User manual

The Caprid Legendary Distortion/Sustainer
Caprid? What does that have to do with the Ram’s Head?
Caprinae: A subfamily of the even-toed ungulate family Bovidae. Animals of the Caprinae subfamily are called caprid or goat-antelope.
The domestic sheep (Ovis aries) and domestic goat (Capra hircus) are part of this group.
Ram: An uncastrated male sheep.
Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch but I like it...
Thank you for purchasing your new Caprid Legendary Distortion.
Your pedal is a recreation of the legendary EH “Ram’s Head” muff. In researching and designing this pedal I have done the best job possible to create a pedal that will plaster a smile
on your face every time you plug it in.
The process of creating The Caprid: Using vintage units as models I discovered something: Not all Ram’s Head muffs sound good! Unknown to some, there were up to four
different circuits housed inside the famous RH enclosure and most muff freaks agree there are good ones and not-so-good ones.
One thing I discovered though is that each of them had specific elements that were particularly pleasing and contributed to the smooth, girthy, sustain machine-reputation that the
pedal is known for.
So a decision was made: Rather than focusing on one particular unit I decided to combine these elements to create the best genetically altered ram that I could.
At first, I was determined to hunt down what I thought would be an amazing transistor to use for the Caprid. The much sought after 2N5133. After searching and digging I was able to
track down a big bag of 2N5133 trannies. These were not cheap, I must say. Nearly $1000.00 later we began to pop them into the protos excited to hear these genuine NOS
transistors. But guess what? They really didn’t sound that good. They looked very cool, didn’t sound horrible, and I would have loved to advertise our pedals as containing these lovely
little black top, gold legged beauties, but... They sounded ok at best and were very noisy. So, much like our Tall Font Russian and BOW I took a big pile o’ transistors of different
makes and models, mixed and matched, mixed some more, matched some more, and eventually came up with what I feel is a fantastic combo to occupy the Caprid circuit.
Here is the technical explanation of the resulting sound:
This pedal sounds SICK! Big, bold, girthy, and many other adjectives most males would also like to have used when describing parts of their anatomy.
The PCB (Printed Circuit Board):
After deciding to use the huge footprint, full-size enclosure like the originals, I decided to take it one step further and remake the old “3003” circuit board traces. This circuit board is
needlessly way to big, has wide copper traces that really don’t need to be that big, and is an incredibly inefficient use of space on a PCB but, technically speaking again, it’s really cool!
Just a comely added touch that I decided to do when going with the big metal box. No, IMO it doesn’t make it sound any better, but it is a nice detail I was able to add to this project
to better replicate the original units.
Some quirks:
• “My tone knob is working backwards! Why?” This is how the original units were configured so I chose to keep it that way.
• “My pedal is kinda noisy!” No your pedal isn’t broken. Trust me, it’s much quieter than the originals but does have a bit more noise than most modern-day muffs.
This is due to the circuit design, different configuration in the clipping sections, and old-style “brownie” 1/2 watt carbon composition resistors used. Embrace the noise!
• “An on/off switch?” Yes! Pretty cool huh? If you choose to use a battery with your Caprid this means you don’t have to unplug the input jack in order to keep the
pedal from killing your battery when not in use. Just flip the switch to “off” and you’re good to go until the next jam!
I truly hope you enjoy this pedal as much as I enjoyed designing and creating it. Also don’t forget, you’ve got a lifetime warranty if any problems should arise. This covers just about
any injury your Caprid may encounter barring being run over by a truck. Even then we may consider it if you have a cool story to accompany the repair.
Thanks!
___________________________________________________________________
Matthew Holl
Owner, Creator, Pedal Guy
Wren and Cuff