DIRE British high gain drive/preamp

The Capitali$t Death Cult/Gay Clones DIRE - Distortion Is Really Exciting British High Gain drive/preamp

It's time for another CDCE collaboration - the artwork design of this pedal was thanks to the talents of Jenna Rose.

Back in the 90's, Marshall released a number of now out-of-production drive pedals that were in small, aesthetically lacking silver boxes that updated the highly-lauded Guv'nor, Drive Master and Shred Master line. The Guv'nor Plus was one of these that featured some (at the time) maligned features such as the "Deep" control that acted as a bass booster.

Since the schematic for the Guv'nor Plus has been floating around and freely available for many years, a lot of folks have added their own tweaks to the circuit in an attempt to make it a little more usable.

What I did to the stock Guv'nor Plus circuit:

1. implemented some of these mods to make the overall output louder, and to bring the deep control range into "usable on guitar territory". The "depth" knob - which is the modded deep control, now acts as a bass blend so that you can use this on guitar OR bass to get some hot-rodded JCM800 flavored grind.

2. Added a switchable, internal 555 timer based charge pump. This is a super low noise voltage doubler that jumps the internal operating volts up to 18v. This adds volume, headroom, and a little bit of treble clarity, especially at lower gain settings, so that you can run other gain pedals into it. As a result - you only need a 9 volt, negative center 2.1mm barrel Boss/One-Spot style adapter to power this unit - the toggle switches between 9 OR 18 volts.

3. Added a feedback-on-demand button that is quite similar to the one on the Caroline Wave Cannon. The function of this button is interactive with the gain control.

4. Used legit-sourced high quality Burr Brown OPA2134 op amps to allow for the lowest noise floor and greatest distinction between 9v and 18v power levels.

The pedal has the aforementioned depth control, as well as the well-known Marshall three band tone stack. A huge range of mid-scooped to mid-boosted tone, as well as tons of gain, is available and the whole thing is activated by a modified Demedash Incandenza relay switch.

The pedal is finished with blacked-out hardware and the enclosure was powdercoated and UV printed courtesy of Disaster Area Manufacturing.