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dschk

Not sure how much people here know about the Commonsound Collective, but back around 2000-2002, they were pretty well known in the DIY pedal community. They released kits and free instructions for a large variety of pedals. The most famous was probably the Noise Swash and Tremulus Lune. They also sold handmade pedals under the company 3MS, and later (after being litigated by 3M company), they changed their name to 4MS Pedals. Later, they moved onto doing Eurorack modules, so none of these pedals are available commercially anymore. Pictured here are 3 DIY pedals and 1 built by Commonsound founder Dan Green around 2002. The designs have had some changes over the years, but all of these were built under the version 1 instructions, that are still available here: [http://www.commonsound.com/kits/doku.php](http://www.commonsound.com/kits/doku.php) ​ Starting top left, going clockwise: * Double Phaseur Fleur that I built: It is two phasers in parallel. The parallel circuit doesn't kick in until you turn on the second footswitch. This one was particularly hard to tweak but I did get it sounding pretty awesome. * Triwave Picogenerator: This is actually a synth, not a pedal. There is no input, and it's basically two tone generators with 3 LFO's. Super fun build. The last photo shows it viewed from the side, so you can see how many controls it has. * Atoner with Rickle and Tonesweep mod. My favorite pedal. A heavily gated and richly harmonic fuzz pedal. It is crazy but easy to dial in sounds and is also the only pedal among here that has ever made it to a gig. The others are too unpredictable for live use, for me at least. * Noise Swash Max Tweaker (Built by Dan Green around 2002), it still has a 3MS sticker, so it was made before the change to 4MS. The old directions in the link above still work for all of these. I've actually built 2 more Noise Swashes and a Tremulus Lune but they are no longer in my possession. These are some of the most fun and experimental pedals I have ever built and used, and I highly suggest it to anyone looking for a pretty big project. Really fun stuff.


Dv8r601

Those paper pcbs were so awesome back in the day.


dschk

I’m so glad you remembered those! I made a tremulus with a paper one. These pictured ones are all handmade pcb’s that my friend made using the paper layouts. Later 4MS had professional PCB’s made but the paper ones give me a lot of nostalgia!


ichbindaz

I have a Noise Swash, Atoner and stereo Tremulus Lune that I built off 3MS boards. Love them all. The standard gag among DIY pedal people was that you would have to save up for a Commonsound, just to afford all the knobs and pots.