HomeBrew Electronics Arizona Big D

There are so many places to go with the diode switch. The changes are very defined, so it can take some time to find what works with your gear. Pretty intuitive, so it???s easy to find your place

You can go from round vintage sounding distortion, to less round, grind and growl to just over the top blues saturation. The diode pot offers a ton of options. I was hoping the boost would do more, like my FDII, but that???s really not an issue. I also use it in my acoustic duo where I just turn down the gain and it provides a nice full 3D lead tone with my Martin.

I???ve owned several high end distortion pedals like the Menatone KOB and Demeter Fuzz, but this baby may be the best I???ve found. I was using it with my FDII, but I use it more for smaller, grab and go gigs where I don???t bring my board. All I need for those aps is a tuner and the Big D and I can cover lots of ground.

I had the unit for about a year and a half and it died on me. I emailed Joel and he was horrified because they have such a low failure rate. He had one shipped out as soon as mine was received. Here???s the crazy part and a demonstration of the best customer service I???ve ever received from a gear builder. The replacement came and had some issues. Again Joes was beside himself and very embarrassed. He said he???s out of T-shirts and because of my troubled offered to send me any pedal they make. Huh? Out of T-shirts so you can have a $230 pedal. Unreal. I???m waiting for the chorus to arrive now.

Evn with that mishap, the pedal is built like a tank. I???m sure my issues are very rare

see above. I have never experienced such sincere and over the top customer service. Joel was very prompt with his email replies

I???m very happy with this purchase. I did try their wah and didn???t like it, but the Big D is in a class by itself. I have quality amps (THD, Vox, Rivera, Carvin)
and guitars (Hamer, Lag, G&L, Carvin) and the effect even though it???s a distortion pedal doesn???t over color my tone. Even in high gain settings, string articulation and clarity is still there. I never give 10???s in this category, so they get a 9

There are a lot of controls on this orange device, so you can spend a lot of time tweaking it up for the right souns. There are no hidden buttons, so it's easy to use the controls. Only changing the 9V battery was difficult the first time. The screws were verry tight, so I had to drill 2 of them out.

I use a small fender solid state 25 watter with a strat and a tele. I was searching for a more organic overdrive then the one with the amp. The Big D is perfect for solid state amps. When I was searching for an overdrive/distortion booster I also came a long a TS-808. It was lovely, but the thing needs valves to sound right. The Big D sounded more full with a solid state. It has a lot of buttons and a five way diode switch, so you will have a lot of sounds carrying with you while having the orange beast.

With the boost switch on, more gain is added. I'm not a die-hard fan of high gain settings, so I don't use it a lot with position five of the diode. Not tweaked it yet, but it's realy HIGH-gain, with high tones.

It has no mind of it's own, so reliable.
Not used in a live situation yet. Just keep an eye on the battery use... don't let the cable in the input.

I hope verry good, but it's a little company, and I bought it in europe.

It's verry nice if you want to have some fun experimenting with some verry good sounding overdrive and distortions. Good for all kinds of rock.

Good variety of tones, some of which greatly affect the level. Not your basic stompbox which makes it great to use in front of a computer while recording. Great design, unique color - you're not gonna miss this one on stage!

Used with a 70's tele, a Chinese LP knockoff, and a custom shop strat into a 70's MusicMan 2X10. Able to get a wide variety of tones down on tape (heh, I mean on byte) with that setup. I also used it in front of a focusrite ISA430 preamp directly into the computer with Amplitube as a plug in for a quickie demo and it sounded great. Not super high gain, but clear tracks that stacked well.

