Alpha Dog

The Alpha Dog by VFE is a vintage distortion pedal that combines the warmth and sag of tube saturation with the teeth of a modern distortion pedal. Derived from the classic Rat distortion pedal, the Alpha Dog expands its tone options by adding VFE's unique HCC circuitry. The pedal offers several excellent tweaks to expand upon the tonal range of distortion available.

The Alpha Dog features the following controls:
- LEVEL: A passive attenuator for output volume control.
- FILTER: A simple treble cut filter for adjusting the tone.
- GAIN: Sets the gain of the LM308N op amp, providing a smooth sweep from light-gain overdrive to raging fuzz-stortion.
- FAT: Boosts gain and bottom end, adding a full-range gain boost for a thick modern drive tone.
- SOFT: Utilizes Variable HCC circuitry to set the drive character of the op amp, offering options for asymmetrical germanium sweetening or dynamic, smooth mosfet drive.
- HARD: Uses Variable HCC circuitry to set the drive character of the post- gain stage, providing options for dynamic twin stacked silicon distortion or vintage distortion bite with compression and sustain.

The pedal is built on the LM308N chip and offers a range of harmonics and clipping characteristics. The Alpha Dog is a single supply design, omitting the voltage inverter and associated components from the Switch Board.

The pedal's enclosure dimensions are 2.37"W x 4.37"L x 1.16"H (60 x 111 x 29mm) with knobs and jacks, and it can be powered with a 9V up to 18V power supply.

For detailed technical specifications, including schematics, Eagle files, Gerber files, assembly files, and templates, a digital download of a ZIP file with all the documentation needed to build the Alpha Dog is available for purchase from the manufacturer's website.