The Cranker - Overdrive kit

Very straightforward build on first sight. Everything fits nicely and there is enough space in the enclosure. The germanium diodes, however, are very fragile and in no circumstance should be bent by hand. Use some specific tooling to bend the legs to avoid the mistake that I made. After ordering 10 more to be certain and by using better tooling I managed to finish the circuit. It worked straight out of the box and has a nice light overdrive that sounds like the demos on youtube of the speaker cranker!

Steven B., 26.04.2019

Very nice pedal, very easy to build.
Do watch out with bending those Germanium diodes though!

Stephan K., 30.04.2019

Successful build!

I was a complete beginner: never soldered a wire, apart from 9v center-negative I knew just about nothing about electric circuits.

For me the assembly time was about 5 hours. It was my first time soldering so I went very slowly, I had to resolder some connections - no surprise there.

I was so excited that I didnt test it before putting it in the enclosure (I didnt know what to test for anyway - though I did borrow a multi-meter).

The contents of the kit were well packed. At first you might not understand which part is which, but they are accurately labelled so follow the BOM and all will be revealed :).

I thought the holes were a bit tight in some places, maybe a smaller tip on my soldering iron would have been better, but I mananged anyway.

The wires were pre-cut, with the end sleeves still on so the strands were tidy and made for easy fitting.

The switch has a very satisfying, easy, smooth click, I like it more than the MXR click switch or EHX click-less switches.

The LED has the right amount of brightness; not blinding, not as dim as a Boss LED.

The pedal sounds open, like your amp only louder. I like the crackle when turning the knob. A big knob means I can turn it with my foot.

I use it as the first overdrive, into a silicon fuzz, or into a Blues Driver. Fuller than the BD-2, not as much gain. Great for a bit of hair on top of a clean sound.

Tips for absolute beginners:
Take your time with the assembly.
You are meant to trim the wires to the length you need.
You can resolder components if you mess up (I did it without a pump).
If your clipper cant get as close to the solder joint to trim the legs of the components you might want to fit, solder and trim each at a time. I didnt and had a forest of legs I couldnt trim flush.
I didnt have a helping hands and still managed, but it would have helped. Kneaded charcoal eraser also seems to be useful.
I used a hair-dryer to keep from inhaling fumes.
Glass diodes are fragile, I cracked one so be careful when bending legs and fitting to the board.
One of my diodes was touching another and added noise of various amounts through different power supplies - fixed that issue and the pedal is now silent.

Razvan Gabriel H., 01.08.2019

Easy build (just beware that the diodes are very fragile) and an amazing light-medium gain sound, a little above unity volume across all the range to compensate the clipping. its in my main pedalboard and i couldnt be happier

Pablo V., 09.01.2020

It was my first built ever and it was totally doable. As has been said before the diodes are super sensitive to bends. It was good I read it beforehand and order some extra more because I destroyed at least 3 trying to bend them. The sound of the pedal is fantastic, no noise at all and good quality components.

Camilo U., 04.04.2020

Nice OD, works also well when stacking with another ODs or fuzzes.
Building this was easy and fun, although Im really NOT very good with soldering.
Everything went well and the pedal worked immediately.
I will definitely buy again from Musikding.de!

Juhani N., 17.07.2020

Very nice pedal.
A booster that also give thrust and depth to the sound.
I only replaced the diodes to 1N4001 and 1N60P, the pot to 10K.
Simple to use and easy to build.

Francois L., 17.02.2021

Comme dit dans un autre commentaire, attention aux diodes qui sont très fragiles. Il faut plier les pattes loin de la diode en maintenant le bord de la diode avec une pince, sinon elles se cassent en deux. Dailleurs, je nai finalement pas gardé les diodes fournies avec, jai posé des sockets pour essayer dautres références et ce sont les BAT46 qui lont emporté. Je les trouve plus chaleureuses et elles ont un volume de sortie plus modéré, moins fort que les OA1182 (qui étaient trop fortes par rapport au son quand la pédale nest pas activée). Il me semble que dans la Speaker Cranker originale ce sont des 1N60P. On en trouve sur dautres sites mais elles sont un peu chères, jessaierai peut-être un jour. Sinon le rendu est sympa, efficace, le son se place bien dans le mix en live. On a pas beaucoup de marge de manœuvre mais ça fait partie de lesprit de la pédale. Je me tâte à rajouter un potentiomètre de volume en sortie de circuit pour calmer un peu la bête car quand on lutilise avec le gain au max, le volume est encore un peu trop fort.
Javais eu loccasion dessayer une EQD Speaker Cranker originale une fois, javais beaucoup aimé. Jai limpression de ne pas retrouver exactement les mêmes sensations avec ce circuit, mais cétait il y a longtemps puis les diodes ne sont pas les mêmes. Jessaierai de refaire une comparaison un jour si possible, entre le clone et loriginale.

Thibault C., 03.06.2021

I knew the original pedal (now discontinued) and I really want that sound (its not a boots pedal, its one-knob distortion!!!). Easy to build and the tone is what I wanted. It produces really nice usable dirt tone over the original signal so if your signal is missing some dirt this pedal is what you need. I like it on its own with the clean amp or overdriven amp or stacked with other pedals. It just sounds great. Its a must-have pedal. Highly recommended. Just watch out when you bend those Ge diodes - use tweezers!!! I broke one!

Juraj P., 22.06.2021