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3Leaf Audio Club - Episode 2

#5,281
Eric Cioe said:
Tonally, wasn't it pretty close to some of the Darkglass stuff?
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I owned the Vulcan, the Vintage Microtubes and demoed the B3K all at the same time. The Vulcan felt like a more usable midpoint between the other two. Perhaps less distinct but more versatile. I greatly preferred the Vulcan to the other two which were the big Darkglass pedals of their day. It was similar and may have started life as a DG circuit but it felt modified sufficiently to sound like it’s own thing when I compared them.
 
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#5,283
labeledbass said:
I think it was intentionally not, it was spencer's own design, just happened to have cases left over from the DG/Pike "thing"
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There were some guts shots comparing the two that, along with my real world comparison, left me feeling that it was a mod rather than a new circuit design. Regardless, the end result was sufficiently different to have a strong preference for the Vulcan over the other two. Eventually I moved away from that general flavor of distortion but I happily gigged the Vulcan for quite a while.
 
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#5,284
silky smoove said:
There were some guts shots comparing the two that, along with my real world comparison, left me feeling that it was a mod rather than a new circuit design. Regardless, the end result was sufficiently different to have a strong preference for the Vulcan over the other two. Eventually I moved away from that general flavor of distortion but I happily gigged the Vulcan for quite a while.
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there was two correct? like a deluxe version? I just based my last comment on his interview talking about the pike products, which really were only that, modules even had a different label - Spencer Doren of Pike Amplification on Vimeo
 
#5,285
labeledbass said:
there was two correct? like a deluxe version? I just based my last comment on his interview talking about the pike products, which really were only that, modules even had a different label - Spencer Doren of Pike Amplification on Vimeo
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Yeah, the regular and XL versions. I never tried the XL but saw similar comparison guts shots. I suspect the real world comparison would have been similar but can only speculate on that having never done it myself.
 
#5,286
This was an explanation back when he got some flack, explains a little on the vulcan

"As to why the pedals look similar to the old USA-made DG pedals: Doug and I had a partnership and I designed those pedals. He came to me with the schematic for the audio section of the circuits, and I designed the bypass switching and did the physical designs. I also fronted the money for every production run and managed the entire production myself. I don't think most people realize how collaborative that partnership was...I wasn't just a hired gun if that was the impression that was given off. I won't get into the ending of that partnership other than to say that Darkglass stuck me with a few hundred enclosures that were already drilled for those pedals. I couldn't afford to just throw those away since I had already paid for them, so I had to come up with a design that would work in that box. I was originally thinking of making it a limited run just to get rid of the few hundred enclosures I had, but then Darkglass changed the look of their pedals to the point that my aesthetic design was no longer there, and it was a design I was really proud of so I wanted to 'reclaim' it so to speak. I obsess over the look and feel of the products I design and I didn't want to see my work die out with the end of that partnership.

Regarding the circuit: I wouldn't have done any of this if I were just going to copy Darkglass. I don't think it's fair to my customers to release a product that doesn't bring anything new to the table. The Vulcan circuit is inspired by my knowledge of the Darkglass circuits but taken in a direction that I think makes them appealing in a totally different way. I worked with those circuits for years so I learned what makes them sound good, but I also found lots of ways to change it to make it work more to my taste. The big difference with the Vulcan circuit is that it's actually two entire overdrive circuits in parallel that get blended together to form the complete sound. It's a very complex circuit design...the Vulcan circuit has 117 components and the XL has 173. In practice it sounds a lot different than a B3K or something like that, so I hope you guys get the chance to try one for yourself before just assuming that it's a ripoff since it has a similar look. I've spent most of the last year fine-tuning and obsessing over every detail of these pedals and I'm really excited about the results."
 
#5,287
I remember his statement. It never quite lined up with the comparison of photos between the Vulcan and the DG pedals at the time but I’m not a circuit designer so can only go by visual comparisons. Ultimately I had all three in a room at the same time and only kept the Vulcan. Regardless of the origin being an original circuit or a modified circuit and any of the ethics that were hotly debated at the time, the only one I kept was the Vulcan. Ultimately I sold it down the road but it was a fine pedal.
 
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#5,288
silky smoove said:
I remember his statement. It never quite lined up with the comparison of photos between the Vulcan and the DG pedals at the time but I’m not a circuit designer so can only go by visual comparisons. Ultimately I had all three in a room at the same time and only kept the Vulcan. Regardless of the origin being an original circuit or a modified circuit and any of the ethics that were hotly debated at the time, the only one I kept was the Vulcan. Ultimately I sold it down the road but it was a fine pedal.
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still have one on my board at the rehearsal spot :) Great on the right tune. I also dig it more than b3k or vmt, but those are good as well for what they do. I think Vulcan can do subtle better, but then also cover the more aggressive tones too. Like vmt better than b3k.
 
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#5,290
I was chatting with Spencer a couple years ago and he hinted at a 3Leaf overdrive pedal. I was very excited as I line up closely with his tone sensibilities quite often and would love to see what his take on an overdrive circuit for 3Leaf would sound like. Hopefully that project still comes together at some point.
 
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#5,291
silky smoove said:
I was chatting with Spencer a couple years ago and he hinted at a 3Leaf overdrive pedal. I was very excited as I line up closely with his tone sensibilities quite often and would love to see what his take on an overdrive circuit for 3Leaf would sound like. Hopefully that project still comes together at some point.
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We need that PWNZOR back too
 
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#5,292
I do utility work for a living, and a few weeks ago I saw a pedal for sale on reverb. I was curious because the pedal company name was the same as a large and well known electrical utility company, but I knew nothing about the pedal, so I didnt saved it or paid attention.
The pedal name was pike. I dont know how many models they made or what it was, but Im sure I seen something from pike a few weeks ago.
Im posting a pic of the utility company logo, that's why Im sure the pedal I saw was a pike, because both companies had the same name.
pike-energy-solutions.jpg
 
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