New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

XSSIVE

OCDologist
for a long time i've been using a Morley Tremonti wah which i still like yet i was also looking for the PERFECT classic or vintage sounding wah I guess you could call it. i thought about fulltone...something sits with me wrong about them so that was out real quick, but let's not get into that. I nearly modded a dunlop or vox but decided I didn’t want to go that route. I was two seconds away from buying a Teese picture wah since I had used one quite a while back and remembered liking it a lot. then it hit me after hours of reading reviews and listening to clips and talking to people and even the builders themselves...Area 51! i didn't read a single bad thing about them, all i read were great reviews and praise by the forum full of pedal junkies...aka the gear page. even though i think 1/2 of those guys are nuts over there with what they pay for certain pedals i have to give them credit, the majority of them know quality and good tone when it comes to pedals. so i decided to roll the dice and give Area 51 a shot. as you guys know i never do anything normal so off on a hunt i went for one of the limited edition hot pink dunlop wahs, that quickly got gutted for just the enclosure and in went the Area 51 drop in kit with buffer and DC jack kit.

grand slam out of the park home run KING OF THE WAHS!!

the thing nailed the tone i wanted which is to make it simple the PERFECT classic wah sound that everyone has stuck in their head. it does it all with the right amp settings. on a clean channel you can get some great funky sounds and some cool old school porn style stuff LOL...you know you all play that stuff just for fun, don't lie LOL. add some OD and it will sing the blues with NO problem and talk back with a great vocal like sound. Hendrix style?? Ha, not even a challenge for this thing. now into my normal area...high gain, it KILLS, very articulate, never mushy or flabby or jumbled sounding for lack of a better term on the bottom (toe up) like some wahs can get and never overly harsh but man can you get pinch harmonics to scream with your toe down!! the wah really talks, very vocal like sound which is just what I wanted. It’s just a well rounded jack of all trades wah that seems to be able to do everything I ask it to do all with it’s one perfectly tuned voice. That’s what amazes me, there’s no extra knobs, no Q control or anything like that yet Dan at Area 51 has found the perfect voice that seems to fit every style very well and there’s no need for all those extra knobs to get a good wah tone, just plug and play.

this is a top shelf A+++++ wah and Dan at Area 51 was great to deal with, the man knows a good wah that's for damn sure!!

So I give you the worlds only neon pink Area 51 wah….
areawah.jpg

(Dan said it’s cool for me to post gut shots if anyone wants to see them just let me know)


here are some new board pics with most of my pedals...
board2.jpg


board3.jpg


You can see, that wah goes great with the leopard print and the Monroe drive LOL.

And no, I still can’t post clips of my rig…sorry, one day I’ll get a recording setup though!!

-Mike
 
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Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

That is Sooo CUTE!!! hahaha

Everytime I see your Marilyn Monroe OD, it makes me wish I could buy one!
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

That is Sooo CUTE!!! hahaha

Everytime I see your Marilyn Monroe OD, it makes me wish I could buy one!

LOL ok, cute wasn't what i was going for but i'll take that lol.

my wah is cuter than yours LOL. :9:

it was just another silly thing to go along with a leopard board while it sits next to a Marilyn Monroe pedal lol. anything to stick out from the rest man!


as for the Monroe Drive...who said you can't buy one??

-Mike
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

I don't care what are in those tiny 1950B pedals. They just look cute as hell and I want them. All. I want a full board of 1950B enclosures :D
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

I love the pink, its unique and jazzy. Makes me think of a jazz flute solo for some reason. Can you trill with it?
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

I don't care what are in those tiny 1950B pedals. They just look cute as hell and I want them. All. I want a full board of 1950B enclosures :D

pssst, i got a secret...they're 1290s lol.

what are they...here's the rundown of all the pedals that aren't obvious

-red sideways "zvex style" - primal scream, a modded screamer
-purple - "RAT Fink" modded rat clone
-white with red iron cross - "Moon Drive" HIGHLY modded Distortion+
-lime green "RF" - 100% vintage 808 clone
-yellow - real 1979 Distortion + Spina modded!
-Monroe Drive - it's an overdrive, that's all you need to know LOL.
-pea green and yellow - "Vicious overdrive" - a close copy to a grey DOD 250 OD.
-bullseye - script phaser clone
-black with pink stripe "hot rod" - AD-80 delay clone

