Build Your Own Clone Armstrong Twin

Nearly as simple as a pedal can get. There is a volume knob, a three way selector, and a slow-meduim-fast switch. The only control with the ring mod mode is the volume knob. On the compression mode, there is volume control and slow-medium-fast switch which manipulates the attack. It is extremely easy to get a good sound out of this pedal. One might argue that there is not enough control over the sound, but I personally love the simplicity of it all.

I am mostly concerned with the compression side of the Armstrong Twin. I use a mexican strat with single coils into a blues jr. The compression goes from a thick and rubberband like attack to noticable and then to a fairly transparent attack. Again, there is only the slow-medium-fast swith to dial in the compression sound. Yet, I find it very easy to get a really good compressed tone with this pedal. Definately better than any boss or mxr comps that I've owned.

There is some buzz that comes with the compression. Yet, as compared with other compression pedals while using single coils, the noise is pretty quiet.

Overall, the compression is a great and extremely simple with a small amount of noise. The green ringer does exactly what a green ringer should do as well. Its odd, but it performs as desired.

I built this pedal myself. This was the first pedal clone kit that I have ever built. My soldering and wiring skills are not the greatest. Yet, I followed the instructions and the kit has worked perfectly for me for almost a year now. The cuircut board is top knotch, and all compenents and parts are good quality. You get out what you put into a kit. Yet, BYOC sends very reliable parts.

This is where BYOC really shines. It is a little scary to buy a nice pedal kit without ever having built a pedal or soldered before. Don't be afraid! BYOC has a message board with moderators and other electronic geniuses that help out if your pedal doesn't start right up. They are extremely helpful and determined to get the kits working.

There are also numerous modifications for kits on the board. Again, great customer support. Could not ask for more.

The pedal is great for me. I play mostly blues and rock. I've owned and played several other compressors over the years including boss cs-3 and MXR Dyna comp. The Armstrong Twin really blows them out of the water in sound quality and simplicity. I really don't have any desire to replace or upgrade this compression pedal. It produces a good, simple, and tasteful compression that is very useful.

If this pedal were stolen, I would either replace with another Armstrong Twin, or I might try another BYOC compression pedal kit such as the 5 knob compressor or the optical compressor. While the Armstrong Twin is the nicest compressor I have ever used, BYOC amazes me with the quality of their kits and high standards of their customer service. Every aspect of their business impresses me.

If you want to get into building pedals, check out their website at www.buildyourownclone.com . Its a great feeling to have pedals that you built on your board and there is no better kit provider than BYOC.

The Armstrong Twin is a stompbox that is both compressor and octave up/ringmodulator. This is easy to use. There are two knobs, one for volume on the compressor and the other is a 3 way rotery switch to slect the compressor, octave up, or both. there is a three position toggle switch that controls the attack speed for the compressor, fast, medium, and slow.

I use this with both a Strat and a Les Paul, humbuckers and single coils through a 30watt tube amp. The pedal is true bypass so i dont worry about where I place in on my pedal board, but I place it at the end. The Orange Squeezer side of this pedal will give you some noise on single coils because its trying to bring up those quieter levels with the rest of your signal to create a balenced and compressed sound. The Green Ringer side is a simple operation because all you can do is turn it on or off. When it's on i feel it give you a very nice octave up type sound. god thing abou this pedal is you can use the octave up alone. on most other pedals the octave up is always attached to a fuzz that you cannot use on its own. this way you can choose to put what ever fuzz you want infront of it or put a tube screamer or whatever type of thing you want to put with it. you can get that hendrix/srv sound out of this depending what you want to use infront of it.

Very soild steel housing that i feel very safe with. because i built the thing myself from a kit i know it will be dependable and if something did go wrong i would know how to fix it.

I sent them e-mails (byoc) for some questions regarding other service and they responded that day, within the hour.

I got this pedal because i just wanted the octave up sound without buying another pedal attached to it like a fuzz. after i put it together i really like the compressor side of the pedal. i like using this with my sunface fuzz and my bbe tube screamer. I've been playing for about 4.5 years and have been building and wiring myown guitars so i figured this pedal kit would be great and it was. if i could change anything about it i would make the two effects independant with two footswitches. so i could turn either one on or off with a stom instead of turning the knob

Just a knob and two switches, so it's very simple. This is a compressor and a 'green ringer' ring-modulation-type effect in one pedal, so it does a lot for a pedal that is so small. The only possible drawback is that there aren't a lot of parameters that can be tweaked with one knob and two switches, but there's also an internal trim pot. If you want a compressor with a lot more tweakability, get the BYOC 5-Knob Compressor, it's great. This pedal will be flexible enough for some people, and not flexible enough for others.

I got this as my 4th pedal in a "Buy 3, Get One Free" deal. I leave it in the studio (it's not on my pedalboard, but the BYOC 5-Knob Compressor is) and mainly use it for the "Green Ringer" setting, which is sort of a cross between mild ring modulation and Octave-Fuzz shimmer. It can sound really growly and weird in lower registers (especially with chords) or really singing on high single notes, like an Octavia. Jeff Beck uses the green ringer on the "Wired" album, on "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and ... the first song on the album - the title escapes me. It's what I would consider to be a "specialty" effect, not something you would use on every song, but it's really cool when used in the right spot. This Clone of the old Dan Armstrong Green Ringer/Compressor is dead-on, it sounds perfect. You can use either effect by itself or both effects together!

I built it myself, which gives me tremendous confidence in it. The components are top-notch. I would definitely not hesitate to use it without a backup.

BYOC has a forum for tech support, mods, etc. They will help you if you get stuck. I suggest starting with an easy build like the Trem clone or the Fuzz Face clone.

I play rock. I have about 30 pedals. BYOC's are great - they're top-notch "Boutique" quality, but affordable. Some of their clones only take about an hour to build, others (Ping Pong Delay) take about 4 hours. If you have the time, I highly recommend building rather than buying pedals. You learn as you go, and you have the confidence of knowing it wasn't thrown together by someone who couldn't wait to go home, and didn't really care about what they were building. Pedals can be so expensive, and after buying the Trem clone and putting it together, I started re-thinking the whole thing, and now I've got 5 BYOC's. The Trem clone is now about 3 years old, and I've never had to turn a screw on it - I use it a LOT, it sounds great, and it works every time, so yes - it helps me make music. That's all I asked of it in the first place.