This is a report on my build of the Paul Trombetta Mini-Bone (on PedalPCB as the Trumpeter, but I laid out my own PCB for this build). It’s one of my favorites.

Inspiration

This is one of the most obvious names for a pedal, since I saw the PPCB “Trumpeter” name - so why not go with the Trumpeter Swan? These are huge birds, and they’re one of the big migratory birds that visits the PNW in the winter (these, Tundra Swans and Snow Geese are the big three that arrive in tens of thousands in the Skagit Valley, between the Canadian border and Seattle). It’s a real treat to see so many of these huge birds.

I knew I had to go with a jazz theme, and I really wanted to have a swan playing trumpet - I was picturing the swan on stage in a smokey nightclub. In the end, this didn’t work out. It’s just really hard to convincingly make a swan look like it’s playing a trumpet. So instead, I went with a jazz look - trying to echo the style of Saul Bass 60s/70s jazz or Hitchcock movie posters. There’s one problem, I wasn’t sure about the colors of the knobs and enclosure - part of the background needs to be slightly lighter to contrast better with the enclosure, and if the orange in the text was lighter it would match the knobs. Maybe I’ll make another with the colors tweaked…

Still, I’m really happy with the way this turned out.

The Build

I built the PPCB version of this pedal first, and really liked it (the Trumpeter). Unfortunately, the PPCB version is unusual, I think it must have been an early layout, and the controls are really odd, stacked in 3 rows. That covered too much of the enclosure for me. Luckily this is a very simple pedal, and it was easy enough to lay out a PCB with controls in the more typical 2-row 6-hole layout of other PPCB layouts.

These were really easy builds, not many parts, that worked right away.

The Pedal

I’m a sucker for pedals that imitate other instruments, and this guy really does have the tone of a raspy trumpet - especially around the 12th fret on the G/B strings. I had a blast playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” after I first built this.

It’s not a one-trick pony, though. It only sounds like a trumpet with the “Bone” turned up. With other settings, it’s a pretty good fuzz on its own, so it doesn’t just hog a space on the pedalboard.

Firsts

• 🐟 First Saul Bass-inspired pedal

Ratings

• Build: 5/5 🌟
• Pedal: 5/5 🌟