# What pedal are you digging today?



## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

I hope this thread catches like her older sisters. 

Every time I bring up this pedal I forget about everything else. Got it a while ago thanks to forum member Charles from Electric Mojo Guitars.


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

My Boss GP-10. I get lost in all it's complexities, in a great way. I realized I'm a bit of a tweaker.


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## Slooky (Feb 3, 2015)

Cups said:


> My Boss GP-10. I get lost in all it's complexities, in a great way. I realized I'm a bit of a tweaker.


Have to agree with you there! I have been tweaking all kinds of new sounds! I have also been using my T2 reverb -those 2 together heavenly bliss!


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

Today is my "always on" pedal, Tone Bakery's Creme Brûlée.






Sent from my Other Brain


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## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

amagras said:


> Every time I bring up this pedal I forget about everything else.


What is it that you especially like about this distortion?


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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

I don't have my hands on one right now, but I'm GAS'ing for a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive Mod big time.


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## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

Today (and the last two weeks) it's been my Stingray multifilter into any kind of dirt, but particularly a Swollen Pickle or a Fulltone '70 (it's a silicon fuzz-face with a huge mid boost knob).

Sometimes I get this nice organic oscillation that evolves and grows on held notes that sounds insanely good.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

mister.zed said:


> What is it that you especially like about this distortion?


I like it because, like the tubescreamer, it cuts the unnecessary high end, cut and boosts the low end just enough not to notice or loose body. It also sounds like a pedal, not like a cranked amp, Michael Landau describes it like a hybrid between the tubescreamer and the fuzz face. It has lots of gain and sustain that as long as you keep the tone all the way to the left sounds transparent.

BTW, today is this one:


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

I'm having fun with the two that I got off of Bretts sale, a SGFX Funkzilla and the Meet Maude from Fairfield Ciruitry.


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## Alex (Feb 11, 2006)

Hudson Broadcast Peach Tree Guitars Edition

Does clean boost, medium gain and all outright fuzz. Very impressive unit

From the website:

The Broadcast is a transformer-coupled, discrete Class-A germanium circuit, that takes its inspiration from classic recording consoles of the 1960s. The unique way in which the circuit saturates and colours your signal can be used to produce biting clean boosts, subtly coloured and thickened signals with a frayed-at-the-edge quality or – when pushed – an individual sounding overdrive with a fuzzy, fried texture.

The BC-24V-PG runs internally at 24 volts from a standard 9 volt supply. The increased voltage gives extra headroom and a tighter low end – fantastic if you are looking for a little less saturation and grit, but without losing that unique sound of the Broadcast.


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## taken (Feb 5, 2006)

*Fairfield Circuitry Barbershop*. This is such a fun pedal to play and it sounds good on every setting. 

I dealt with Charles at Electric Mojo Guitars as well. He is excellent to deal with.


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

Empress ParaEq and Analogman Mini BiComp. There pedals have lasted the longest of any pedals on my board. They are pretty much always on.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Something like 3 years later, my TC Spark Boost (full sized) is still worth it's weight in gold. I have used it
-out front as a clean to slight mid boost
---with guitar
---with passive bass
---with active bass
------in both bass cases, also via amp DI
-with guitar in the FX loop of 3 different amps, as a lead boost

And it sounds great in all cases, it's very transparent and, unless the gain is turned up past say 2ish (depends on the rest of the rig), just gives you MORE of what you have. It has a very powerful 2 band EQ, besides the 3 position toggle clean/mid/bass, which I usually keep at mid and is NOT mid boosted like, say, a tubescreamer, much more subtle. It has TONS of available volume, I am generally running it at about 9 o'clock for slight bump....at noon, it's screaming. And it is dead, dead, dead silent, absolutely zero extraneous noise ever.


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## Jamdog (Mar 9, 2016)

I made myself a fuzz face with older transistors. 

With its positive ground, I power it separately from the other pedals. Right now it's battery is on the weak side, and it sounds awesome. 

Well, until I need to change the battery...


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

Bogner la grange. Just got it on Thursday, so far I love it.

