Kismet Stitch - 4-knob Harmonic Percolator

If you're not familiar with the Harmonic Percolator, where have you been? Such a beautiful rare and sought-after box of confusion. Is it OD? Is it distortion? Truth is the Harmonic Percolator has a pretty unique tone of its own. Here we have a 'boutique' take on this delightful circuit, offering a little more tweakability than the stock circuit. This comes in the shape of a 'body' control which thickens things up, and a diode control which allow you to adjust the amount of clipping going on.

Available in two distinct flavours - Germanium, which is very similar to the original HP, or Silicon which offers more hard-edged tones. The second is a little cheaper as it doesn't contain any 'mojo', but it's just as much fun.

We're also giving you an extra option on the Germanium kit - so much to choose from! The boutique box uses a Russian 1T308A Germanium transistor which does a splendid job. These sit in the gain range of 50-75 hFE. We have a stash of gold-legged 2N404 which you'd find in the original pedals. These clock in at 30-40 hFE and sound fantastic. Totally up to you. There's a slight premium for the latter, but they're like gold dust nowadays, and once these are gone that's it. The PCB has been designed to take multiple pinout configurations for Q1, so no leg bending is required no matter what you choose.

The kit is supplied with vertical-mount pots which have round shafts, so you'll need set-screw fitting knobs. There's plenty of space going on in the enclosure, so we've added the option for a top-mounted DC socket if you prefer that to the usual side-mount.

If you want the PCB without parts there's a link for that at the bottom of the page.

Partial kit: PCB, all board-mounted components), pots.

Full kit: As above, plus footswitch and appropriate daughterboard/components for your selected bypass type (see Downloads section for details of those), jack sockets, DC socket, battery snap, hook-up wire, LED.

Enclosure (pre-drilled) is available as an option with full kits, and will not take a battery. Knobs are not included.

Builds are only available with full kits including enclosure. Please choose appropriate knobs.

Inspired by: Karma Suture

Difficulty: Easy

PCB size: 50 x 33mm

Knobs required: 4

Enclosure: 1590B

Direct-Connect compatible (4-way)

Download the INSTRUCTION PDF