THE AMOS

Here you can pre-order the AMOS Fuzz

The Amos is our re imagining of two very cool pedals. The Zonk Machine and the Zonk II.

Whilst it was originally intending to be a Zonk II clone, I decided, as I do, to play about with the circuit a little. I already had acquired some original Texas Instruments 2N4061 transistors, the same exact transistors found in the original silicon Zonk II's, but decided to experiment with some germanium options, seeing as they drop straight into the circuit. After some fun, chaos and a lot of juggling, I came up with a winning combination.

So welcome to the family, the Amos Ge, and the Amos Si.

But firstly, as always, a little back story. The Amos is named, like all our pedals, after something ironically Tasmanian. In this instance, it is Mt Amos, the highest peak in the stunning Freycinet National Park on Tasmania's East Coast. Often referred to as "The Jewel of Tasmania, Wineglass Bay, the Freycinet National Park and Mt Amos is a wonder to behold and it was the crystalline, blue and aqua waters of Wineglass bay that led me to this build. This is a stunning, complex and beautiful place. And that is the sound I think I achieved with the Amos.

I altered the circuit a little as well. Just one or two caps and resistors, but it was done with something specific in mind.  Whilst this is a two transistor circuit, I tuned it as closely as possible to several of the best Zonk clones available on the market.

This fuzz is simply put, amazing. It has string separation and great clarity between strings and the ability to go from open, sustaining glorious fuzz tones to a spitty, quick to die shattered breakup. This is achieved through the gate control which, just as it sounds, opens the fuzz up to a full wide open beast, or closes it down to a chaotic, broken animal. The guitars volume control can further add to this chaos, simply by winding it back a little. Its so much fun, and there are so many tones.

The Amos Ge is fitted with a Philips Mullard AC107, and a Texas Instruments 2G309.

The Amos Si is fitted with Texas Instruments 2N4061s.

The differences between the germanium and silicon are as follows.

• The silicon is a little brighter, slightly more cutting and a little louder.
• The germanium, as with so many good germanium transistors, has that something extra happening in the structure, has a little more definition and has a beautiful organic quality.

Both though sound amazing and reasonably close to each other in structure and tone.

Other vintage components that can be found in these builds can include

• Philips and Sprague Electrolytic caps
• Mullard Tropical Fish and Wima coupling capacitors.
• Allen Bradley, Piher and Philips resistors

Note: These components may change due to availability.

Mechanical components include

• Alpha pots
• Gorva foot switch
• Neutrik jacks
• Blue LED
• Lumburg 2.1mm DC power socket
• Internal 9v battery clip

All this is housed in a Hammond enclosure finished in a very robust powder coat finish. There are 2 colours available, Corroded Copper for the Germanium, and Silver Shimmer for the Silicon.

Each Van Diemens pedal is hand built, point to point, one at a time using carefully selected vintage components. When tuning our pedals, we set standard transistor voltages at the beginning, but then finalize the setup tuning by ear, looking for the perfect sweet spot and finalize the bias once that point has been reached. We use classic pull back cloth wire and each board is hand crafted using either turrets, eyelets or through hole construction.

IMPORTANT: This pedal uses PNP transistors and the External power is Negative (-) Center. DO NOT power this pedal using a daisy chain. Use Isolated power supplies only. Failing to do so could damage the pedal and will void any warranty.

The pedal comes with a calico bag, booklet, rubber feet.

Pre-orders usually take between 2 - 4 weeks to produce depending on stack.

Please contact me before ordering if you have any questions at all regarding the build.

Thanks for looking.

Richard