Check out the Sam Vilo demos, best miab ive ever tried.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

Alex said:


> Hudson Broadcast Peach Tree Guitars Edition
> 
> View attachment 23593


I'm almost certain that this sounds wonderful DI to a preamp.


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## Chitmo (Sep 2, 2013)

I only own 5 pedals now, not including my tuner. I'd say that my Captain coconut gets my attention most of the time.


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

My TC Shaker Vibrato pedal is something I picked up in a pawn shop on a whim, just because I got a good deal on it. After a few months on my board I'm really starting to warm to it. It has a stock setting, a programmable/downloadable setting (I particularly like and mostly use the Leslie download) and a latch setting. The latch setting is interesting although I don't use it much. It basically turns the effect on ONLY while the switch is depressed. It's great for short passages where you might want vibe. Depress the pedal and hold, release to remove the effect. The programmable/downloadable capability is the big selling factor for me. Sure this pedal might not do EVERYTHING the best, but if you can't find a Vibe effect you like in their download library, you ain't tryin'. The ability to reprogram on the fly directly from your phone (a sound like a fax machine answering a phone line comes out of your phone) and through the guitars pickups to the pedal is simply AMAZING.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

I got in a Lovepedal Kalamazoo from Dave in a recent trade, great drive pedal!

The "glass" control, which cuts or adds high end without affecting the bottom end is pretty useful.
Most three knobbers with just a tone, you usually start to lose some bottom raising the tone knob, so it's a comprimise.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

As soon as I put the SD Phat Cats into my LP, this 1975 MXR D+ has dropped my jaw and filled my ears with musical splooge. It'll be a tough one to replace if it keeps this up.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

sulphur said:


> I got in a Lovepedal Kalamazoo from Dave in a recent trade, great drive pedal!
> 
> The "glass" control, which cuts or adds high end without affecting the bottom end is pretty useful.
> Most three knobbers with just a tone, you usually start to lose some bottom raising the tone knob, so it's a compromise.


The Kalamazoo schematic is here:








The Jan-Ray is shown here:








The Timmy is here:








Here is the Tube Screamer:









The TS-9/808 uses 2 clipping diodes, while the Vemuram, Timmy and Kalamazoo use 4. Use of 4 diodes raises the clipping threshold for a bit more dynamics, and also allows for a hotter output level. The Boss SD-1 uses 3 diodes, which gives a little more outpout and dynamics, but not as much as the three noted above.

The "magic" of TS is rooted in the use of lo-cut on the clipping stage, formed by the .047uf/4k7 network. That rolls off below 720hz, such that mids and highs don't get clipped that much less than lows do, yielding a more balanced sound. The 1k and 0.22uf to ground _after _the clipping stage form a lowpass filter that counteracts the tone-shaping in the clipping, yielding a more balanced end-result.

The Tone control on the TS has a reciprocal action. In one direction, it boosts highs. Wiuth the 20k pot turned all the way towards pin 6 on that second op-amp, there is a gain of 5.5 for content roughly 3.2khz and above. Rotated fully the other way, that boost is negated and the lowpass filter is effectively rolling off even lower. So there's a reason why one seems to lose bottom at full treble.

Both the Jan-Ray and Timmy eschew the reciprocal tone control for a very simple variable lowpass/treble cut. The Timmy's rolls off from 10khz down to around 300hz, while the Jan-Ray rolls off from around 2.8khz to around 300hz. So the Timmy has a wider range than the Jan-Ray. The Kalamzoo trie to achieve the best of both worlds. The Glass control retains some of the reciprocal action of the TS-9, but doesn't provide nearly as much mid/high boost. Meanwhile, the Tone control provides variable treble cut over a wider range than the TS-9, but not as wide as the Timmy. Like the TS-9, the treble-cut is helped along with the glass control rotated to 7:00, but one can still use the Tone and Glass independent of each other to get different degrees of "warmth". None of these is better than the other, merely better suited to one's needs, speakers, pickups, etc.

