Bent Pedal #1: Rocktek DIR-01 "Clusterfuck"

Thanks to my darling brother for the name. :P

OK so technically my first two pedal bends were a Boss DS2 and CS3, though unfortunately the DS2 died. The CS3 is still a bit of a mess so while it`s waiting to be finished, I give you my first success - the Rocktek DIR-01!

I`d never seen any Rocktek pedals before I stumbled upon this guy super cheap on Yahoo! Auction, although from a cursory Google search it seems they`ve long been a favorite of circuit benders. Stock, it is a horribly boring piece of garbage, but within minutes I discovered it`s a bender`s paradise! Almost everything I touched made a fantastic gritty sound!

It has five (numbered) stages of distortion, each offering a slightly different flavor of grit, wails and crackles. They`re numbered because when I was searching for bends, I left the previous ones connected up. This means that if I turn off a previous (lower-numbered) bend, it more often than not shuts off all bends higher than it too.

For instance, if you hit switches 2-5 without turning on 1, you won`t hear anything. If you switch on 1, you then have access to 2-5. If you leave 2 on, you can turn off 1 and still use 3-5 but if you then turn 2 off, 3-5 are once again muted. Lastly, 5 has two "EQ" settings - "up" is treble-heavy, and "down" is bass-heavy. However, the "treble" setting seems to only work if the input signal is sufficiently hot. If you succeed in triggering it, however, you are rewarded with a lovely gravelly/screechy tone that would belong perfectly on a Fennesz or Ben Frost record. The big red button is for effect off/on.

The original dials still have some small influence on the new effects, but this motha is freakin LOUD with all the bends active! I`m not sure if it`ll ever see use as a live tool due to the massive volume difference between clean and distorted, but it`ll definitely see a lot of use in the studio.
I will post audio examples soon!