So, I got a friends several year old 4ms stereo panneur to try to fix... the thing was't working, so I gave it an overhaul. New box, some new components and such and threw i together.
Here's the finished pedal (well, I need to find some plastic LED holders).
So, playing around with it the last few nights my impressions are that this thing is amazing. Even with the parts I had lying around I got it sounding great. As straight forward trem its pretty solid, and it goes so much further... it has more knobs than you can shake a duck at, so theres hours of tweaking and almost an ovewhelming amount of possbile setups. Not quite the same quality a my empress but considering the price difference its pretty good. I could probably tweak it a little further to get the wave shapes a little more defined, and the pot values and tapers could maybe get an adjustment.
Then, the extra LFO controlling the rate adds a worthwhile dimension to it. From slowly making the rate warble a bit to really deep sweeps of the speed, it really helps to keep the pedal interesting to hear and to play into. A bit tougher to get rhythmic ways to incorporate into your playing, and probably not too usefull in a straightforward rock kinda band, its a tonne of fun.
I couldn't run it in stereo, but I can see a huge amount of potential with the two parallel channels, some different effects/EQ, and enough free time to twiddle knobs. The big test in stereo is tomorow night, but sadly we'll just have some guitars and drums. No bass.
Even just running the two channels in series made for some weird, but oddly useable settings. Definately easier to use on the guitar, but with some creativity its doable on the bass.
So, If you have some soldering skills and need a trem, give some thought to one of their kits (or even just PCB/Boxes). The basic circuit is a pretty easy and tidy build, even the stereo vesion.