Well, here's where I ran into a prob. The first thing that I wanted to do with it was change the battery. If you take apart a lot of boutique gtr pedals you'll notice that manufacturers like to cover their circuit boards with goop so that no-one will be able to copy their designs. I don't blame them, it's their intellectual property and hard work so they should protect it. Problem with this particular HBE was that the goop was so thick that a chip got stuck on the back of the case and lifted out of it's socket when I went to change the battery. I didn't notice it and put the case back on and bent the pins. Not bad enough to break them off, but it took me a second to figure it out. Bad QC.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to give the [b]HomeBrew Electronics (HBE) BIG D[/b] overdrive/distortion pedal a workout for a couple of hours, and took some notes. Here are my initial impressions of the pedal. I will be testing it further today, and will have some sound clips up this week. I?m still trying to decide how to organize the clips since the pedal is so complex.

i:Quick background[/i]: I purchased the pedal at 30th St Guitars in NYC for approx. $250. All testing was done with a BKP Miracle Man bridge pickup and BKP Irish Tour neck pickup in an all-maple guitar. Amplifiers used was a 1985 Marshall JCM800. Cabinets used were a Carvin 1x12, Marshall 1922 2x12, and a slant Rivera 4x12. Didn't use my Rivera Knucklehead, altho I tried ... the Rivera, even with 2 tubes pulled out and runing at 55W, is SUPER LOUD.

b:THE OUTSIDE[/b]
The pedal itself is approx. 4.5? W, 3.5? D, and 2.0? H. The chasis is made of cast steel, and is very rugged. Some of the components are actually riveted to the chasis! The right side of the pedal has the input and 9v DC jacks. The left side of the pedal contains the output jack. Both the input and output jacks are locking Swtichcraft ?? jacks. The pedal rests on four rubber feet, very well attached, but not so special that it would be hard to replace them. The paintjob on the pedal is [i]amazing[/i]!! It has so many coats of day-glo orange paint that the pedal appears to be made of plastic. There is also a metal flake in the paint to give the pedal a ?sparkly? look.

img:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/TwilightOdyssey/HBE1.jpg[/img]

The bottom panel is held in place by four nickel machine screws. I was a little disappointed to open the chasis and see an Eveready battery inside. (Pedal was brand new, so this must be the battery chosen by HBE; I prefer Duracel batteries, but I also like the ?Golden Power? batteries that Fulltone stocks in their pedals as well.) I will be doing all further testing with a Duracel 9v battery.

img:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/TwilightOdyssey/HBE2.jpg[/img]

Inside the pedal you can see the diode select switch, which is hardwired to the actual diodes, but covered in grey gook, covering the ?secret? components.

img:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/TwilightOdyssey/HBE3.jpg[/img]

img:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/TwilightOdyssey/HBE4.jpg[/img]

There are 4 knobs across the top of the pedal: Gain, Tone, Level, and Bigger. None of these knobs are indented at their ?neutral? position, and I don?t know what it is, but I will be calling HBE tomorrow to find out. All of the knobs are on extra long shafted pots, and the tapers are incredibly smooth. I would definitely use this pedal on a pedal board, not just sitting on the stage floor where an errant cable or accidental kick can move the knobs.

The middle of the pedal contains the clip select switch, which allows you to set the threshold for the gain slipping. When [b]H[/b]ard is selected, the gain circuit has less headroom and clips sooner. When [b]S[/b]oft is selected, the gain circuit has more headroom and takes more to clip. Generally speaking, the H setting worked well with the single coil pickup but was a bit too solid state sounding with the humbucker. The S setting worked a treat with the humbucker, and retained a glassy, vintage breakup sound for the single coil. For high gain single coil work, I would use the H setting, tho.

There are also two indicator lights in the middle of the pickup, one RED (for ON/OFF) and the other YELLOW (when the Bigger function is activated).

b:SONICS AND TESTING[/b]
Okay, how does the pedal sound? It?s GREAT!! Is it better than the Fulltone Full-Drive 2? For my taste, yes, it is. One of the settings is comparable to the FD2, but it?s definitely not identical. The HBE is much more open and transparent sounding, much higher gain, and much louder. It?s not as soft sounding as the FD2, nor does it sound so tube like.

I dialed in a tone on the JCM800 to the point where there was the barest amount of tube breakup. (Gain on 5, Boost Volume on 2.5, Master Volume on 3) With the HBE on, but with and the Level set just above unity gain (slightly louder with the pedal on), the amp was already driven right into a singing, vintage overdrive!! When the gain is turned up, the tone goes into beautifully saturated distortion, very high in harmonic content. I was able to get pinch harmonics with no problem, yet could still hear every note in a chord.

