up the slack.
This wasn't an easy project. The available schematic simply highlights the changes to a couple existing pedals and how to wire it together - that is, of course, assuming that it is actually what's inside the existing box I had. I was willing to risk that, as this little oscillating internal feedback loop that calls itself a fuzzbox when not masquerading as a broken shortwave radio mangler has become my essential "step on this when you want the crackles of the spheres" item.
My original builder just couldn't reconcile a couple things despite a significant period of trying, and so the quest began six months deep into starting over. Luckily for me, I know a strange and powerful wizard, the one in residence at Godbox FX.
I'd won a contest from them a year or so ago, and I'd wanted to purchase another pedal or two of their lineup as they'd piqued my interest, but I was all or nothing into the second Test Pattern - I wasn't sure if it'd work with my existing one, if I wanted to run it in stereo, if it would convince me to sell everything and have a dozen made and spend my days dialing in sound until "Radio Free Albemuth" was as clear as day.
The Wizard wasn't afraid of the box's reputation, difficulty, or loathing that even the original Devi manager expressed for the thing - a cursed box, I guess, is of no concern to a real dude. He assured me he'd look into it, worked out a potentially working schematic, and wired up a prototype. I was perfectly willing to settle for a veroboard build, but he went well above and beyond, with a custom PCB and everything - with a ton of additional changes and things that sounded like they might be fun. The time from discussing the project to a physical unit in my hands was astoundingly short (including postage cross-country and curing time on the finish, etc) - less than six weeks.
The resulting product, if it's even close in practice in the circuitry to the actual unit beside me now, is something far beyond the original. All my essential Test Pattern sounds are there - splattery, gated mean, oscillation that is still controllable by note selection and attack, et cetera - but the things we worked out have added so much more to it that it's truly a different pedal. If the Wizard will not release this as a production pedal, I hope he considers putting out the schematic so fellow lovers of this obscure bird can make one at home. I'm sure there are some additional tweaks that could be worked out as well, but....I have no complaints at all.
The finished unit has top-mounted jacks, a built in voltage starve (since I loved running my real one on an adjustable power supply), and a couple switches to send the thing further into the abyss of fun rounded out the changes - how he fit it in a 1590-sized box is literally beyond me. The original has typical "electrical tape-wrapped PCB" Devi construction, and that barely fits in a 1590. This version, including the extra changes, fits handily inside a 1590 with no shortcuts.
The amount of things that this box does versus the original is frankly phenomenal. The Test Pattern never really offered normal person-type musically useful fuzz or gain, but there's a few settings that actually more than veer into usable sounds for a traditional rock band. Ok, the chances of someone actually using this for that purpose is about nil, but it's there, and it's glorious. The *only* thing that is missing is the very slow tremolo-like sweep at a few settings that was a ticking nightmare to work around sometimes while playing or recording, and it may be lurking in there somewhere but it was something I starved the original to avoid.
There is almost no noise floor to speak of - sure, it can generate self-noise and spitting silliness, but in its less insane modes, it's quieter than almost any production pedal I have in undesired effects in that realm. I'm not afraid of noises from pedals, but I like to be in charge of them, and this unexpectedly delivers that - the original has a ton of noise that I figured couldn't ever be removed. I was wrong.
In the current configuration, it's possible to get very low output or no output from a combination of settings, but well, that's the expected price of having options beyond options in a fun noisemaker. For those people with fully-working feet and legs, and who could make this pedal a production reality, I'd consider mounting the two position flip switches as footswitches in a larger enclosure, and going there - some of the mode-switching noises are quite entertaining and I could see them as being part of a freakout or insane synth fill on demand.
Don't get me wrong, I still love my original Test Pattern, but this is the spiritual descendent of it in the same way that the Fuzz Factory is a Fuzz Face on crack, except the original wasn't known for its normal, pleasant sounds. This is a mean, nasty, choppy, breathing thing that probably should not be.
I'm AOK with that. The original took me two years to even begin to master. This might take longer than I have left on this earth, and that too is a good thing.
I had considered doing a demo to highlight the thing but it's making me write songs every time I sit down to "demo" anything - which may be the highest praise I could heap on any pedal at all.
I'll post clips sometimes this weekend health permitting, been too busy playing with it to care and record stuffs past my normal 'ooh, that sounds neat"
For now, "stupid pedal tricks on arrival" will have to do, below images.
