sprucebringsteen's Activity

Hang on while I fix you a tall one..... Okay, so there are a lot of overdrives in the world, and as you know I am certainly accountable for some of them, but the Hi-Ball is simply the overdrive to end all other overdrives. Originally designed for Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem as the ultimate performance overdrive, this one ended up being so good that I decided it would be the last Frantone overdrive I would ever offer in my product line, and as such it is the last overdrive that you will ever need.

What makes the Hi-Ball so special is that it is essentially three overdrives in one. The Diode control allows you to dial in different diode sets which determines exactly how the pedal clips and sustains. Choosing Si gives a very traditional and familiar overdrive sound using silicon diodes, heavy and biting, with a lot of grind. Selecting Ge offers the soft warm clipping of germanium diodes for a completely different experience in overdrive distortion. The LED setting is my own personal tone in which I use gallium arsenide phosphide light emitting diodes for a clean, transparent, and very loud overdrive with only the slightest clipping when you play really hard. Suffice to say that the Hi-Ball covers all the bases, and with this unique selectable diode feature it is by far the most versatile overdrive pedal anywhere.

The tone contour of the Hi-Ball allows for warm to bright settings with an emphasis on clarity and crispness. Finally, the Hi-Ball is powered by a set of ultra low noise rail-to-rail op amps, making this the quietest, clearest, and loudest 9 volt powered overdrive I have ever made.

Is the Hi-Ball the best overdrive in the world? You be the judge!

All new Frantone effects come with full signal bypass and status light!

Each Hi-Ball Overdrive is hand-made in the USA by Frantone and features:

Tough cast aluminum case Seafoam Green Enamel finish True bypass switching Green indicator LED Steel LED bezel Switchcraft jacks White knobs Hard mounted PCB External power jack Really cute clear feet

Leo is a low to medium gain overdrive with a pre boost that takes it into fuzz territory at the kick of a footswitch.

It covers a huge amount of tonal ground. From high headroom clean tones a'la Grant Green to Joe Walsh's smooth old school leads and with the boost section maxed you can hit Neil Young's exploding 5E3 on Hey, Hey, My, My. Choose voicings for 5w champ, 12w Deluxe or 40w Twin

VOLUME - Master volume, controls overall output volume, also adds some extra saturation in the last 1/4 turn

GAIN - The gain control is very interactive with the toggle switches, some settings may cause the gain to get brighter as it is increased just like some old tweed amps.

HI/LO - This switch mimics the difference between the highZ and lowZ inputs on many old Tweed amps.

B/N - Mimics the bright and Normal channels at some setting this control will seem like it doesnt do much - at other settings the difference is very noticable.

5w / 40w / 12w - This is the fun switch! basically this selects the voicing of a 5w Champ = quietest - very little headroom and little bass. 40w Twin = loudest with most headroom and bass, amazing edge of breakup and clean boost tones. 12w Deluxe = somewhere in the middle of the above, but with that classic deluxe clang.

BOOST - 20db of boost on tap, which will take this pedal well into fuzzy, exploding amp territory. Dialled back it will add just the right lift to make your playing pop out of the mix.

I spent weeks auditioning transistor and diode combinations for this pedal and finally decided on 1979 blue face Motorola 2n3904 silicon transistor with Hughes 5008 germanium diodes for a really smooth response and natural breakup.

This is a bufferless overdrive; leading to clean / breakup sounds that are so incredibly dynamic and rewarding to play. At higher gain the guitar volume roll off stays clear as you roll back, consider this the fuzz face of overdrives. Buffers are not always a great thing for some styles of drive, there are pro's and cons of having buffers - for me the biggest drawback of buffers is a reduction in how dynamic the low gain settings are. This tonal impact was one element I didn't want to compromise on. The flipside of this is, that just like a fuzz face, the Leo tends like being first in your chain. Stacking with other drive pedals can work, but you may find odd results with some (EG it loves an OCD but NOT its buffered bypass) .

The boost function only works when the overdrive section is active.

I build these pedals in my garden workshop in Northamptonshire UK. That includes etching and drilling the enclosures, constructing the entire circuit 'Point to Point' only linking the components using only there leads, no boards or traces to dilute your signal. I finish the entire pedal to a standard I think looks as good inside, as it sounds on the outside. It might be covered up but when you're in that moment you KNOW the mojo you have under the hood.

Please be aware, these are totally hand built, so there might me some slight cosmetic variation between each pedal. The gun metal finish is an oxidation process and will vary slightly in shade, and sometimes shows a pleasing uneven patina due the enclosures casting process. Your pedal will age gracefully, as parts of the case wear-polish, usually around the front corners.

Please note, all my silicon pedals have a boss style 2.1 center negative DC jack only, there is no battery snap.

Mini Leo Tweed voiced overdrive. Continuing the Daughterboard PCB style with our favourite settings from the Big Leo hardwired in. We've incorporated the boost into the gain control so you have high big headroom cleans all the way to smashed tweed, saggy overblown craziness. All powered by a pair of 1979 Phillips Silver-face BC549c transistors. We have also switched to Vishay resistors for this circuit as frankly, they look SO ~#>:* cool!

We've also added a tone stack between the transistor stages, which creates something between a tone and a filter control, which makes the pedal super versatile. There are literally no dud tones on the dial.

Izzy builds these fuzz pedals in our garden workshop in Northamptonshire UK. This includes painting, drilling, and screen printing the design onto the enclosures. Izzy populates the vintage style circuit board with the finest components. We finish the entire pedal to a standard that looks as good inside, as it sounds on the outside. It might be covered up but when you're in that moment you KNOW the mojo you have under the hood.

Please be aware, these are totally hand built and so there might me some slight cosmetic variation between each pedal. Tonally, I play each one to make sure they sound as good as the first one, before signing off, no tone generator, no gadgets - just a telecaster and my ears.

Please note, all my silicon pedals have a boss style 2.1 centre negative DC jack only, there is no battery snap. silicon transistors are not sensitive to DC supply type unlike their germanium counterparts.