The Jan-Ray and Timmy both provide an additional control to add in more bass, by reducing the amount of bass-cut. Did you get that? They don't boost bass. They just counteract the bass-cut that the basic TS-9 design relies on. It is a frequent mod to TS pedals to raisde the value of that .047uf cap to .1uf or higher so that bass cut starts lower down in the spectrum; resulting in a less "nasal" tone.

A former member here brought over his Timmy, and we spent the evening swapping out chips. Much to my surprise, we both agreed that the tone achieved by use of a a 1458 dual op-amp (a "lousier" chip in many respects) appealed to us a lot more; other "better" chips having too bright and brittle a tone. Sometimes, it's the limitations of an op-amp that can provide more musical results.

The Distortion+ is one of the oldest overdrive pedals, and has a number of things about it that myself and many others find irritating, despite its other appeals. There are two ways to increase the gain of a non-inverting op-amp. One is to vary the feedback resistance, which the TS, SD-1, Timmy and others do. The other is to vary the "ground leg" resistance, which the Dist+ does. If you stick a capacitor in the feedback loop, you lose top end as you increase the gain, getting a "warmer" sound to counteract the added harmonic content as more clippping is introduced. 

When the resistance of the ground leg is varied, that cap results in loss of _*low*_ end at higher gain. So the Dist+ gets more shrill as you turn up the gain. That has a few effects. First, it certainly accentuates the added harmonic content at higher gain. Second, if one is playing a guitar with single-coils, it loses enough low end that 60hz hum isn't amplified quite as much. Like with the TS-9, a common mod is to increase the value of the cap connected to the gain pot (or simply add to it with another parallel cap), so that bass loss is not as pronounced at higher gains. Since more of the signal lives in the low end anyways, retaining more bass gets a more distorted thrust.

The weak links are several. There is no Tone control, and there is very little treble cut built into the pedal, which can lead to ridiculously piercing sounds if one is switching over from a bright clean sound to the Dist+ cranked. The other is that the output level is fairly modest, which means there is no way to push one's amp with only a lightly-distorted sound. If you want the volume boost, you need to set the gain for max.

But it has its charms.


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## Alex (Feb 11, 2006)

mhammer said:


> A former member here brought over his Timmy, and we spent the evening swapping out chips. Much to my surprise, we both agreed that the tone achieved by use of a a 1458 dual op-amp (a "lousier" chip in many respects) appealed to us a lot more; other "better" chips having too bright and brittle a tone. Sometimes, it's the limitations of an op-amp that can provide more musical results.
> .


Analogman apparently does (or did) a mod to the Timmy that swaps the chip to make it very close to a Jan Ray - Have you or anyone else a/b'd the Jan Ray and Timmy (and modded Timmy)?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I haven't come into contact with a Jan-Ray, nor made one. But I was really taken aback by the difference that "stooping" to a lesser chip made in the tone. We tried TL072, OP275, CA3240, CA3260, LM4580, JRC4558D, and several other "better" ones, comparing them to the stock chip the pedal came with. He was curious about the 1458 because of something he had read, so we spent the evening pulling this one out and sticking that one in. Since it was the exact same pedal, and we left the controls in a single position, none of the audible changes could be attributed to component-value differences between two copies of the same pedal (which happens). The caveat is that it takes a minute to pull the one chip out and install the other, so memory plays a bit of a roll. But we did do A-B-A-B just to be sure we were hearing what we remembered hearing.

Of course, the value of the chip change will depend on what sort of tone and control settings one usually deploys. The 1458 is limited in the amount of gain it can apply at higher frequencies, so the "warmth" shows up with higher gain and brighter tone settings. At cleaner settings, where a person wants just a touch of coloration to an otherwise bright tone, conceivably other better chips might be more appropriate.

For those with the appropriate skills, I recommend having an assortment of dual op-amp chips on hand to do such experiments. Not just for tone, but also for exploring optimum noise characteristics. Some chips can provide better noise specs in circumstances that are disadvantageous to an otherwise "better" chip.


