Our friends at AmplifiedParts.com have just announced that they’re offering guitaristic buyers a new overdrive pedal kit: the ThunderDrive by MODTM Kits. It uses point to point wiring and you only need solder and a soldering iron to make it fully functional in a matter of hours.
Here’s what the official press release states:
The ThunderDrive is an overdrive pedal kit that provides a strong clean signal boost in the early gain settings and smooth distortion at maximum gain settings. Adjusting volume and gain controls provides a wide variety of tones in spite of its simple construction. It is capable of overdriving the preamp section of your guitar amp or adding its own layer of distortion at lower volume. The current draw of this pedal is very low at 1.3 milliamps, allowing for long battery life.
The ThunderDrive pedal will work on a 9V battery (not included in the package).
The pedal kit costs 29.95$ and can be purchased by clicking here.
MOD Kits propose an interesting way of mastering your tone: building your own guitar effect pedals at home:
MOD Kits are designed to give novice and experienced musicians the opportunity to build their own amps and effects pedals. All kits come with easy to follow instructions and use point-to-point wiring. A pre-drilled enclosure and all parts are included. All you need to provide are hand tools, a soldering iron and solder. The effect pedals operate on a 9V battery; for a longer lasting option, a 9-volt adapter can be purchased separately.
Have you ever tried building a guitar pedal at home? How do you like the idea?
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Tags: gear, guitar effects, guitar sound, homemade pedals, mod kits, overdrive pedals
Hello Neil, thanks for your comment! I’m really looking forward to trying this myself, after what I’ve read in the official press release it sounds fun to make as a project and ultimately fun to play. I haven’t been much of a pedalboard guy in the last few years, but I surely love to experiment and hand-made stuff is on my LIKE list forever. Maybe you could post some home recordings for us to hear your ThunderDrive pedal – and maybe the Persuader as well if you have the time? I’ll gladly post the audio clips in the article above. Happy Easter & rock on! Alec
This was a fun project that gives you a solid overdrive pedal for under $30. What more could you ask for? The instructions were, as always, very clear and concise. The end result is very tight in some places; I found myself having to mash the battery in at the end but everything does fit. This kit was much easier to build than the Persuader Tube Driver pedal and took much less time (about 2 hours total). The distortion is beefy and dynamic – with the tone knob you can go from acidy fuzz to real nice chunk. Apart from being a good distortion pedal you can also use it as a power booster to drive your amp into tube distortion (very cool) Also I experienced very low noise from this pedal, even at full volume. Thanks again MOD Kits DIY!