Initially, I thought that the pedal sounded very ?transistory? ? you could hear the pedal?s effect over that of the amp. When I switched to the 2x12, though, this went away and the tone [i]really[/i] opened up!! Switching to the 4x12, the tone opened up even more, and I could hear that more gain would be needed to get all 4 drivers to sound properly distorted.

I systematically went through all 5 of the diode settings, both with hard and soft clipping. The setting I like the most right now is #3, Soft clipping, with the Gain, Tone, and Level at 12:00.

When I switched on the ?Bigger? effect, I could see why this is not called a boost. It is another gain stage. When turned up too high, I was getting feedback. At a lower setting, it filled out the tone nicely, but I really didn?t have time to do any critical listening with Bigger being on and off. I hope to get that done tonight.

My conclusion to the first round of testing is ? this pedal can do it all, from mild boosting of the input of your tube amp all the way to power metal tones. I was surprised at how modern of a power metal tone I was getting from the JCM800 ? a very hot rodded tone I associate with bands like Silent Force, Helloween, Firewind, Hammerfall, etc.

This pedal is real easy to get a good sound out of, because there isn't a bad sound in it in the first place!

At first, it seems a little complicated for a distortion box, what with five knobs, two stomp switches and a mini toggle, but just about everything in it makes perfect sense. The Tone knob is the tricky part, as it's backwards like everybody else says. Clockwise increases bass, etc.

I am using the Big D to replace a Fulltone Distortion Pro. The DP has eight knobs for adjusting, including two on the inside, and after three years I never really got a satisfying sound from that pedal. The HomeBrew Big D, on the other hand, sounds great no matter where the knobs are.

The biggest editing is done by way of the Big D's 5-way diode select knob, which the included instructions describes accurately. My favorite setting is straight up (third position) which the manual says is high gain with boosted bass. It's the sound I've been looking for!

I'm using the Big D with a Mesa Nomad 100, which I usually keep on the Orange channel (moderate gain) for rock playing. The Big D pushes the Nomad into JCM territory, with lots of crunch and tight bottom end. Think of Wolf Hoffmann from Accept, or Metallica on "Kill 'Em All" and you're getting the idea. The gain eases up nicely when you roll back the guitar volume too.

The 5-way diode selection presents a good variety of tones, from TS9 flavors up to fuzzes. There's no end to the combinations when you adjust the Gain and Level knobs with the diode choices. Each setting is useful, but I have my favorites.

Another unusual feature is the Hard/Soft Clipping switch. Hard is actually less distortion; I prefer Soft.

I really don't hear a big difference with the Bigger switch though. Bigger is supposed to give you more volume, but I can't hear enough for it to matter. It's not like it gives you a big jump for leads or anything like that, at least not with the amp I'm using. If Bigger did more, I would rate this pedal a 10. As it is, it's damn close anyway.

My favorite setting has all knobs pointing 12:00, except for Tone which is more like 11:00 for more highs. Depending on the song, I'll increase the Gain knob a little bit too. Soft clip setting.

I've only had the Big D a short time, but it's my third HomeBrew pedal and I've never had an issue with the other two (Germania and U.F.O.). Joel Weaver and crew build them right. I have confidence.

Every e-mail question I've ever sent to HBE was answered promptly and professionally. I've not had to seek support on the Big D.

The Big D is a sleeper - I never heard of anybody using one, nor could I try one anywhere first. I took a chance and ordered one for myself, figuring that I could return it within a week if unsatisfied. No way, it's a KEEPER! This is the first time that I've been completely happy with a distortion box into a dirty amp (the only way I want to use it) and nothing else I've tried lately comes close.

