Wow, it WORKS!

Here it is. When you turn this thing on, it freakin boosts! The little LED don't light up though. I maybe got it wired wrong. It was supposed to have some "fuzz" with the volume cranked and yeah, it does. More like static. The fuzz is pretty much nasty and un-musical in my opinion, but I'm not a fuzz fan. Sooo we just don't dime the knob, no problem.

I took it to band practice tonight. Yikes. It kicks.


The thing is, I dunno why but it seems to improve my sound. I used it at the end of my effects chain. It did get a little trebely though.

Sadly, I'm still not certain I got the right resistors in the right places.

I think I'll build a couple more. A Madbeans Fat Pants, and a Runoffgroove Peppermill.

Building a Boost Pedal

Well here we go, my first DIY electronics project in over 20 years. I tried to build a pre-amp out of the "Electronic Projects for Musicians" book by Craig Anderton way back in the day. Dismal. Truly dismal. This little jewel of a project I found here. DIYstompboxes.com is pretty awesome, and I'm really impressed with Aron Nelson and the rest of the folks on that forum.

I bought the Beginners Project kit. It was like 25 bucks, shipping and all. It arrived in a couple of zip locks. Of course, I neglected to take a pic of that.

I was reading on GEOfex  and saw where he had made some enclosures out of steel stud track. So off I went, with the intent of getting some material and doing the same thing. No. None of the hardware/lumber/diy stores had any. None. Home Depot, Lowe's, Do It Right... Lumber #2, no one. Wasted the entire afternoon driving around. I did get to eat at Del Taco though.

Finally, I went to Radio Shack and wound up with this little 3 dollar box.




Bah.
Not what I wanted at all, but better than building it in an electrical box I suppose.

As soon as I got home last night, I got myself a bottle of Evan Williams Black and proceeded to solder.

Umm..uh oh. I'm 43. I'm realizing my eyes ain't what they used to be.  I can barely make out the little colored lines on the parts, and the labels.  I'm gonna need some magnification I'm thinking.

I managed to get this far. I just hope I put the right parts in the right place. I did get my oldest daughter to read the colors on a few parts for me. heh. That was a big help.

She then distracted me and I hung out with her and her BF for the rest of the evening.

Here's a couple more pics of the mess I got going.

As soon as I finish up, I'll post some pics of that as well.

Gear Aqusition Syndrome

 Here's a shot of my Squire Standard Tele. With its new Texas Custom pick-ups. I know right? I've never heard of them either. They sound mighty good though. I was really impressed.  Plus, it says Texas on it. Can't beat that.

However, I dunno if it happened in shipping or what, but the hot lead on the bridge pup was broken off the lug. Yay. Fortunately, Mr Anderton has taught me to deal with that. A little copper tape, a little solder... and presto.

You can also see my hand made leather pickguard. Pimpin huh?

Internet Guitar Lessons

After a couple of months, my guitar instructor became too expensive. I had to figure out a way to learn some more stuff.

YouTube has a huge amount of Guitar Lessons on it. Wow. Who knew? Well, y'all probably did but I had no idea.

I discovered this guy. Scott Grove. Amazing stuff. I've learned a lot lot lot from this guy.