Hero / Guru Pedal

Just got some photos in of a current Hero/Guru dual pedal.

Pretty huh?

Here's the gut shot. Because it should be pretty on the inside too.

The Boards Have Landed

The prototypes of the new PCBs for the Ronsonic Diesel Drive Buffer have arrived. They look good, very good. I'm building them up now and am already planning improvements for the production version.

It's funny you look at a schematic on the screen for months, study and craft the circuit board on screen and on paper for weeks and then you get the thing in your hands and improvements become obvious. The good news is that there are no errors to correct, only improvements in layout and assembly.

The Electric Guru and Hero boards are also in. These are a lot nicer than the original builds. I'll be assembling a couple of single and dual pedals to go off in a couple of Tour Boxes I'm planning. So be ready for the announcement.

The next couple of posts will discuss some of these pedals in a general way, the various types of buffers, history and use of treble boosters and like that. So stay tuned for some pedal geek goodness.

New Circuit Boards On The Way

Big news on several projects.

The big project for the last couple of months has been preparing the new Diesel Drive Buffer for production. This is the monster buffer project that I described previously. The original target price of $100 is now deemed hopeless, too many compromises would be necessary to get there. It would still be a better than typical product, but why do "better" when "awesome" is within reach. This does not use your usual twelve cent transistors or fifty cent ICs; it is all top shelf parts all the way. And this is an application that will reward the investment.

The order has been placed with the board house for prototypes of the new circuit board. They will be here in a couple of weeks and we'll get this thing off the breadboard and onto the pedalboard for some serious workouts. It's very hard to demonstrate a buffer pedal in a recording of video, but I've got a few ideas about how to show what this beast can do.

I am also revisiting a couple of classics. The Hero Overdrive and Electric Guru Treble Booster are also getting new circuit board designs. These boards will both speed production and produce a more reliable pedal. None of the existing pedals have had any circuit related failures, but these will just be that much more robust.

Thanks for checking in, I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

Stuff on eBay

So my buddy sez, "ya gotta put your stuff on eBay."

But I don't like eBay. Not for new products. I dislike the atmosphere. You see more willful ignorance on the part of the sellers than in an entire Gucci of Defense Attorneys. "I don't know much about this so I couldn't test it, but I know these are real collector items." You see old electronics with the power cord cut off, the fuse holder missing, a piece of tape over the power switch with a skull and cross bones drawn in Sharpie over it and the guy goes "it probably just needs a simple repair."

Anyway, that's not fair and just because there's losers and thieves down the road doesn't mean that there isn't plenty of decent stuff and honest sellers. I will still not sell "My" pedals there. But I have got a ton of odds and ends, leftovers, uncollected repairs, oddball parts. It's gotta go somewhere and I'm not interested in cataloging and inventorying everything. So onto eBay they go. There's a link to whatever is current on the left and I'll keep moving stuff until I can make room in the shop and music room.

For today, there's a cute little Green Ringer Clone. It's the tiny little thing you see in my post about rehousings. I made a couple and here's the extra one.

Update from the Bench

Things have been quiet on the blog here lately. Pedal and amp repairs are the priority, I don't get to play when I've got someone's gear setting there on my bench eager to go home and make music.

Tbe Big Bad Buffer with no name is coming along nicely. The design has made it off the breadboard and the prototype PCB layout is coming together. I still need a name for it, was thinking "Diesel Drive" but still looking for ideas. This is a fun project for me since it is one of the few where the published specifications are meaningful to the design. Most of the time with pedals we are torturing and abusing the technology to create interesting sounds. This is one of the few cases where we really want things like low distortion and huge, clean headroom.

On the back burner are the parts and drawings for my recreation of the legendary Roland AP-7 Jet Phaser. If you remember the Isley Brother's song Who's That Lady, you know the sound. It's a combination eight stage (yes, 8 stages, like double Phase 90s) phase shifter with an integrated distortion circuit (the "Jet" part of the name) to push it into a completely new range of sound. This is a remarkably complex device that has never been reissued or reproduced since back in the day. This is one of those things that I wanted and couldn't afford when I was a kid and for the collectors price they sell for now, well it's time for my clone. Here's another example of what this pedal can do by the great Larry Graham and a great wrap up to this post:

Rehousing Pedals, When I Do It, When I Don't

Almost every pedal builder does this at some point. Take a commercial pedal built in a cheesy, oversized enclosure with poor quality controls and jacks and rebuild it with boutique grade components. Usually smaller, but almost always more robust and reliable. Very often the electronic switching and buffering circuits are bypassed or removed as well and the pedal is recreated in a true bypass version.

