The History Of The War Pig

The First Ever War Pig Circa 2018!

A little history about us and what led to the creation of the war pig. February 2018 my life took a turn when I broke my neck. This caused me to pick up the guitar by way of physio for my now nerve damaged left hand. I played guitar on and off since I was 15 but never to any standard, I was a grunge era kid and our band was strictly noise!! 

Being a huge Iommi fan, I wanted that distinct Sabbath Sound, little research bought me to the Rangemaster, however, being a little short of the £2000/£3000 price tag, I was inspired to build my own as a bit of a project and to keep my brain busy. 

In The Beginning

So I set off on what would become an obsessive journey to pinpoint the perfect Rangemaster.

First evolution was a 100% faithful copy of the original schematic. Upon plugging in I was taken aback by the level of noise with the amp cranked this was consistent with original versions I’d heard.  I realised to get what I wanted I would need to make some changes /additions to control the noise, I decided to set myself some basic rules for these alterations.

1. Minimal or preferably no additions in the signal path
2. No more than 5 additional components (no clever electronic thought to this figure just random)
3. Keep any additions in line with what would have been available in 1966

Old Time Thinking 

I tried to put my mindset into that of a builder in 1960s, and how faced with this box of noise I would approach it.

After much research and prototyping I got there, sounds easy! In reality this was best part of 12 months late night reading and long hours at my bench (at the time our dining table) the hours must have gone into the 1000s. I’ve found over the years the simpler the circuit the harder any tweaks are without changing its character. The changes started small and got smaller, incremental tweaks the test was plugging it in and listening, if the addition had in my opinion altered the core sound then it would be removed and so it went on. 

My own background was in electrics and electronics I installed electric gates and roller shutters so had some rudimentary electronic knowledge but by no means an expert. I believe that it was this naivety that was the key to my success, I’ve often heard other boutique builders saying the same the holes in knowledge are filled in by my ears rather than complex often more logical electronic reasoning.  

So once I’d settled on the small additions to control the noise, next on the addenda was the holy metal grail of rangemaster modifications, the mythical Iommi modifications.

I now know a little more than I did at the time thanks to my friendship with Mike Clement RIP but back then I was a slave to Google.

 

 The anatomy of the first ever working War Pig!

Iommi Odyssey

To anyone in the sphere of the Sabbath sound, the story of the Rangemaster will be to some extent known, it’s well documented that Tony loved the Rangemaster and that his Rangemaster was modified by some chap in Scotland circa 1967, it’s also well known that early 1980s the pedal was discarded by someone in LA. The rest is as I now know, myth and legend. 

Among builders and enthusiasts there is a sort of unwritten assumption that such a huge figure with such a support network would have had the modifications reverse engineered and documented, and that somewhere out in the ether there would be record of this.

Early on this, as with most of the pedal community, I believed was the case, that somewhere out there was paragraph or soundbite detailing the alterations. I spent hours and hours scouring interviews and the internet to find a verifiable mention of what the modifications actually were. But in all cases the “I knew the guy ….” Stories were all nonsense often spawned by each other (By this time I was 99% happy that my War Pig sounded pretty close)

It was only after becoming friends with Mike Clement that I was able to get a definitive story, along with a little more detail about its demise. I was shocked to find there was no big secret hidden from all but an inner circle. The Iommi Rangemaster was never reverse engineered to Mike or Tony’s knowledge and when it was lost, its secret went with it.

After a further tweak using Mikes ears we settled on what is the current War Pig, next phase was to build a vintage correct version down to the smallest electronic detail.

So now my sleepless nights were not spent researching and tweaking they were spent trying to find components most notably the OC44 black glass transistors and the odd Yellow Jacket if I got lucky. 

By this time I had been selling the pedals to fund the obsession really, but as the Sabbath community started to buy them a few sales turned into a business, and the rest is history. I have now built up a huge collection of vintage components Transistors, resistors, capacitors you name it.