The Timmy Clone thread....which one...

I love the Timmy. Nothing special with it? maybe? but what I love about it is not the special tone or the transparent-ness of it, its the powerful EQ shaping capabilities..

I use it to boost another drive, or a final EQ/tone shaper at the end of my drive chain..

at one time I had two Timmy's, one at the start for more of a light gain, and at the end for final eq shaping with 2 more drives in between.. I sold both when I got a Tim..

If I were you, id just get a Timmy direct from Paul C himself on Reverb.. or from some other guy that doesnt do price gouging. They are worth it..

 

Paul C still has some beef with Lovepedal. from what I remember from what Paul C said is lovepedal broke their agreement on not doing/cloning the Tim/Timmy.. but end up doing it anyway and Paul C doesnt even want his name mentioned alongside lovepedal.. LOL.. he is still active in TGP and I see his posts from time to time. hehehe

 

For the record, I also have a Timmy that I bought direct from Paul C & it's a fine pedal. Also, it wasn't crazy expensive -- I don't know why you'd buy a clone.

 

DOD Looking Glass. Might not be a Timmy "Clone" per se, but about 90% sure that's what Tom (formerly head of DOD under DigiTech) & Chris (SHOE pedals) used as a starting point.

Awesome medium-gain OD pedal. Get 'em while they're still around. I'm not sure if they're still being produced, you can still find some in stock without too much trouble.

 

Hope it doesn't hurt much but that's not what this pedal actually is. DOD Looking Glass is a mass market version of the Shoe pedals Savior Machine. SM is a JFET/MOSFET based overdrive that has no similarities with Timmy.
If someone is interested in FET discrete overdrives try Savior Machine. It's a quality representative of the class. You'll pay a bit more money than for the Looking Glass but it worth it imho.

 

The TC Electronics MojoMojo is a pretty good Timmy-esque OD. I've seen them for $50 new at times.

I base that on a Timmy clone that I made and customized to my specs.

The Timmy from Paul C was $159 last time I saw he one new pedals for sale, so unless you can have a builder customize to your specs, The real thing is cheap enough.

However, if you want to build your own, you can get all of the parts to do it and tailor it to your sound for about $50. I wound up using an IC from an old microwave oven because it had a bit more grit than other IC's. I build my OD's and boosts to my specs so I can get exactly what I want.

 

Wow, that's interesting-- I knew the Looking Glass was based on the Savior Machine, but I wasn't aware that the Savior Machine was a FET-based OD. Thanks for the clarification. I usually associate FET-based circuits with higher-gain OD and distortion pedals, like DOD's "Gunslinger", or EHX's "EHX-Tortion", and the Looking Glass's main utility is more of a low-to-medium-gain OD, much like EHX's "Crayon" OD, to my ears.

Do you happen to know what circuit SHOE's "Plume" fuzz is based on? The website's description makes it sound BMP-like.

 

TC Spark Booster works very well for me. I've been dinking around with a
Keeley compressor, -TC Electronic Mojo Mojo-, TC Electronic Spark into my Digitech GPS 1101 and I am getting pleasing results when playing and ,when replaying recordings of this setup

 

Just buy from Paul. He’s not expensive so for just a bit more you can support the guy who innovated rather than the guys who imitated. Otherwise, build your own...there are schematics and strip board layouts easily found on the web.

 

Shoe Pedals Plume is a two/three stage silicon fuzz/distortion hybrid pedal (foot switchable third stage). Yep, reminiscent of BMP soundwise to certain extent. Here's how Chris (the builder) describes it:
"Basically it's my impressionistic take on sort of the Pumpkins Pisces Iscariot sound which was to my ears much more raw and awesome than the Siamese Dream sound (though it does that pretty well too).

It's not an IC muff or really a muff in general though it could be said to play a similar role. It's way less polite than a muff type pedal and has a lot of grinding low mids. It's either a two or three stage silicon fuzz/distortion hybrid (foot switchable third stage). Controls are Volume, Treble (with a pretty wide range that can be super dark and stonerish or buzzy and bright), Bass input (used to get tighter sounds and also tame muddy pickups but can have enough bass to be used on bass), Gain of course.

At the lowest gain settings it can gate lightly as well."

Hope this helps. Sorry for derailing the thread a bit.

 

Most OD pedals cost me around $12-15 in parts and shipping from Tayda. The Timmy is very simple with a low parts count.

 

I paid $129 directly from the man himself, but Humbucker Music usually has them for around $150 new.

 

Hey maybe these guys encouraging you to just buy the Timmy will go in halfsies with you to take the edge off the price point a bit.

I’d STILL recommend the Pure Sky to anyone who, like me, is on a tight budget. Besides, low price aside, it’s EXACTLY what I was looking for.

 

Just checked Humbucker music- it looks like they've been "on order, coming fairly soon" since at least July 3rd. Does Paul C still build/sell them himself, or does he now just go through MXR (it seems like MXR would want to have exclusive rights and NOT compete with Paul).

I'm glad I pulled the trigger last year for $129 from Humbucker (the cool surf green one). It's a great little pedal. Definitely worth that price, but I wouldn't pay the hundreds asked on Reverb for the Timmy.

 

Pisces Iscariot was, as I understand it, a collection of B-sides from the Gish and Siamese Dream albums, or songs recorded in those time frames that didn't make the album cuts. I used to own the Today single, and I remember the song Hello Kitty Kat was the B-side.

All of that to say, during that time, I think Billy's main fuzz/distortion unit was a Big Muff Pi v. 4 - the Op-Amp BMP. If that's the tone Chris had in mind, then it makes sense that it would have more "grind" and less "wool" than a stock BMP, including my BMP v. 9 (current EHX NYC - arguably, the "wooliest" - iteration). If he managed to get that tone without cloning the BMP circuit, I would be very intrigued!

Sorry for the thread derail, but I absolutely appreciate the info you brought on a comparatively-little-known, boutique pedal designer!

 

Hi.

I have no idea if a Pure Sky sounds / behaves like a Timmy or not.*

I bought one because I wanted a drive that would work with the famously finicky Vox AC Top Boost channel, and I’d read reports that Timmys do.

Real Timmys were (& probably still are) a ridiculous price in Japan, so it seemed the way to go.

Anyway, not knowing the actual sound of a Timmy & therefore being unable to compare aside, I can attest to the Pure Sky sounding flipping great into my Vox AC Top Boost amp. With both my Tele and my LP.

Pax/
Dean
* for example, just how different is the Pure Sky tone section - just the knobs working in normal direction, or designed, placed differently in the circuit, etc?

 

Not counting digital pedals this is my first OD. I’m sending it back. Good sounds, but a little too much clipping.

 

If you have all the gear, i.e. soldering set-up, step drill bit, then ya, $10-12 from Tayda. If you are just starting, maybe $50 for everything you need.

 

then definitely try the real Timmy. It does have a bit of gain since it is emulating the less gain-y, older and bigger brother Tim.

i have the Tim for this exact reason. Lesser gain and with boost if I just want “more” of that tone. I did have both the Tim and the Timmy on my board one time and it was amazing.


the Timmy’s gain is like the Tim + Boost, but still a very good range of clipping from the gain knob, from lowest to maximum. This pedal is a classic for a reason. I think youd be happy.