Paul Cochrane Zefram Overdrive Pedal

The Paul Cochrane Zefram Pedal is not another version of the Tim & Timmy pedals, but it does share some of the same design goals Paul always strives for: A wide range of gain from flat & clean, lite break up, crunchy power chords and now thick lead tones.  It wont take you into super high gain metal, but it gets up there!

The Zefram is a uniquely designed clean boost, overdrive and distortion pedal that offers a wide range of dirt tones while being very user friendly and easy to dial in.  It has BASS, MID, TREBLE, GAIN and VOLUME controls along with a 3-way CLIP switch and a 3-way CUT switch to make it work with a wide range of styles, guitars and amps. 

The MID control comes first in the design and is an active mid boost circuit.  It acts like a flat buffer at "0" and increases the mid range as you turn it up.  It adds some clipping of its own around 2 o'clock and up to hit the main clipper hard.

The BASS cut control is also an active circuit and comes after the MID control.  At settings below 2 o'clock it reduces low end, and above 2 o'clock it offers a bass boost that's about +6dB @ 280hz to thicken things up if needed.

Next is the main clipping circuit.  It goes from clean, early break up and into overdrive.  Crank the MID control and it gets into distortion territory.  There is a 3-way CLIP switch to give some different levels of compression and harmonics.   At low gain settings the levels may not be large enough to be affected by the CLIP switch, but you'll notice the different settings at mid to hi gain levels.

Last is the passive Treble control followed by an output amp to make it loud... The CUT switch is located at the output to help shape the overall eq of the pedal.  The center position is voiced flat.  To the right it rolls off the hi-end at -3dB @ 2.75khz to help tame the hi-end with brighter amps/speakers, and to the left it does the same while also rolling off the lows at -3dB @ 120hz to tighten up the bass.

The Paul Cochrane Zefram has an internal voltage converter circuit to run the pedal at +/- 9vdc.  There is no option for a 9v battery.  PLEASE only use a standard +9vdc center pin negative power supply!