I made this model as a tribute to a lovely circa 1976 BMP I had in the shop recently. It had a certain tangy bite to it that reminded me of Gilmour a lot. It wasn't perfect, though, and really sounded a lot like early EVH too and was a tiny bit lacking in the gain department for a Big Muff. And it was designed with lower input impedance than I would prefer (47k resistor to ground). But definitely inspired me. It had potential. And just at the right time, since I had just run out of 2N5828 transistors that I was using in the first run of the Giant Meat Pie; time for a new inspiration and a new direction. I loved my original GMP graphic so much I decided to just put a "BC239 equipped" badge on the new version to avoid any confusion. Oh, and while I'm at it, let's put a new face it too.
So this Giant Meat Pie BC239 edition is made with all tropical fish signal-path capacitors (which, right off the bat are nicer than any BMP from the EH factory came equipped with AFAIK), except for the filter caps and the 2 caps in-line with the clipping diodes. These clipping-diode caps have been changed to 1uf as per rams head specs in order to thicken up its distortion voice, since BC239's tend to emphasize the high end.
All the resistors are 1/2 Watt carbon comp except metal films were selected for the power supply, LED, and those used at the input stage, where it is most prone to thermal noise.
The tone stack is my favorite mid-70's rams head version, the least scooped of all the BMP's I've seen that came from the EH factory.
While this is ostensibly a Gilmour-tone-targeted thing, it sounds great regardless of what you're playing with it. Has a nice bite and plenty of sustain at the same time--not too twangy, not at all mushy, but very smooth and slightly creamy. Noise is well under control. It's one of those musical-sounding fuzzes you'll just have fun with and won't find yourself limited by.
I'm planning to put hopefully a regular stream of these on eBay. As I've told a few people, the direct price is $325 at this point. I don't want to change that after people have paid it (nobody has bought one yet), so I may decide to change that soon before any direct transactions are made. But as for eBay, they will be 1-week no-reserve auctions starting at one dollar plus shipping.
I do not plan to put up a shopping cart for this one at this time, but I may do so after I get production rolling a little bit.
The quantities of this pedal will be mostly limited by my supply of tropical fish capacitors. I am planning on adapting the design to a small-box format using 1/4 Watt resistors and Cornell-Dubilier DME capacitors when the big-box version has to be retired. I estimate I can maybe build 30 big-box Giant Meat Pie BC239 editions, assuming I build out my entire stock of capacitors for this one model. I may end up getting bored with it and making a different model before that happens though.
If you are interested in buying, feel free to make (serious) suggestions regarding its price. I'll take all info into consideration before making my decision. Thanks for reading!
--Marc
