Toenail distorted boost

Overview
Toenail is inspired by the one of the most hated and misunderstood pedals of all time, the lowly Boss Metal Zone MT-2.

Why would I work on a design based on that circuit? Simply – because it rules as a boost, but has so many shortcomings about it. Don’t believe me that the MT-2 is one of the best boosts ever? Just ask Kirk Windstein, Pat O’Brien, Sammy Duet, Rob Barrett, Scott Hull, Phil Fasciana, Brent McCarthy, and many, many others.

Rather than simmering down its convoluted circuit, I worked over a year to make the most of what works great and improve what doesn’t. I additionally put in extra care to reduce the noise floor, which was instrumental in improving the overall high frequency texture of Toenail

Controls
LEVEL - this is just the volume control for the pedal.

VOICE – 3-way selector to shift the sound and feel of the pedal. Far left is more compressed, leaner, and works great for Crowbar-type tones. Far right is slightly less compressed, bigger, and inspired by the incredible tones of Pat O’Brien-era Cannibal Corpse. Center is subtly different from the right position, but opens the bottom slightly more and reduces the compression when using extremely high output pickups.

Construction and connections
I experimented extensively with component selection to maximize the feel and sound I was searching for. I ended up with a combination of operational amplifiers, precision metal film resistors, WIMA polyester film caps, Lumberg audio and DC jacks, tight tolerance MLCC caps, and long-life Wurth Electrik electrolytic capacitors. It also uses sealed pots, which help keep the pots from getting noisy from dust or humidity on the carbon track.