The Heisenberg Molecular Overdrive
Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 4:15 pm*trumpets and drum rolls and champagne*
Please allow myself to introduce The Heisenberg Molecular Overdrive!
The world's first commercially available product to contain a molecular junction! (You can read here for more back-story and info about MJs: http://ilovefuzz.com/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=43705)
Here's Dr. Adam Bergren's description of them:
Molecular electronics is a field of science that merges concepts from chemistry, physics, materials science, electronics engineering, and even biology. The central goal of research in molecular electronics is to understand how electrons move across molecular distance scales. Many typical small molecules are around 1 nm in length, which is 1 billionth of a meter. At these distance scales, electron conduction can occur via quantum mechanical tunneling and other, novel, nanoscale mechanisms.
A molecular junction is a large area electronic device that uses nanoscale layers of molecules sandwiched between two conductive contacts. The distance between the two conductors in a molecular junction is in the range of molecular dimensions, generally 1-20 nm. A molecular junction contains different materials than “normal” semiconductor-based electronic devices. In addition, the molecular junction’s electronic properties are determined by nanoscale electron transport mechanisms. These two factors cause differences in performance of clipping circuits that utilize molecular junctions for clipping in place of conventional diodes.
The Heisenberg is a low gain to medium gain overdrive pedal that has 3 simple single gain stages to show off the sound of the MJs. The stages go from low gain to high gain, the FET stage being like a gritty boost, the NPN transistor stage is more fuzz oriented and a little higher gain, and the op-amp stage is more distortion oriented, the widest gain range of the three stages. The gain stages share an active treble control and a master volume.
More pics! (The finish is called Ultra Black Chrome, it's a shiny dark grey that my pics don't do justice to)
This first round of the Heisenberg is a limited release, there's only about 130 of them available and they contain the whole world's supply of molecular junctions, we got 'em all here! Hopefully we'll all get to make more in 2016 and plans are in place to make that happen but I don't know when that might be, several months at least.
Here's the instruction manual for your perusal:
Here's JustNick's demo video:
Here's what you get in the box:
The USB flash drive has the instruction manual on it, lots of pics of molecular junctions, and lots of scientific .pdfs for you to read including an article published in The Journal of Physics.
Yesterday we shipped all the Heiseys to our dealers, they're all en route now and will start arriving in stores over the next week. Here's a list of the stores that are receiving them, ordered by quantity received.
Analogue Haven - USA
Axe And You Shall Receive - Canada
Rogue Guitar Shop - USA
Leprechaun FX - Canada
Deluxe Guitars - Australia
Noise Supply - Canada
Prymaxe Vintage - USA
Joe's Pedals - UK
Gear Orphanage - USA
Coast Sonic - USA
Acoustic Music Shop - Canada
Effekt Boutique - Germany
Tone Factor - USA
Guitars Rebellion - France
Montreux Guitars - Japan
Pedal Genie - USA
Cream City Music - USA
Perfect Circuit - USA
Fuzz Monster - Denmark
Effektpedaler - Denmark
MusicToyz - USA
The Heisenberg has a retail price of $399. You guys know I'm not usually one for $300+ overdrive pedals but there's special circumstances here. The molecular junctions are very rare and meticulously hand-crafted by scientists and engineers at the NINT lab, they ain't cheap, plus there's a royalty to be paid for each one. The pedal uses premium components and parts, really top notch stuff like 4 layer pcb with dual ground planes, WIMA film caps, Kemet Golden Max ceramic caps, Nichicon Muse electrolytic caps, Yageo metal film resistors, Mill-Max machined sockets, Switchcraft enclosed jacks, Alpha pots, Copal enclosed trimmers, Lorlin rotary switch, Amphenol SIM holders, Panasonic relay. The clear back plates are from a Canadian manufacturer called The Tone God and they were a bit of a labour of love. There's hundreds of hours of work in this project and in these builds, it's the best darn overdrive pedal I can make.
Thanks very much for checking it out and for being a part of this project and journey! It's been just over 2 years since Dr. Adam first contacted me about molecular junctions and I'm still blown away to be part of this. I hope you guys get a kick out of the pedal!
Please allow myself to introduce The Heisenberg Molecular Overdrive!
