Hand-made in Australia, the Davey Design Electronics 1979/1990 is a high quality, cool-looking, uber-tweakable double overdrive blending a TS-style circuit with a Klon-style one. The two circuits have their own footswitch so that they can be activated separately or stacked on top of each other.
The order of the drives can be changed through the middle toggle.
The 1979 side features a recreation of the TS 808 circuit with two added 3-way toggles to control the amount of bass and a 2-way one for two clipping voices produced by the NJM4558D op-amp (symmetrical and asymmetrical). Needless to say, this half of the pedal produced the classic mid bump produced by Tubescreamer overdrives, although a Tone knob allows to tweak the signal’s EQ to some extent.
The 1990 side of the pedal is the Klon clone, which also features a Tone knob and two toggle switches for the amount of bass and clipping voices. An internal switch allows to turn on the buffer, which is off by default.
The Davey Design Electronics 1979/1990 can produce a variety of tones, you can hear some of them in this pretty darn awesome video by Ponderer Sounds
Davey Design Electronics 1979/1990, Builder’s Notes
Two versatile overdrives, with added tonal options & the ability to be stacked together for even more options.
1979 Side
Based on an “808” style overdrive, with an added three way switch to add varying amounts of extra bass, as well as a clipping switch to change from symmetrical clipping diodes to asymmetrical clipping diodes. Includes an NJM4558D op-amp.
1990 Side
Based on everyone’s favourite golden-coloured-mythical-creature “transparent” overdrive, with switches that add more bass & that change the clipping diodes. An internal switch allows the user to turn the buffer on or off (leave it on unless you have a really good reason to turn it off).
Order Switch
This is where the magic happens. Located in the middle of the pedal is the order switch, which lets you select to run the 1979 side into the 1990 side, or vice versa. Both sides make great boosts, so using one side as a clean boost to hit the other side even harder can create some lovely singing/warm/meaty/woody/insert-favourite-tone-buzzword-here overdrive. A lot of different combinations are possible, with everything from low gain to distortion available.
High quality components are used throughout, including lumberg jacks, solid aluminium knobs, and WIMA & Panasonic film capacitors. All op-amps are socketed to allow for experimentation.
