The Acapulco - Overdrive kit

Well It took me an afternoon taking my time to gather information about the + and - of capacitors Im more use to guitar capacitors that has no polarities ,so I did a mistake for two of them but I figured my way to take them off and change them From side ,I have a small issue is that the knob works counterclockwise but haha not a big deal ;) will change that one day,have fun making this build if its your first go for it ,if I can do it you can too .
Cheers

Nicolas M., 12.04.2020

The low part count and comfortable component spacing on the PCB makes for an easy first build.
Not a very versatile pedal (goes from high gain BMP/FZ-2-like sounds to all-out wall of destructive fuzz), but fantastic sounding if youre into doom/drone/sludge/shoegaze and other joyful sounding genres.

Julien D., 28.04.2020

Easy assembly, easy to use and killer sound. Very responsive to guitar volume. A must have

Christopher T., 16.05.2020

Very fun and easy build. This is my second DIY pedal ever. Sounds brutal when cranked! I also have a radio frequency issue on loud settings, will try to add a battery to see if it fixes anything. Awesome pedal nonetheless! Thank you Musikding for another great kit!

Tom v., 25.05.2020

I wanted a simple project to build and this one is just that. I was not expecting such a great tone!
The Acapulco circuit is crazy high gain and sounds to me more like fuzz/distortion. The trick with this pedal is to set the gain knob (only knob) to around 2/10 then ride the volume on your guitar to go from super thick and harmonic high gain distortion at full volume to a warm low gain boost at low 1-2 volumes. It seems to me that each combination of guitar and pedal volume gives a different texture to the tone. It is now one of my favourite pedals and makes me wonder why people pay 100s of EUR for boutique ones.
Great easy build - everyone should get one!

Scott W., 19.06.2020

Dont know how it compares to the original, but this sound great!

Andreas N., 29.06.2020

Kit suitable for beginners, but the sound is for professionals! it is practically the same as the famous Acapulco gold, only you can get it for a fifth of the price. great for getting closer to the sound of the Sunn T model-amp. Really recommended.

nicola c., 19.10.2020

Pedal sounds great! Its my first pedal build going in with 0 experience in electronics or soldering. My only gripe with this product; for a complete beginner the build documentation is very minimal in my opinion. Prepare to do some googling and troubleshooting along the way. Musikding also has a forum. I posted a question about a problem during building this thing and got a reply and solution within a day.

So if youre a beginner like me, maybe start with something a little easier like recommended in the boosters header of the kits. Other than that, would totally recommend. Pedal is awesome.

Pieter S., 20.11.2020

This is the first pedal that I built from Musikding, the component count is very low and the PCB is quite spacious so no problems there!

The one problem I ran into is that I tried to be smart and order an enclosure with top mounted jacks to save a little pedal board space, and I found out the hard way that if you mount the potentiometer directly on the back of the PCB, components will hit the jack connectors (also, the provided wires are just too short to run cleanly from the top connectors to the footswitch pcb). I solved this by adding wires between the potentiometer and the PCB so the PCB can be freely positionned and held in place using pieces of foam inside the enclosure. Once this was sorted, the pedal worked the first time I plugged it in!

Sound-wise I really like the doom/drone tones that you can get, ranging from fat yet musical distorsion (with the pot set between 1 and 3) to some ridiculous over-saturated Sunn 0))) vibes, including absolutely squealing feedback. Beware though, when cranking the pot up the output gets HUGE ! An output level pot would be a nice mod to be able to lock in the overall volume at high gain settings so that it matches when the pedal is turned off.

Very satisfied with the purchase and I loved the build despite the small mistakes I made at first, I definitely recommend this pedal if youre going for stoner/doom/drone guitar tones.

James L., 25.11.2020