WEM Rush Pep Box

[redeyeflight]

Yep, the Jermanium PEP box is in the works!! I believe Jerms shared all of his research info with Mr. rush and his will be a quite limited run. It's such a great pedal it definatley deserves to be made again! And for my two cents on the whole cloning thing: it's not like anyone's getting uptight about people making their own MK II circuits even though Sola/DAM is still making the current reissue (that is, unless they are actually using the name "tonebender" in their clone).

[1bottlerocket]

Hey Ian,
I haven't fired it up yet. We have guests in town and then I am headed off to Korea shortly.

[Graham]

Well I have a few of these pedals including a very original grey wedge, two of the long red wem pepboxes and a project V - I don't want to stir things up but ALL of them use pair of either BC 107/108/109 transistors - I took them all apart this evening and logged all details for my book - I also have the small red wedge but apart from calling the effect/fuzz control PEP - it has three metal can trannies but any markings have been removed - I assume these are germanium - it has no visible pot codes but a paper label inside that says 13.66 could be serial no but more likely wk13 1966 which would fit in.

Pot code on grey wedge 11-4 and ~~ - 6 (month numeral soldered over but clearly 1966 - BC 107's - Very interesting pedal

Pot codes on the long red fuzzes as follow

LEFT ONE - Screen printed WEM with Rush Pep Box printed above - both pots 226 (wk22 1966 - pair of BC109's - battery hatch

RIGHT ONE -Applied (stuck on) WEM logo version no mention of Rush - but clearly same circuit - also same te as shown the advert I put up on my original thread which advertises the "Stop Press" of a new Bass version at 12.5guineas as opposed to the regular version priced at 12 gns - pots 10-5 & 11-5 pair of BC107's - Battery hatch

ADVERT

Project V has pot codes D_9 & J_9 so clearly no earlier than Oct '69 probably built a few months into '70 as pedal build (the catalogue shows it priced at 12 guineas - England embraced the decimal system on 15 Feb '71) so it cannot be later. Has no battery hatch 8 trannies (mainly BC108's but one or two BC186's .

Also have an earlier WEM Project IV guitar.. even mostly works now! This has a very strange transducer affair going on with seperate circuitry for each string BUT also appears to have most of the Project V pedal built in - i.e same named controls amongst the various other options. Never saw so much elecronics in a guitar and I have a few more with onboard effects - take a peek at what lurks under just one side of the scratchplate!!




I will put this and ensure that there are some shots on to the old thread as I get time

I expect the codes will get some folks attention, clearly the pep boxes are early silicon fuzzes. But I did already put everything apart from the trace side of the circuit boards up before and there are plenty of pics in the Data Dump threads

I appreciate that the Project (guitar & pedal) doesn't really belong here but I've been tidying my stuff up here at home and having worked through the lot thought it worth adding on - I am also confused by the use of Germaniums - maybe Jims pedal has them though I have it's history - when that one belonged to my friend James (who didn't have a clue what it was until I pointed it out - it was just a generic grey wedge missing its engraved "Trafalite" plate - perhaps it had Ge trannies installed - I will need to dig out his emails from a few years back.

Also will load & edit some pics of the grey wedge on my photobucket ac and load them in the thread as it is a very early pedal too maybe contemporary to the 2 tranny TB's - without removing the earth wire and cleaning off the solder on the pot (which I am not keen on!!) I cannot tell - also have far too little data to establish any reasonable relationship between pot build / pedal build - (time period - usage range).

G

[Electric Warrior]

Hope Jerms doesn't mind me bringing these over from his thread:











11-4 and 1-5 codes.

[mjkk]

We were lucky to have a Jerms Pep Box at the Midwest Fuzz Summit. It was quite a treat, iwas able to play it for a little bit and I think we did a clip of one of us playing. Great circuit

[Electric Warrior]

Can anybody put a date on this ad?

[capricorn_1]

here's a short clip of the old girl in action!

[Electric Warrior]

Nice! Interesting fuzz.. Great to finally hear the silicon version!

[psycho*daisies]

Wicked fuzz, ian!!
serious darkside stuff, there!!

It does sound a lot like Jerms' gray one.
(obviously) - As Graham wrote (i think it was he)
you can definitely hear the MkI in there!
(and, i might add - also the Maestro Fuzz Tone)
In fact, it almost sounds like with it's versatility, kind of like
an FZ-1 at one end (bees in a jar) and a fuller more open sound at the other (more FZ-1 like)
At least that is a rough recollection of the Jerms pedal...
This one, i have to watch the video again...and will.
Love it!! Thanks for sharing, ian.

[capricorn_1]

yes i agree it definitely has a FZ-1 tone to it, and has a bit of spluttery decay that you sometimes get on certain attack settings on a mk1.
I think for a Silicon fuzz its got a pretty warm sound as well, and it cleans up nicely with the guitar volume which isn't shown in the vid.