It's been a While....

Just some things that I've been up to the past couple of years.

The Unbelieavable Freaking Ordeal

 So there was the COT-50 pedal.  I spent quite a while researching overdrive pedals, and this one made it to the short list.

My friend Wes really liked the sound of it too. He wanted one. So I built one.

It didn't work. After checking my joints, over and over and over again, I discovered a bad input cap. Recycled parts. So I changed it out  Success!

I saw a mod on Fred Brigg's blog about a volume control. I added that. It worked really well, but... I had no foot switches. So I ordered some from China. A couple of weeks later and I'm wiring in a foot switch. And.. the pedal no longer works. Damn.

I KNOW I wired it just like the diagram. So I re-check my soldering, maybe something broke loose.... all good. STILL NO SOUND except bypassed.

Finally... weeks later. I'm now discouraged as hell, cuz my Orange Squeezer didn't work either. I get to looking at the guts of my Tube Sound Overdrive, which DOES work.

Hey, the switch on this is wired way different. Lets try wiring the COT-50 like this. Aron Nelson's way.

Holy Hell!! It works now. No LED though. It quit on me. I'm hoping the LED went. Its wired just like the TSOd and that one lights up. Jeez!


The pedal sounds just like this. Its a Squire Strat into a RP250 set to the Twin Reverb model. I just beat on the guitar a bit, and it may be a bit out of tune. I don't care, the damn pedal works!

Now.. this Orange Squeezer. Is there a "dread" emoticon? I need one....

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.

Guitars, Cadillacs... You know, all that stuff.

This is my music blog. I've just begun with it. I don't know that I have the time to do this musician thing again much less write about it. I don't care though, here goes.

I used to play metal. Iron Maiden, Slayer, Forbidden, Testament.... that sort of stuff.

As a kid, I spent almost all my summers riding with my father. He drove a truck. Cattle mostly, but he had a few reefer jobs and a flatbed once or twice.  He loves Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard.  I can still smell the diesel smoke when I hear some of those songs.

In 1999 I started driving myself. I swore I never would drive a truck, but there I was.  I was divorced, I had quit playing in bands for a couple of years, and I had moved back to the Texas panhandle where I was born.

It just seemed natural to listen to those songs again. After a bit I decided I really liked that music. Also, I got way interested in 90's music. I know, a decade late. That's just me.  So I started learning grunge type stuff.
Alice in Chains, Tonic, The Wallflowers, Bush.

I wanted to play country though.  I just had NO IDEA how to play it. A few local guys showed me some stuff, but they were the type that knew it but couldn't really explain it. I was gone all the time working, so lessons didn't make sense. I managed to glean a couple of licks out of various guitar magazines over the years, but that was it.

I bought a "Start Playing Country Guitar Licks" book and CD thing.  Waste of time. I just couldn't get through it. I think I could now though. Looking at it now, its a pretty useful book.

A few Rock bands in Amarillo, and one abortive Country band. Those poor guys, Really. They were so patient with me. No avail though. I was making it too hard for myself. That's again, just me.

Flash forward 2009. I move back to Oklahoma City.  A new job, a new girlfriend, a new city.  Awesome. So I decide I'm finally going to learn this.  I go find a teacher with a good reputation and I'm off.