USER’S GUIDE
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Dirty Little Secret MkII! If you're reading this, you obviously wanna bring the rawk! We're
here to help you on your quest!
The Dirty Little Secret MkII (DLS MkII) was designed to be the secret weapon in your tone arsenal. Want
to get cranked amp tones at bedroom rocker levels? Playing gigs but have to use whatever amp is
provided as the backline? Like your clean amp sound but don't care for its overdrive channel? Enter the
Dirty Little Secret!
The DLS MkII is an overdrive pedal designed to bring you the sound and response of a '70s-era Marshall
amplier. It, like other pedals in our "amp drive" range of pedals, is designed to be a "foundation" overdrive pedal - it is your "always on" pedal that forms the core of your guitar sound which you can enhance
and embellish by adding boosters, fuzzes, lters, and other overdrives in front of it - just like you would in
front of a real amp.
QUICK START GUIDE
Plug it in, turn the knobs till it sounds killer, and rock out! That might be all you need to know, but let's go ahead
and check it out a bit further....
First, set your amp to a clean setting that sounds good. If you're playing into a Fender style amp, try setting the Vol
somewhere between 2-4, Treble - 6, Bass - 3, and Middle (if you have it) to 6.
Now plug your guitar straight into the DLS MkII and then into your amp. Start o by setting the Presence and
Fullness knobs to their minimum setting (full CCW). Go ahead and crank the Pre-Amp control to full and the
Master control around noon or so. Play some licks and ris and you'll hear a great full-bodied midrange sound.
Now add a bit of Presence as needed and use the Fullness control to bring up the "cab thump" frequencies. Now
try turning the volume knob on your guitar down - with medium to low output pickups, you'll be able to get
perfectly clean sparkly tones even with the DLS MkII's Pre-Amp control cranked! You can leave it on all night and
get cleans by turning your guitar down, and get really sustainy, overdriven sounds by hitting the DLS MkII with
your favorite fuzz, booster, or overdrive (such as a tube screamer type pedal).
CONTROLS
Master
to just above unity volume for best results (unity volume is when the pedal is
about the same volume on as it is o ). With the pedal running at 9 volts,
unity is usuallyaround 1-2 o'clock. At 18 volts, around 11-12 o-clock.
This controls the output volume level. Normally you would set this
Pre-Amp This is your gain control. Turn it up for more overdrive, down for
less. It incorporates a brightness preserving circuit that retains clarity as you
turn the gain down. You'll nd that you'll need less on the Presence control
when the Pre-Amp control is set lower.
Presence This controls the high treble frequencies. It has been carefully
voiced to give you useful tones from minimum all the way to maximum,
unlike some other pedals where the tone controls only have a narrow sweet
spot. The best way to utilize this control is to start at minimum and then turn
it up until you get the amount of presence you need to cut through the band.
Fullness This controls the low, "cab thump" frequencies. You can really
hear it's eect when doing palm-muted chunky chords. Just like the Presence control, start with this control at minimum and then bring it up until
you get the desired amount of thump or fullness for your rig and playing
style.
The controls ARE interactive so denitely spend time getting to know them! For example, with the Pre-Amp set
high, you'll nd you need less Fullness and maybe more Presence. With a low setting on the Pre-Amp knob, you
might want to turn the Presence down and the Fullness up (this holds true for real tube amps too!). Adjust the
Master control for the desired output level after you've dialed in the other controls.
STACKING WITH OTHER PEDALS
The Dirty Little Secret MkII was specically designed to combine well with other pedals. This section gives you
ideas on how to incorporate it into your rig.
Think of the DLS MkII as your virtual pre-amp. And let's think of your actual guitar amp as your "power amp". With
that in mind, what types of pedals do most guitarists normally plug into the front of their amp? "All Pedals!" is the
quick answer. But some types of pedals might work better in the eects loop of the amp or even fed from the amp
mic. So, pedals that you would normally plug in front of an amp, you'd plug in front of the DLS MkII. Pedals that
you might prefer to run in the "eects loop" would go between the DLS MkII and your amp. Confused? Let's try an
example....
