D*A*M Forum

The question is did the pedals sound different when they were brand new in the late 60s? I don't think any of us will argue that vintage gear in general tends to have a lot of "personality." Years do have an effect on things of an electrical nature and it isn't always calculate able. But yes I've played many a vintage guitar and pedal that tended to sound unique or different than a modern reproduction. Will modern pedals sound different in 40 years? Probably!
On another note: I think nowadays the idea most modern builders have is to make something that is reproducible, a consistent product, and hopefully the best possible sounding one! I'm not saying this wasn't the case back in the day but it seems there was much more of a "ok we have this box of components let's slap this thing together" kind of a vibe. Certainly this was true with a company like Electro Harmonix. And we all know the story of Jimi trying out 20 different fuzz faces to find the one he liked the best. All of that is going to contribute to the different-ness sounding of various vintage units vs modern replicas.

As stated before, it's really just the electrolytic caps you have to watch. Depending on what they're doing in the circuit, as the value drifts up, tone can become darker and muddier, aka "warm vintage mojo tone." Most of the 60s 22-25uf electro caps I've sourced now spec at 40-50uf. I would imagine the 25uf caps in many of our beloved vintage Benders would be somewhere around 40uf now, and the 50uf caps upwards of 70uf.

Pots drift up as they wear out. But that's more of a problem with guitar controls as they get a lot of use.

Page’s MKII had some of that fucked upedness. My Marshall Supa Fuzz has it in spades.

I had a ‘69 Supa that I originally bought from Proanalog. Scotty had “restored” it and eventually it became unusable. Sent it to Stu to really restore it and it was hands down the ANGRIEST motherfucker ever!! The only sale I’ve made that I still regret. He used the voltage measurements from his OG short board MKII. That thing was so angry and crusty. Oh God! Why the fuck did I sell that one!?

Never gotten the full fucked upedness from a new build. Steve/Pigdog’s stuff has been the closest. But still a bit more refined than my originals.

Stu’s Short board MK2 Which i owned was the most high gain replica I’ve played

From my small building experience, sometimes the more noisy units sound a bit better, just like with analog delays - when you get rid of 100% noise, the sound becomes dry and one dimensional. A tad of "noise" sometimes give an extra breath. But maybe I'm wrong, and it's just a matter of finding the right transistors And from customer point of view the noisy unit is bad unit...

My ‘69 Supa was generally very noisy. My ‘68 is noisy, but not unreasonabley so. The 2 Pigdogs I have, one is dead silent(long board replica of his weird MKII in a MKI.5 casing) and a short board which is a bit noisier than my ‘68. Both sound great. The long board is crunchy, soupy goodness, but doesn’t have a whole lot of that fucked up old vibe. The short board has a bit of it, but I could use a bit more. it tends to be as noisy as the ‘68. It’s all temperature dependent too. They both can get pretty unusable on really hot days.