This is a real thing. I’ll tell you all about eventually…

MARC SAYS:

“They (NineVolt/OneControl) commissioned me to design those. I designed every aspect, using one of the company’s own pedals as a template for how to set up the 3 knobs and borrowed the idea for the audio-board/I-O-board with 5-pin soldered connector from it too. I didn’t design their graphics, and I have nothing to do with their manufacturing process, but they use my specs for their parts. I also had the rights to release the same designs under my own label, which I did. It took the Japanese company a long time to bring theirs to market, and it didn’t help that I kept sending them updates and tweaks as I refined and improved the circuits. But they’re optimized and stable designs, have been for some time now, and yeah; I like them so much I definitely added them to my product lineup, my “Precision Series” (made in America). Since I rolled all 3 of them out with little fanfare and no demo videos, it’s taken a while for them to get known and catch on.

There may be a few trivially different parts choices in the Animals Pedals, but for the most part, yes, they’re the same circuits as the Skreddy Pedals versions. Except for the Major Overdrive. For my version I use a couple of transistors that are a bit more “mojo” than the Animal Pedals version–a BC109C (oldschool metal-can silicon) and an AC127 (germanium). The BC109C gives the sound an ever-so-slightly more streamlined lower-midrange than the Animals version, and the AC127 gives its high end a bit more creaminess and lets the circuit get slammed harder without any harshness. I think I have one slightly different resistor value in the Animals Pedal Major Overdrive to raise its headroom just the tiniest bit and make the transistors in that one sound good together and avoid any harsh overtones.
Surprisingly hard to hear the difference between the two versions, though! I’ve recently had a notable clip-maker remark that he’s comparing the Animals Pedal Major Overdrive to his favorite distortions and it’s beating them.”

The three pedals I designed for LEP International, which are part of their new Animals Pedal line, are… Rust Rod, Major Overdrive, ROVER Fuzz. They were gracious to allow me to make my own US-built versions under the Skreddy Pedals brand, too.”