This is a report on my build on the Way Huge Purple Platypus overdrive, a rather obscure pedal that I don’t think was widely made. I was poking around on Dirtbox Layouts or somewhere and found the schematic. I like some of the other Way Huge pedals so I figured I’d try building this one. I think it’s my favorite “simple” octave drive/fuzz right now (the Octarock is my favorite overall).

Inspiration

I’m happy with my inspiration and design. I was thinking about what would be a good play on the Purple Platypus and went with alliteration/color and the “weird animal” theme, rather than some kind of name or purple reference. Kiwis are pretty strange flightless birds, although I suppose they don’t match up with the overall weirdness of platypodes. While I have visited NZ, I wasn’t lucky enough to see a kiwi. I suppose I need to go back! Kicking around ideas, “Crimson Kiwi” just came to me. I also like the NZ/Australia connection for the two.

When I started thinking about the theme and a bright red bird, for some reason I recalled the OpenBSD Daemon mascot that I used to see on Slashdot and my dad’s Linux computer magazines when I was a kid - a more innocent and wide-open world of technology that feels so different from the tech industry today:

So I figured I would include the trident as a throwback to that. To my knowledge, this is the only OpenBSD-themed guitar pedal, but I don’t exactly have an encyclopedic knowledge to draw on.

I’m quite happy with the design. I still feel like something is missing, but the whole thing feels very crisp and professional. The pedal is UV printed on a Tayda matte white enclosure (these were out of stock on the site, but emailing Tayda they said they’d be back and to place the order so I did, it just took about a month to arrive).

The Build

I built this with my own PCB. It worked well, no problems. I decided to go all-in on the red coloring for components and wiring.. This is one of my recent “fancy” changes. I realized that my older functional wire color-coding wasn’t cutting it aesthetically (where I’d have appropriate colors for positive/negative and to distinguish input/output). I don’t have precise 90-degree wire bends though :).

The pedal is a CD4049 octave overdrive with two germanium diodes.

I have no complaints and it’s refreshing having a two-knob layout for a change.

The Pedal

I really like this pedal! I think it occupies a pretty neat slot in the pedal spectrum. I find that I can get a pronounced octave effect across the whole neck, whereas the green ringer-style fuzzes have a strong octave at the twelfth fret that falls off as you go lower. The overdrive/fuzz sound is pretty unruly as well. As mentioned in the intro I think if you want a single fuzz pedal there are better options, but I think this will stay on my board for a while and find its way back. Probably the closest sound I can think of is some of the Jack White-style solos.

I’d recommend it :).

Firsts

• 👺First OpenBSD-themed guitar pedal
• 🌈First whimsical bird coloration

Build rating: 5/5 ⭐

Pedal rating: 5/5⭐