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## Jamdog (Mar 9, 2016)

mhammer said:


> I haven't come into contact with a Jan-Ray, nor made one. But I was really taken aback by the difference that "stooping" to a lesser chip made in the tone. We tried TL072, OP275, CA3240, CA3260, LM4580, JRC4558D, and several other "better" ones, comparing them to the stock chip the pedal came with. He was curious about the 1458 because of something he had read, so we spent the evening pulling this one out and sticking that one in. Since it was the exact same pedal, and we left the controls in a single position, none of the audible changes could be attributed to component-value differences between two copies of the same pedal (which happens). The caveat is that it takes a minute to pull the one chip out and install the other, so memory plays a bit of a roll. But we did do A-B-A-B just to be sure we were hearing what we remembered hearing.
> 
> Of course, the value of the chip change will depend on what sort of tone and control settings one usually deploys. The 1458 is limited in the amount of gain it can apply at higher frequencies, so the "warmth" shows up with higher gain and brighter tone settings. At cleaner settings, where a person wants just a touch of coloration to an otherwise bright tone, conceivably other better chips might be more appropriate.
> 
> For those with the appropriate skills, I recommend having an assortment of dual op-amp chips on hand to do such experiments. Not just for tone, but also for exploring optimum noise characteristics. Some chips can provide better noise specs in circumstances that are disadvantageous to an otherwise "better" chip.


It was always my impression, in distortion as opposed to amplification, that the less good the opAmp is, the better the sound will be....


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Jamdog said:


> It was always my impression, in distortion as opposed to amplification, that the less good the opAmp is, the better the sound will be....


Like I say, it depends on your objectives. It also depends on the filtering contained in the pedal. Many lesser-performance op-amps will also be noisier. The poorer performance will tend to reduce the production of higher harmonics when clipping...which is a good thing...but one will still require spots of lowpass filtering to rein in the hiss produced when one sets a low-performance op-amp for high gain.

You will note above that the Vemuram has C3 and C8, while the Kalamazoo has no such functional equivalents. The Timmy has C2 and the TS-9 has a 51pf cap. That cap in the clipping stage rolls off more top end the higher the gain is set. In the TS-, at max gain, treble content is rolled off starting around 5.6khz. In the Timmy, the same sort of rolloff begins around 1.6khz at max gain.

The Kalamazoo (assuming the drawing is accurate) has not such gain-compensating rolloff, leaving it all up to the Tone and Glass controls. Neither of those is steep (i.e., has an abrupt-enough treble cut to keep the midrange bite while losing the hiss). In such a case, one would likely want to opt for an op-amp that has better noise specs, and forfeit whatever a low-performance chip might provide in the way of tone. Alternatively, one adds (or gets someone else to add) a cap in parallel with the gain control, similar to the other pedals. My sense is that 68-75pf would likely be a good choice and complement the Tone/Glass controls nicely.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

Instructive reading, specially for TS fans. 

I had trouble understanding this part:


mhammer said:


> The Tone control on the TS has a reciprocal action. In one direction, it boosts highs. Wiuth the 20k pot turned all the way towards pin 6 on that second op-amp, there is a gain of 5.5 for content roughly 3.2khz and above. Rotated fully the other way, that boost is negated and the lowpass filter is effectively rolling off even lower. So there's a reason why one seems to lose bottom at full treble.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The 1k/.22uf pair after the clipping stage provides a treble cut starting around 720hz. When the tone control is fully counter-clockwise, the second .22uf cap is effectively placed in parallel with the first one, such that the treble rolloff point is moved even lower.

Recommended...no, *mandatory* reading:
The Technology of the Tube Screamer
AMZ - Guitar Effects & Tone Controls


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

A big discovery for me, the Boss RV-6!
I am not a reverb type, but the modulated reverb setting is awesome.
To me, this setting alone worth the price of admission. It's perfect for my "clean" sound.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Chitmo said:


> I only own 5 pedals now, not including my tuner. I'd say that my Captain coconut gets my attention most of the time.
> 
> View attachment 23649


I don't judge, but your settings seem weirds to me.


