Jeds Peds Loony Steed

The Jeds Peds Loony Steed is a DIY guitar effects pedal kit that sits between the two dirt camps: as Jeds Peds puts it, "Is it an over drive, is it fuzz? Who knows! The clever little circuit combines both." The maker says the circuit emulates Neil Young's live and loud tone, which is the whole point of the pedal: a compressed, driving dirt sound that holds up when the amp is working hard. It belongs alongside other fuzz pedals and overdrive pedals rather than cleanly in either category¹.

The circuit: Durham Crazy Horse

Jeds Peds states plainly that "This kit compares to the Durham Crazy Horse," the boutique pedal the Loony Steed reproduces as a kit¹. The Crazy Horse design has been traced and written up by the Guitar FX Layouts site, whose writer called it "rather interesting mash of different bits and pieces," drawing on the Tube Screamer, Fuzz Face, BazzFuss and Big Muff circuits². That lineage explains the either-neither character: a Tube Screamer-style midrange drive underneath a Fuzz Face and Big Muff flavored fuzz section.

On what the design does well, Guitar FX Layouts wrote: "What it does great are those completely wild compressed noise Neil Young Sounds, using the Voltage starve"². The same builder noted that the circuit has a lot of gain on tap, finding too much of it even at the lowest drive and fuzz settings, and an extremely bright, harsh character from the high gain fuzz at low-gain settings². Players after Young's cleaner ragged edge should expect to work the controls down low.

One quirk of the original hardware is worth knowing: the schematic was traced from an original unit in which one end of diode D5 was connected to nowhere, which is why Guitar FX Layouts produced its own verified layout of the circuit².

The voltage starve control

Jeds Peds added a voltage starve pot to the design "for a little more jiggery pokery," meaning extra tonal variation beyond the standard controls¹. Starving a circuit's supply voltage changes how its transistors clip, and on this design the effect is pronounced. Guitar FX Layouts explains that the Volts control sets a starved supply voltage that comes through a LED and controls the vref, and notes that "The vref on this design cannot be used as a virtual ground as its voltage is controlled by 'volts' and it's not constant"². In practice, that means the control reshapes the whole feel of the pedal rather than acting as a simple volume or gain trim.

Kit versions and what you get

The Loony Steed is sold in several forms, from a bare board to a fully built pedal¹:

• PCB Only: just the plain PCB
• PCB & Components
• PCB & Components and off board parts
• Full Kit
• Full Kit & Drilling
• Pre Built Kit

A few practical points for anyone choosing between them:

• The kit is currently supplied with a JP125B sized enclosure¹.
• Drilling is an optional extra for the Full Kit, with a small surcharge, and includes all holes for a complete pedal¹.
• You will need 5 knobs for this kit; Jeds Peds suggests you get skinny ones. Knobs are not included with the kit¹.

How hard is it to build?

Jeds Peds describes the circuit as not overly challenging to put together. The builder does need to identify components, calculate resistor codes and solder, so it suits someone with basic soldering experience rather than a complete first-timer¹. If it turns out to be a good entry point, Jeds Peds also offers simpler one-knob style projects such as the Red Llama kit and the Fuzz Face kit, and other combined-drive designs like the Overunder.

Jeds Peds notes on the product page that there is no endorsement or approval from any manufacturer and that the comparison information is for comparison only¹.

Questions