The Puls - Tremolo kit

I have been wanting a tremolo pedal for a long time and came across Musikding and the Puls tremolo by coincidence. I chose the Puls as it seemed a relatively simple project.

I have no prior experience with pedal building, and my only other soldering experience is I have put in new pickups in an electric guitar once.

The kit came within 3-4 days as promised and I must admit I was impressed with the detailed marking of the items. All parts had labels telling me the values of resistors and caps which saved a novice like myself the time and bother finding value charts online and mapping each part.

Having watched a few youtube videos of people building pedals from kits, it was relatively easy to assemble and solder the parts to the PCB. The wiring of pots and jacks were also simple though the wire layout once in the enclosure is a bit messy.

The result when I had put everything together was a working tremolo pedal. Well - working but not quite as intended. The pedal had a clicking noise when engaged and it did not really give the desired effect.

I wrote the Musikding support and got response quickly. I explained my problem and after having sent a picture of my pcb front and back, Klaus was able to locate my mistake. Three of the caps used had positive/negative sides - something I had not been aware of having only used regular tone caps in guitars before. Klaus told me two of these caps needed to be rotated. Having corrected this, I now have a tremolo pedal which sounds just like the sound clips on the website.

The only reasons for not giving 5 stars is that I feel the kit should come with a better guide. I had to deduce from the online material and misc. youtube videos how to go about it. I think that would have saved me the trouble of my mistake.

That said I wholeheartedly recommend the kit and I have already ordered and received my next kit.

Kristoffer V., 25.02.2016

The low part count, comfortable component spacing on the board and PCB-mounted pots make for an easy build for beginners looking to build their first tremolo. Mine fired up at first try.
The effect quality is quite good, although the volume pot needs to be maxxed out for unity volume, and the rate rage could extend a tiny bit lower to my taste (but thats subjective); just remember it wont do everything tremolowise.
Its veeeeeeery similar to a certain, now discontinued, EHX tremolo with a name two letters longer, so check youtube reviews of this one, and see if it works for you. If so, treat yourself, but if youre looking for a smooth, classic sinewave trem for Nancy Sinatra or Enio Morricone sounds, youll have to look elsewhere.

Julien D., 28.04.2020