Carlin is a Swedish guitar pedal brand from the 70's. Carlin made three types of pedals. Most famous are the phaser in a wah-style enclosure and the compressor/fuzz. I (who run moody sounds) met Nils Olof Carlin and he encouraged me to reissue his pedals. This is an assembled and ready to use clone of the Carlin Compressor, worked out with mr Carlin, who designed it in the 70's. Bands that made frequent use of this pedal are Kaipa, Samla Mammas Manna and Peps Person.  

"I borrowed a Carlin Compressor and it is one of the best pedals I have used. It has got to be more known" - Reine Fiske

The special detail with the Carlin Compressor is that you can mix in overdrive in the sound. This is because the pedal has, apart from the Sustain and Volume knobs, one called “Dist”. If Dist is turned down all the way you have a completely clean tone with a pretty mild and natural sounding compression. If you turn up Dist you will find a sound that is perfect for solos

https://youtu.be/CiobZwTaZLw.

– Is the clone really a clone?
– I followed the schematics Nils Olof gave to me and we AB tested the original with the clone and Carlin ok’ed it. Update 2023 - I changed the 2N5457 FET for the nowadays more reliable 2SK30A. I added a 100pF cap to collector base on the output transistor to reduce noise. I added a 1M pull down resistor to the input cap. The clone differs some on the outside, see below. The reasons why we didn’t copy everything are mainly that it has become some standard to use true bypass and to have the input jack to the right. The original enclosure was also a bit tricky to remake. Here are the differences between the clone and the original.

* the clone has true bypass – the bypass signal passes a buffer, original.
* the clone has the input jack on the right side of the box – the original has input on the left.
* the clone has a LED to indicate effects mode – the original has no LED.
* the clone is powered with 9v power supply or battery – the original is powered with a 9v battery only.
* the clone is built in a red powder coated 1590BB box – the original box is a little bigger.

If you want to dig some more into the sound of this pedal, without going all the way and build the kit, there is a trimpot on the board that you can turn slightly to tweak the sound. It sets the ranges for Dist and Sustain. We set it in a positon that makes the pedal sound best to our ears. You can fine tune it to go either up or down in Dist / Sustain.

The logo is a screen printed metal plate, fastened with two screws in the box. True Bypass. Powered with 9V power supply. This pedal is hand made in Sweden. Power supply is not included.

The pedal is powered with a regular 9V power supply (not included). Use the polarity "center negative" (the most common one).

The Price includes international shipping!