-Mike
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

I hope the modded screamer is modded to NOT sound like a screamer :laugh2:

That's nice man... my pedal er... board (i.e the flat's ground) has only based gain effects except a wah and a phaser. Oh and a compressor. Set up to add boost and gain though :D
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

Looks great. :bigok: So the Area 51 is a drop in board for crybaby style cases? Similar to a BYOC but already built?
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

pierre...well the 808 is 100% original 808 style so of course that sounds like a screamer LOL. the primal scream has a mid hump toggle and a modded clipping section along with a different IC...simple mods. the screamer is one of the best ODs to work of IMO thus why so many people build off it. if you don't like the mid hump, 1 cap will fix that. if you need more gain a pot change or some resistor changes or a clipping stage change can fix that. want more marshall style crunch, no problem...mess with the clipping etc etc etc lets not even get into IC changes...yet even more options. there are loads of things you can do to make it sound nothing like a regular stock screamer. you can pretty much get a screamer to do anything you want if you know what to mess with and pick the right parts to use. thus why there is a ~$400 overdrive out there that's pretty much a screamer with a few twists yet people drool all over it due to the choice mods to make it sound less screamer and more "booteek" LOL. truth be told, my Monroe Drive is based off that high dollar OD. mine just uses better parts :D The Monroe Drive 2.0 will have 2 toggles for multiple tones from it (still waiting on parts to start building them) :D

PF...check out the Area 51 site... http://www.area51tubeaudiodesigns.com/index.htm they do more than wahs and offer fully built wahs, drop in kits for any enclosure or just circuit boards and other stuff.

krank...i'll get gut pics for you tomorrow.

-Mike
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

That pedal looks sweet. Every time I look at your pedal board I get more and more interested in building my own pedals. Is there a specific site you use to get schematics or do you build these all by yourself and create the yourself? Also what place would you recomend I buy my parts needed off of? I assume Ill need to get them off the internet. Im lookin at a distortion or mxr phase 90-ish type pedal for my first project.
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

www.buildyourownclone.com
i use the byoc circuit boards as much as possible since they're high quality VERY well laid out boards. much better quality boards than most DIY sites sell, or that you could make yourself...heck they are better quality that most production pedals boards and some boutique pedals even. i just use all my own parts with them. also lots of good info on the forum there!

www.smallbearelec.com
great parts source

www.pedalpartsplus.com
more parts and custom powdercoated enclosures (great quality) and the lowest price on 3PDT switches i've found

www.mouser.com
where i get most of my caps and resistors

www.tubesandmore.com
yet even more parts

www.ebay.com
oddball parts, NOS parts, vintage parts etc

www.diystompboxes.com
LOADS of schematics and great info!

http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/TStech/tsxtech.htm
if you want to learn about the tube screamer and how it works and what does what.


once you start to build pedals you'll realize how crappy the parts are in the pedals you currently use and you'll want to build everything you can using only the best parts along with mods to classic pedals to make them fit your needs better. that's what i did.

-Mike
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

once you start to build pedals you'll realize how crappy the parts are in the pedals you currently use and you'll want to build everything you can using only the best parts along with mods to classic pedals to make them fit your needs better. that's what i did.

-Mike

I'm about to plunge into the whole DIY thing soon and your work there is pretty inspiring :). With about $40-50 worth of parts and some old-fashioned hard work, you can create booteek grade boxes with NO cost cutting anywhere. And you also end up gaining something from all those hours spent on the Net discussing effects.
 
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Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

That one looks exremely extreme pink... :laugh2: it looks amazing, really cool with the puma board and the monroe drive :D
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

Nice, now I'm going to have to research it, I'm always looking for really good wahs.
 
Re: New pedals ROCK!!! Area 51

yeah a black wah on my leopard board surrounded by all my other custom painted pedals just wouldn't have been as cool as neon pink lol.

this thing ROCKS!!!

-Mike
 
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