I've done a few myself and have developed some opinions on the subject. Imagine that, me, with opinions. My experience has been that for simpler, analog pedals the player is better served to have a reproduction built or buying an original. Here's my breakdown on that. A decent rehouse will cost somewhere upward of $75. That plus the cost of the original pedal will cost very nearly as much as simply having most reproductions built. If we take something simple like the Dano French Toast, the cost of a pedal plus the rehouse is about the same as a clone of the Foxx Tone Machine of which it is a copy. And a Transparent OverDrive rehouse is outright silly (and borderline accessory to intellectual property theft) you can just order a Timmy for that money.

Yes, you can find a hobby guy who is just happy to have someone pay for the parts he experiments with. And that is definitely a good thing. Enjoy this hobby. That's what it is for, having fun. But, if you need a professional build quality, or if that pedal breaks down, as all things will, the pro build is going to be far better.

Some rehouses make more sense. Things like the Dano Chicken Salad, that are more complex give the player an option that he might not otherwise have. While a commercial Univibe clone like the MojoVibe (a personal favorite) would be better, it will be about twice the price of the rehouse. So it does let you get your Vibe on at a lower cost than a boutique clone, and sounds better and runs more reliably than the factory pedal.

Here's an example of not rehousing. A friend and regular customer called and asked about having me rehouse a Green Ringer into a foot-toy format for him. Instead, I suggested a scratch build that included some improvements and a much smaller footprint than could ever be possible with a rehouse.


No indicator LED. Thought about it, but things are a bit tight in there and there's never a question whether this little screamer is on. Oh, and this cost the same as just a rehouse.

On the Drawing Board - The Buffer

Got a couple of projects in the works I'd like to talk about a bit.

First, is the new buffer. This is actually a triple buffer designed to go onto a pedal board and fill all the buffer / driver / splitter needs anyone might normally have. The basic idea is, guitar goes in, there's a separate, isolated output for the tuner. This keeps the tuner off the signal path, some tuners are tone suck disasters, even when used in a branch off the signal path. This fixes that problem. There's a buffered output to the pedals, and a return. Then another buffer to drive the line to the amp.

Here's the jacks:
Guitar input
Tuner Out
Buffered Out to pedalboard.
Return from pedalboard.
Buffered Out to amp.
The stomp switch can be internally selected to either mute for tuning or bypass the pedalboard.

Technologically, this thing is a monster. It runs well on 9VDC, and even better at 18, and is safe anywhere up to 24 Volts. It uses some very serious modern IC technology instead of the usual buffers and antique opamps you see in other pedals. The dedicated Tuner Out uses a typical FET buffer stage since we don't really care what the tuner sounds like, we just want to isolate it from the rest of the signal path. Truth be told, you could run the Tuner Out into an amp or pedal and it wouldn't sound any worse than the other buffers on the market.

The design challenge now is developing this pedal to the point that we retain all the features in a compact format. Yes, this all fits in a standard "MXR" type box. And, I'm trying to keep the price under $100! as low as possible, right now we're looking at $129. There are other pedals with similar features, they are larger and vastly more expensive. Oh, except none of them give you the option of having a mute or bypass switch.

Pedal Repair

Among the goods and services I offer is mail-in effects pedal repair. People often feel a bit odd sending their stuff off in the mail so the clearer everybody is about how it all works the better. Like Ben Franklin said there is no contract that a crook won't break, the purpose of a contract is so that honest people can avoid misunderstanding. So this is just trying to make sure that everything is covered and you know what to expect.

Typical effect pedal repairs are done for a flat rate of $50, $55 (shipping has gone up) payable on completion when the pedal is ready to be shipped back and includes parts, labor, shipping and paypal fees. This covers repair, general reconditioning and preventative maintenance. I test the pedal and correct any problems found in addition to the complaint.

If a pedal is in extremely poor condition, has suffered from corrosion or requires exotic or rare components an estimate for the actual repair costs will be prepared and sent by email. This is not common, but does happen. I haven't had to send an estimate over $100 for a pedal yet. If an estimate is declined the charge for the diagnosis, estimate and return shipping is $10.

Email me for the shipping address and phone and to let me know when you send something. When I receive the unit I'll reply to let you know it's here. You'll get another email when the pedal is either repaired or if parts need ordering. This usually takes about a week. Some parts orders can be slow and can take a few weeks. Most common parts are on-hand and ready to go. Some older pedals used components that are almost impossible to find like the SAD1024 IC. When there is a problem like that I'll keep you informed of the hunt.

Short version: Email me. Ship the broke thing. Get an email back when it's here. Get another email saying it's fixed. Paypal $55. Get your fixed, clean and healthy pedal back in the mail.

Please include your name, address, email and the problem on paper with the pedal.

Thanks for reading. I've repaired a lot of pedals over the years and am looking forward to taking care of your gear.