Well, the tone is backwards so I tried to get a big bottom sound at first and was shocked by the crispy tone that came out. BUT, duh, when I turned the knob the other way, I was much relieved. Next, you set the diode to the center position to get a punchy deep tone. I set the clip to heavy and let it drive my amp. The amp is set to that edge where it distorts more as I pick harder, so I keep the level on the Big D at about 9 o' clock. This thing can be really LOUD!! Let me just say that I love this pedal. It has many different sounds to go along with its many different buttons, and they are all good if you use the right ones with your variouse amps and guitars. I use a strat, hence, the heavy bottom settings.

I used to use a lot of pedals on my board to give me the kind of versatile, multi-staged OD/distortion I need. Now I use just two. And since I am not a pro, I'll tell you lucky bastards what they are. The Keely modded "TS-9 reissue", into the Big D. Let me tell you brothers and sisters that Jimi himself would ask to try out my ax if he were walking past my house one evening. First it sustains, then it sings, then it screams with overtones. And, you can get the original note back whenever you feel like it. Well I can anyway.
The unit is not noisy. The level goes wwaaayyyyyy up. You can drive your pre-amp tubes hard with it. You can destroy your hearing with it! You cannot get a clean sound out of this thing. It adds distortion even with the drive all the way down. But hey, if you want clean then turn it off silly! IT is "true by-pass" after all, which is part of the reason why you have to pay two and a half bills for it.

As if you care...I play a humbucking American Strat(rosewood,) Budda Wha + (the plus is a clean boost,) Keely TS-9 (OD/lead boost,) Big- D (Godzilla Chords and Lead Tones,) Carl Martin stereo chorus, Line 6 Delay Modeler ~~~~~~ 50-watt Hiwatt (1X12 Combo).
This is the last distortion pedal I will ever buy. Period. . Because I am broke after shelling out the two fifty for this one :-)

Very solid, Point to point hand wired.

Dunno!

I play all styles. Been playing for over 20 years. I own all kinds o' stuff. Don't need it any more. I love the way it sounds. My search is over. Now I gat get down to my sucky playing and know, at least, that the guitar sounds terrific even if I can't play worth a damn.

Everything is pretty basic. It took a little time deciding which diode setting I liked. Other than than that, I was able to get a good sound in no time at all.

This thing sounds great and is very versatile. I use a '79 Peavey T-60 or '97 deluxe strat(lace sensors) into a modded Vox wah,Big D, and then to a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I love the sound it gives me w/the T-60, fat and rich. I don't like it as much w/the my strat. It sounds a little to thin but I guess all strats probably would. I also like the bigger switch. In addition to boosting your signal, it adds a different feel.

No problems. It looks and feels strong. I haven't used it outside of my house except for band practice so it hasn't been abused anyway.

I've never had to call them but I've heard they are very friendly and helpful.

This is a great pedal. It provides a wide range of sounds suitable for just about any style. If it were lost/stolen, I would probably get another one. I wish it would sound a little better w/my strat but other than that, awesome pedal.

Very easy to use after spending about 15 minutes with it. Very intuitive with simple and clear instructions included. No problems here.

Guitars = PRS + Zion Tele + Hamer Chaparal (USA)
AMPs = DrZ Maz 18 + Budda SD 80 + Budda SD 18 + Boogies Mk I, II and III.
I use the Big D in conjunction with the Homebrew Power Screamer (also excellent), Visual Sound H2O, Keeley compresser, Keeley Metal Zone, Electro-Harm reverb and Budda Wah.

This is a very versatile unit. It can go from a mild overdrive that kicks (the boogie MkI for instance) into a nice, clean sustaining articulate pick sensitive attack or can be dialed in to shred any clean amp as needed!!!
Great for most styles, you just have to tweak a little. The "BIGGER" button is a nice addition and really adds dimension to the sound.

Built just like my Power Screamer....TOUGH... I did have a slight problem with my Power Screamer earlier this year and Joel took it and had it back to me in a little over 1 week. VERY NICE GUY AND GREAT SERVICE= I'll be back....

See previous.....

