Product Overview
From the manufacturer:
Overview
The Cliffhanger is based on the Hermida® Dover Drive™ which is marketed as “spiritual” Chandler® Tube Driver™ in a discrete package. This might be a bit of a stretch since the two circuits have almost nothing in common. But, that doesn’t mean the DD is not a great sounding hybrid overdrive. Combining a silicon fuzz in front of a Zendrive™ circuit does produce delicious tones and gets somewhat into that Gilmour/EJ territory. The thing that strikes me about the design
is the use of PNP transistors on the front end of the circuit. I’m curious as to why that approach was used over the typical NPN version of a Fuzz Face. It’s not because the circuit uses esoteric transistors for the fuzz - they are plain ‘ol 2n3906. Possibly it was done to include the option for germanium transistors at some point. AFAIK, there are no DD with this option.
In any case, I’ve taken a lot of liberties with the Cliffhanger. All the DD elements are there but I’ve done a few mods on the front end, power section and put in some extra tweaking controls that I think will appeal to DIY’ers.
Controls
• FUZZ: Sets the fuzz amount before the overdrive circuit. This control may produce some zipper noise when turned and it’s normal (most likely from the DC across the pot).
• COMP: Alters the bias of Q3. When turned CW compression will increase to squash the fuzz all the way into a buzzing bee.
• PRE: This trimmer sets the fuzz output volume before the overdrive circuit. Tweak to taste.
• VOICE: This trimmer adds the “Voice” control on the Zen Drive. As it is turned CW the overdrive circuit will clip lower end frequencies while reducing the total gain. Its fairly limited in use.
• TONE: A simple low pass filter directly after the overdrive clipping stage.
• VOL - Effect output level.
• S/M: Left (stock): Dover Drive™. Right (modded): adds an additional input gain stage for a brighter and more mids-focused tone. This also translates very well when rolling off the guitar volume