The world's first commercially available product to contain a molecular junction! (You can read here for more back-story and info about MJs: http://ilovefuzz.com/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=43705)
Here's Dr. Adam Bergren's description of them:
Molecular electronics is a field of science that merges concepts from chemistry, physics, materials science, electronics engineering, and even biology. The central goal of research in molecular electronics is to understand how electrons move across molecular distance scales. Many typical small molecules are around 1 nm in length, which is 1 billionth of a meter. At these distance scales, electron conduction can occur via quantum mechanical tunneling and other, novel, nanoscale mechanisms.
A molecular junction is a large area electronic device that uses nanoscale layers of molecules sandwiched between two conductive contacts. The distance between the two conductors in a molecular junction is in the range of molecular dimensions, generally 1-20 nm. A molecular junction contains different materials than “normal” semiconductor-based electronic devices. In addition, the molecular junction’s electronic properties are determined by nanoscale electron transport mechanisms. These two factors cause differences in performance of clipping circuits that utilize molecular junctions for clipping in place of conventional diodes.
The Heisenberg is a low gain to medium gain overdrive pedal that has 3 simple single gain stages to show off the sound of the MJs. The stages go from low gain to high gain, the FET stage being like a gritty boost, the NPN transistor stage is more fuzz oriented and a little higher gain, and the op-amp stage is more distortion oriented, the widest gain range of the three stages. The gain stages share an active treble control and a master volume.
More pics! (The finish is called Ultra Black Chrome, it's a shiny dark grey that my pics don't do justice to)
This first round of the Heisenberg is a limited release, there's only about 130 of them available and they contain the whole world's supply of molecular junctions, we got 'em all here! Hopefully we'll all get to make more in 2016 and plans are in place to make that happen but I don't know when that might be, several months at least.
Here's the instruction manual for your perusal:
Dr. Scientist The Heisenberg Molecular Overdrive Manual.pdf- (70.04 KiB) Downloaded 761 times
Here's JustNick's demo video:
Here's what you get in the box:
The USB flash drive has the instruction manual on it, lots of pics of molecular junctions, and lots of scientific .pdfs for you to read including an article published in The Journal of Physics.
Yesterday we shipped all the Heiseys to our dealers, they're all en route now and will start arriving in stores over the next week. Here's a list of the stores that are receiving them, ordered by quantity received.
Analogue Haven - USA
Axe And You Shall Receive - Canada
Rogue Guitar Shop - USA
Leprechaun FX - Canada
Deluxe Guitars - Australia
Noise Supply - Canada
Prymaxe Vintage - USA
Joe's Pedals - UK
Gear Orphanage - USA
Coast Sonic - USA
Acoustic Music Shop - Canada
Effekt Boutique - Germany
Tone Factor - USA
Guitars Rebellion - France
Montreux Guitars - Japan
Pedal Genie - USA
Cream City Music - USA
Perfect Circuit - USA
Fuzz Monster - Denmark
Effektpedaler - Denmark
MusicToyz - USA
The Heisenberg has a retail price of $399. You guys know I'm not usually one for $300+ overdrive pedals but there's special circumstances here. The molecular junctions are very rare and meticulously hand-crafted by scientists and engineers at the NINT lab, they ain't cheap, plus there's a royalty to be paid for each one. The pedal uses premium components and parts, really top notch stuff like 4 layer pcb with dual ground planes, WIMA film caps, Kemet Golden Max ceramic caps, Nichicon Muse electrolytic caps, Yageo metal film resistors, Mill-Max machined sockets, Switchcraft enclosed jacks, Alpha pots, Copal enclosed trimmers, Lorlin rotary switch, Amphenol SIM holders, Panasonic relay. The clear back plates are from a Canadian manufacturer called The Tone God and they were a bit of a labour of love. There's hundreds of hours of work in this project and in these builds, it's the best darn overdrive pedal I can make.
Thanks very much for checking it out and for being a part of this project and journey! It's been just over 2 years since Dr. Adam first contacted me about molecular junctions and I'm still blown away to be part of this. I hope you guys get a kick out of the pedal!
stoked for you Ryan!
Seriously, I am excited to start playing with this new pedal/technology, and learn how it works best for my music. How about coming up with the first Eurorack module to use a molecular junction next? Right after the Eurorack BitQuest 
