Bionic Pandora

Project overview:

Inspired by the classic Bixonic Expandora, a distortion/fuzz pedal beloved by many guitarists and bands such as Billy Gibbons, Joe Satriani, Megadeth, and Bootsy Collins. 

Bionic Pandora sets free a unique but totally useful character of overdrive, crunch, and distortion. The only downside is that we cannot guarantee that this thing won’t become self-aware.

Introduction

A few months ago, I purchased one of the earliest versions of the Bixonic Expandora. They say that some boxes are not meant to be opened, but I couldn’t resist my curiosity and had to take a peek inside that tuna-can-like enclosure. By doing that, I may have released serious sustaining, saturated tones destined to send humankind into sonic oblivion!

Our board is inspired by one of the earliest versions of the Bixonic Expandora, the Expandora II. The original pedal was loved but had its drawbacks, such as having its DIP switches inside. It was also a little thin-sounding. 

Our Bionic Pandora, on the contrary, has more tone control and better low-end response due to the change from two internal dip switches for external toggles, making it way easier to dial your favorite settings. It also has an increased low-frequency response that gives the unit added power and depth. 

These new features provide the sustaining, saturated tones of the original Expandora without sacrificing the sonic transparency and dynamic responsiveness that made the EXP-2000 famous.

Controls

Potentiometers

• Gain
• Level
• Tone

Switches

• SW1
• SW2

For further analysis on this circuit, take a look at this thread on Free Stomp Boxes and Diystompboxes forums.

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

Bionic Pandora 1v0 – Building Docs

Bionic Pandora – Drilling template