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## Lola (Nov 16, 2014)

Playing pink Floyd so it's my Ekko Malecko delay pedal! This is such a great pedal to hsve


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## Lola (Nov 16, 2014)

What pedal are you playing today TiRon?


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## Chitmo (Sep 2, 2013)

Ti-Ron said:


> I don't judge, but your settings seem weirds to me.


Just a pic I had in my phone, it was right after I have cleaned up my board. Just habit to set all the knobs to zero when I clean.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Lola said:


> What pedal are you playing today TiRon?


Sadly, none! 
I'm working right now, so no pedals!

On the other side, there's a lot of fuzz in my ears, thanks Spotify! :0)


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## Lola (Nov 16, 2014)

I booked today off cuz Black Sabbath is playing tonight in Toronto. So am just doing some noodling today. I cranked up the volume and Comfortably Numb sounds so amazing with the delay pedal!


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## Alex (Feb 11, 2006)

Lola said:


> I booked today off cuz Black Sabbath is playing tonight in Toronto. So am just doing some noodling today. I cranked up the volume and Comfortably Numb sounds so amazing with the delay pedal!


enjoy the show. Our singer is going to the show as well with his son. I suspect it will be full house.


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## Lola (Nov 16, 2014)

Thanks Alex! I am going with my oldest son! It should be a blast!


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

I'm really diggin' the Analogman modded big box Deluxe Memory Man. It isn't on my board but still gets a ton of playing time. I love just the delay out of this thing and the mods made it sound ten times better. The modulation is sweet and for once I can get behind some vibrato sounds. Guitar-> DMM -> Amp


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## Alex (Feb 11, 2006)

Received the TC Subnup yesterday. Great unit and still blown away by the Toneprint technology that allows you to update presets via an iPhone. In a matter of minutes, I cycled through a dozen presets. The POG and Mellotron presets are pretty wild. I think I may prefer the tones of the EHX micro POG but the sub has no volume loss, a lot more versatile and half the price of the EHX. You also get a wide variety of bass presets which sound pretty cool. Great bang for the buck.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Sounds like a great little pedal. The one shortcoming I see (that may be nothing of the sort for many players) is that the Pog/Micropog provides separate effect/clean outputs, such that one could process the straight and upper/lower sounds separately before mixing. For example, run the bass through an auto-wah, or an octave up through a phaser or other animating effect. Or, one could insert a very short delay after the clean output to time-align clean and effect a little more OR stagger them. But like I say, that may only have utility for some folks, where others get more use out of the Toneprint capability which the POG clearly lacks.

But thanks for drawing it to my attention. Wasn't aware of it previously.


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## exhausted (Feb 10, 2006)

This thing. It's an epic beast.


__
http://instagr.am/p/BJ0lBo4BLuh/


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## Alex (Feb 11, 2006)

Recovery effects Bad Comrade. Glitch and pitch pedal "that craves unthinkable tones". The Freeze button is pretty wild and can simulate the Steve Stevens ray gun effect.

In the documentation it states "for the adventurous guitarist" and I would agree - if you like experimenting with sounds, this pedal is for you.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

exhausted said:


> This thing. It's an epic beast.
> 
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/BJ0lBo4BLuh/


Awesome. Did you buy that in Canada or order from the States?


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

exhausted said:


> This thing. It's an epic beast.
> 
> 
> __
> http://instagr.am/p/BJ0lBo4BLuh/


I can't see it or copy the link, help!!!


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

amagras said:


> I can't see it or copy the link, help!!!














Sent from my other "other" brain.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

I just watched the demo by Peter Torn and have to say great rock tone and... great demo! Thanks bzrkrage, seems like this pedal hasn't been around for too long


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## exhausted (Feb 10, 2006)

davetcan said:


> Awesome. Did you buy that in Canada or order from the States?


Guitarworks in Calgary. They got 10 in and they sold within a day. 20 more coming.


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## exhausted (Feb 10, 2006)

duplicate post


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## Gavz (Feb 27, 2016)

Oh my! Was pondering over getting an MF Drive but that Friedman is something neat.


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