I have tried this pedal with many other pedals, amps and guitars as stated above and this pedal performs very very well in my opinion. Although it is a little expensive, I have to recomend it as a versatile distortion/ overdrive style pedal that can easily be dialed in to suit just about any style. I would definitely replace this pedal if lost......but that just won't happen!!!!

In principio il pedale sembra un po complesso, pero leggendo attentamente le istruizoni si riesce gia a comprendere tutti i settaggi ottimali, per il resto e un gioco da ragazzi.

IO suono principalmente Funk e Blues, ho un setup minimo perche credo che troppi effetti non servano alla fin fine: Chitarre Fender strato USA e Les Paul Gibson USA, volume ernie ball 6166, Wah dunlop cry baby, Big D, Booster, Phase 90 mxr BLock logo, Delay digitale, ampli vari (fender, peavey).
Il pedale non e rumoroso e suona bene accoppiato con ogni altro pedale che ho.
Il suono dipende molto dal settaggio del controllo diode selection e varia da un leggero overdrive controllato (un po piu corposo del solito ts-808) fino ad un distortion rotondo e grosso (pos.4), ed infine ad un fuzz Hendrixiano in pos .5
Le posi. intermedie si differenziano principalmente dalle precedenti per un leggero aumento di volume e del gain, in pos .4 anche delle frequenze basse.
Il mio settaggio preferito e il 4. con la Les Paul per un suono alla Jet (Rolling Stones).

Nel complesso il ped e abbastanza chiaro di tono, non troppo cupo quindi, e sicuramente consigliato a chi suona con ampli non troppo squillanti e con chitarre tipo Les Paul. Io lo uso con la fender e mi piace lo stesso molto!
Ottimo anche il boost bigger, con il controllo del volume che aggiunge armoniche e volume per assoli chiari e "filtranti".

Il ped e ben costruito, perfettamente true bypass con all'interno due switch 9 poli dpdt, unica piccola pecca la verniciatura a mano molto fragile alle pressioni.

Non ho ancora contattato il produttore, ma penso che non ci siano problemi a mandargli una e-mail per spiegazioni!

Questo per me e l'overdrive definitivo perche e superiore a quelli che si trovano in commercio, e soprattutto e molto versatile, e di facile abbinamento con chitarre anche molto diverse. Ho gia acquistato in passato altri pedali della H.B.E. e sono rimasto molto contento, quindi li consiglio a tutti. Buona suonata!

At first it seemed things didn't work properly. Then I realized it was just my settings. Didn't hear much difference in the diode selections until I raised the gain. Then, voila. Easy to get a good sound=10. Have to remember what does what=8 Overall=9

This pedal can be very loud, but quiet. The tone control seems geared more toward humbuckers. Sounded great with my 345 Gibson. Texas special strat: not much bass, bridge p/u a little bright. But allows the neck p/u to cut through the mix.
Transparent: a Paul Cochran TIM the enhancer boost/overdrive is the ultimate in letting natural sound of the guitar through=10.
Coloration: Something like a Vox Tonebender--sounds the same no matter what guitar used. Transparency=0.
BIG D: Transparency:7.5. The coloration, however, is very musical. I find myself using the BIG D a lot.
Some of the more distorted or higher gain settings I find a little unpleasant. Sometimes there seems to be some added clipping, some electronic noise,somewhat like overloading a digital input.
Overall, listening back to recordings I've used it on, it sounds great. A few nit-pics, but nothing is perfect.

Built like a Hummer. Don't foresee any problems. No backup needed.

The best!

BIG D is very musical. Between it, the TIM, and a Texas Two-step, I've got my overdrive covered. If lost or stolen, I would miss it and probably get another. It's fun to tweak in the bedroom, but I generally leave it on one setting playing live. The BIGGER switch is very useful. My three overdrives all have boost switches--GREAT FEATURE. Play mostly blues and jazz. I have distortion boxes but don't use them much. If I want something different, I do have a Fuzz Factory and other noise makers. Musical tastes run from Scofield to Jimi. (Scofield just uses a crappy RAT--damn him. Just goes to show it's all in the fingers!!!!!!!)