Guitar -> wah -> treble booster -> fuzz -> phaser -> DLS MkII -> delay -> reverb -> amp.
In this example, the treble booster and fuzz is overdriving the DLS MkII, just like you would use these pedals into
an actual cranked Marshall. The delay and reverb is between the DLS MkII and the amp, which is our virtual "eects
loop". The delay and reverb after the DLS MkII and into your amp (which is set clean), remain clear instead of being
distorted and smeared.
Getting more gain:
The DLS MkII was designed to have a gain range of somewhere between plexi levels up to 800 levels. And just like
the real amps and most of the classic recorded sounds, you'd boost it by plugging in some sort of dirt box in front
of it. A Rangemaster "treble-booster" style pedal is great in front of the DLS MkII. It tightens up the sound and
makes it explode with rich harmonics! (spam alert: Check out the Catalinbread Naga Viper booster which was
made to go with all our amp drives!) Fuzzes and TS-style overdrives sound great in front of the DLS MkII too! Basically, most dirt pedals will be the best plugged in front of the DLS MkII. One exception to this is that you may want
a clean boost pedal after the DLS MkII to bring up the volume level of your entire sound (provided that your guitar
amp is still has clean headroom left!).
Having said all this, there are no absolute rules! Experiment to nd your own sound!
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AMPLIFIERS
Generally speaking, the DLS MkII works best into a tube guitar amp set relatively clean and neutral. However, it
can work great to further overdrive an amp that is already overdriven as well, although this was not its design
intention.
POWER SUPPLY
You can power your DLS MkII with any quality power supply designed for use with eects pedals. The output
should be a negative tip DC from 9 to 18 volts.
If you want more volume, headroom, and percussive attack, try running an 18 volt power supply. A 9 volt power
supply will have a slightly softer sound that saturates more easily - it's sort of like the dierence between a 50
watt and 100 watt amp!
You can also try a battery that is slightly drained to 8 volts or so to get an even softer sound that is great for late
night jam sessions when you don't want to wake anyone up!
18 volts is great for playing with the band. You'll get great attack and clarity with power to cut through the mix.
We encourage to to try these dierent powering options to see what you like the best!
left intentionally black.
to drain your toner cartridge.
DESIGNER'S NOTES
Why a MkII? Well, we've learned a lot since we introduced the original Dirty Little Secret in early 2009! Through
our other development eorts we've picked up a bunch of new ideas and maybe, just maybe, our ears have
gotten even sharper. (Although I'm not sure how that could be given all the pummeling the old ears have been
subjected to in the past few years of pedal designing!)
So I volunteered to try to make a better wheel.
I started from a completely blank slate while still utilizing the same all-discrete jFET building blocks.
My design goals were:
- Get even better harmonic overdrive tones, sounding and responding even more like a real cranked amp
- Better control over the EQ, especially the low "cab thump" frequencies
- Better range of gain with a higher maximum gain setting while still getting great medium gain sounds
- Better clean-up from the guitar's volume knob
- Better response when boosted by another pedal
- Better playing feel or "touch responsiveness"
I'm a big Marshall fan. I own several old Marshalls
and have played, listened to, and thought about
this sound for a while now. But old Marshalls are
glorious and LOUD... and we can't always be loud
even though we want that sound. In a lot of playing situations, I've had to use a Fender combo
amp in order to keep the decibel levels down. So
the idea of a pedal that can give me a similar
response at a lower volume level was very compelling to me. I've worked on my Marshalls and
know the schematic like the back of my hand
(probably better, I never stare at the back of my
hand).
The resulting circuit is a combination of key circuit
elements from the actual Marshall pre-amp,
tuned for a jFET pedal format in conjunction with
very careful parts selection. Every capacitor and
resistor in the circuit was carefully scrutinized not
only by value but by type to get the desired end
result. A lot of time was spent tuning the circuit to
stack well with other pedals, especially other gain
pedals pushing the DLS MkII.
I hope your Dirty Little Secret MkII brings you
many years of rock and roll glory!
- Howard Gee, Catalinbread
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