Soviet Drive – PE 12

Project overview

Inspired by the Overdrive Electronika PE-12, a later (post-communist) Russian overdrive stompbox with interesting features.

This extremely rare vintage pedal allows you to gradually change the level of distortion of a signal and smoothly pass from effect “Overdrive” to effect “Distortion”; the question is where exactly is the point that one effect becomes the other.

Introduction

Through the scanned copy of a manual that came with the schematics, we were able to assemble the first and only board now accessible to the DIY community.

On the first try, we knew we made the right choice by recovering this piece of history; Soviet Drive – PE 12 sounds like a thick, saturated fuzz, really in your-face-tone; I just love it.

This thing is the perfectly unusual Soviet distortion for your collection! If you are interested in similar projects from the Soviet era, I recommend you check the Soviet Drive, Soviet Phase, and Slava Ukraine. We have more boards from this period coming soon, so stay tuned!

Controls

Potentiometers 

• Gain
• Color
• Level
• Cut

For any technical questions regarding this build don’t forget to check out our Facebook Group and our forum at Free Stomp Boxes.

Soviet Drive PE 12 – Building Docs

Soviet Drive PE 12 – Drilling template