Durham Electronics Crazy Horse

George · Post by **George** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:52 am

Designed to emulate Neil Young's saturated drive tone. I think it does a good job. Sounds great for both lead and chord work...

Chords
[youtube][/youtube]

Lead
[youtube][/youtube]

Â£195 - any clones out there?

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:03 am

It's one of those pedals that I'd love to be good, but I've never known anyone buy one and not flip it.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:13 am

Pretty sure Mike built a pedal very recently in his WH thread which he said gave the NY tones.

George · Post by **George** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:17 am

But it sounds delicious in those videos. I won't stump up the money yet then.

Secondhand I might.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:17 am

Mine is a JFET Tweed Amp emulation (Professor Tweed, as based upon a Tweed Princeton) with a couple of tweaks - added Master Volume to get gain at lower output levels, sweetened the tone control and added a Lows control to give you control over the bass response - also it has a footswitchable Saltbooster stage at the front to goose it into face melting overdrive territory.

Basically it sounds like Neil Young did on stage to me at Glastonbury, but I was hammered. The guy I built it for seemed to like it:

I've been playing for this pedal since just before 7pm... it's 2am now. I haven't put my guitar down once. This is exactly the sound I've been looking for for so, so long. I honestly couldn't be happier.

Thanks so much dude, you genuinely knocked this one out of the park

Chris

George · Post by **George** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:23 am

Sounds tasty, but not sure it's the same sort of thing as the Crazy Horse with a fuzzy power starve thing going on.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:31 am

Nope, it's not at all.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:31 am

Neil Young, while not my favourite musician by any means, makes some of the best guitar noises I've ever heard: I'd get a Catalinbread Formula Number 5 for the regular bits and an Ultralord for the facepeeling bits.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:36 am

benecol wrote:Catalinbread Formula Number 5 for regular toning and deep pore cleansing followed by an Ultralord gentle exfoliating skin peel serum.

I know you have a 'regime' Tim...you can't deny it.

George · Post by **George** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:49 am

The benchmark:

[youtube][/youtube]

Post by **Mike** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:00 am

I have the Formula 5 schematic now. If I get some spare time I'll build one up - wasn't really impressed by the tonal range I've seen in the demos - always seems quite bright.

johnnyseven · Post by **johnnyseven** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:15 am

I find a lot of overdrive pedals too dark so i've been thinking the Formula 5 might be right up my street. It's the availability in the UK and price of buying from the States that has stopped me getting one.

Thom · Post by **Thom** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 12:53 pm

Mike wrote:I have the Formula 5 schematic now. If I get some spare time I'll build one up - wasn't really impressed by the tonal range I've seen in the demos - always seems quite bright.

Interesting. I have mine with the tone pretty much up full to get the bite I want out of it, I wouldn't describe it as a bright pedal.

George · Post by **George** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 1:06 pm

Sounds awesome for the tweedy Keef stuff. I'm getting the impression that an F5 or other tweed pedal and and Ultra Lord sounding like a pretty immense alternative to this Crazy Horse, and more versatile.

Dingus · Post by **Dingus** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:54 pm

I've wanted one of these for a while, as best I know, no one has ever degooped one, and I'm not shelling out the cash for what's probably a modified tubescreamer.

For what it's worth I recall someone saying that the "Bear Face", that Small Bear Electronics used to sell kits for, sounds very similar.

lorez · Post by **lorez** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:37 pm

i've always liked the sound of the formula 5 and contemplated getting one at some point but if you are making them Mike I might have to have a look down the back of the sofa and start saving the pennies after my recent spending spree. if you think the tonal range is limited would you be able to do anything to remedy it?

Post by **Mike** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:59 am

Yeah I'm sure but like Thom says it might just bve the recordings I've heard. If anyone wanted one I would be happy to tweak it and mod it a bit to their taste.

lorez · Post by **lorez** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:45 am

Mike wrote:Yeah I'm sure but like Thom says it might just bve the recordings I've heard. If anyone wanted one I would be happy to tweak it and mod it a bit to their taste.

cool, let me get some pennies saved and I'll be in touch

markeeee · Post by **markeeee** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:06 pm

Well now. In my somewhat lame quest for Neil tones, I bought both a Crazy Horse and a Lovepedal Les Lius. This was when I was still using my tranny Fender 85 with a Sansamp Blonde as a preamp plugged straight into the power amp input.

The Sansamp was handling the basic tweed tone with a bit of dirt. The LL gave me a cranked tone and the second stage (which was always set full), gave me lots of nice-sounding sag.

The Crazy Horse was there for the full-on 'face-melting' thing something mentioned earlier. I tended to set the drive at about 11 o'clock, the fuzz at about 2 o'clock (put it to about 4 o'clock and there's an interesting spot where the whole tone almost disappears and starts spitting) and I'd set the volts at about 11 'oclock.

In isolation, both pedals sounded great. They just didn't seem to play well together, no matter which order I put them in. I was thinking about some kind of loop thing, but it all got a bit confusing and when a friend of mine offered to build me a 5e3 clone, I thought 'fuck it'.

Now, I have a Les Lius and a Sansamp Blonde gathering dust on the shelf. The Crazy Horse is still in the chain, but I've found that by the time the 5e3 is cranked, the CH is mostly used as a fuzz. At that level, every is so compressed already that I don't really get a huge step change in tone.

So here's what I reckon:

1. Pedals like the CH - which can do a shitload more than just Neil Young tones, by the way - are perhaps better suited to amps with a little more headroom.

2. With such an amp, it'd be great if one could switch the drive and fuzz in and out separately, like the Les Lius does with its two gain stages. Sounds like Mike's thought of something like that already, albeit without the volts starve, which is one of my favourite things about the CH.

3. Slavishly aping Neil Young tones is fun for a while, but is expensive and ultimately unfulfilling. I've grown out of it now. A bit.

Ta,

Mark

Post by **Mike** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:52 pm

Cool post!