For all those vintage nuts out there here is my (incomplete) list of my vintage effects pedals. I’ve only included the most interesting for now (e.g haven’t included my rare Made In Taiwan Boss Pedals, US made DOD pedals, other Ibanez models etc) but as time permits I’ll make this list more complete and add a photo gallery as well.
Stereo Chorus SCH-1 Made In Japan
Silver Label Serial Number 837311
Stereo Chorus SCH-1 Made In Sri Lanka
Black Label Serial Number 278639
Stereo Phaser SPH-1
No Label, No Serial Number
BOSS
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan December 1981
Black label Serial Number 137700
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan September 1982
Black label Serial Number 220400
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan October 1983
Black label Serial Number 350100
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan January 1987
Green label Serial Number 740800
Compression Sustainer CS-2 Made In Japan November 1983
Black Label Serial Number 367400
Compression Sustainer CS-2 Made In Japan February 1986
Black Label Serial Number 631600
Dimension C DC-2 Made In Japan January 1988
Blue Label Serial Number 866364
Delay DM-3 Made In Japan November 1984
Green Label Serial Number 488500
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 Made In Japan October 1986
Black Label Serial Number 711600
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 Made In Japan January 1989
Black Label Serial Number G983446
Distortion DS-1 Made In Japan September 1986
Black Label Serial Number 703800
Turbo Distortion DS-2 Made In Japan
Black Label No Serial Number
Equalizer GE-7 Made In Japan August 1982
Black Label Serial Number 213300
Equalizer GE-7 Made In Japan February 1987
Black Label Serial Number 75400
Heavy Metal HM-2 Made In Japan January 1984
Black label Serial Number 386100
Heavy Metal HM-2 Made In Japan April 1986.
Black Label Serial Number 656400
Octave OC-2 Made In Japan August 1987
Black Label Serial Number 812609
Turbo Overdrive OD-2 Made In Japan October 1985.
Black Label Serial Number 598900
Turbo Overdrive OD-2 Made In Japan
Black Label No Serial Number
Super OverDrive SD-1 Made In Japan August 1985
Black Label Serial Number 572700
G2DClassic
Serial Number 7
IBANEZ
Analog Delay AD-80 Made In Japan (18 volt)
Serial Number 105647
Analog Delay AD99 Made In Japan
Serial Number 000898
Stereo Chorus Made In Japan
No Serial Number
Graphic EQ GE-9 Made In Japan
Serial Number 223727
Flanger FL-301 Made In Japan (18 volt)
No Serial Number
Mostortion MT-10 Mos-Fet Distortion Made In Japan
Serial Number 392536
Sonic Distortion SD-9 Made In Japan
Serial Number 436661
Fat Cat Distortion FC10 Made In Japan
Serial Number 273036
Tube Screamer TS-9
Black label 1981 Serial Number 173972 Made In Japan
Graphic Equalizer GE-100
Made In Japan between 1976 – 1978
LA Metal LM-7
Black label Serial number 8762327 Made In Taiwan
LA Metal LM-7 (Modded to FC-10 specs)
Black label Serial number 8762646 Made In Taiwan
MARSHALL
The Guv’Nor Made In England
Serial Number 15061
Shred Master Made In England
Serial Number S28227
MXR
Distortion +
Block Logo, No LED, Mustard Colour, No Serial Number i.e. early 1980
SANSAMP
Sansamp (original issue) Made In U.S.A
Serial Number 70038
Subject: Re: Purchase Complete. Reference #P182846671, Pedal Mod Kit – Boss CS3 Dexter Mods Wool Press w/Install.
Hi Dave – just wanted to say what an awesome job on the CS-3! Thank you – it’s just what I wanted and needed – possibly without realising it. But it gives so much more flexibility with the volume pot on the guitar now, is so much quieter and seems to carry the tone through much better. Just makes the jolly thing completely useable and I can see why you say “always on”. I’m really stoked!
Within the ever-growing world of effects pedals, there are plenty of verifiable classics and countless new contenders released every year. But there’s also a mountain of overlooked greats.
In our video above, Andy Martin takes a look at five of his favorite underrated pedals—and below, we’ve compiled a much longer list. Watch Andy’s full account above, and then continue reading to see what other greats you may have missed.
Andy’s Top 5 Underrated Pedals
Especially in the last decade, there’s been an explosion of powerful delay pedals from both leading brands and boutique builders, but that’s not to say earlier digital delays still don’t deserve a place on your pedalboard. Andy’s first choice is one such model, from the early 2000s, the Ibanez DE7 Delay/Echo, which gives a wide range of delay times and voicings.
Ibanez DE7 Delay, Barber Compact Tone Press Parallel Compressor Pedal, Danelectro Cool Cat Fuzz, DOD Stereo Chorus FX65, Boss PN-2 Tremolo/Pan
While Ibanez is, of course, a big player, there are also boutique builders that never quite got the recognition Andy thinks they deserve, like Barber Electronics and its Tone Press Parallel Compressor. This compressor is just one of many handbuilt effects Barber makes, and it offers a wet/dry blend whose tone rivals many better-known boutique compressors.
Many players will remember the inexpensive Cool Cat pedals Danelectro made in the ’90s and 2000s, but Andy still reserves a warm spot in his heart for the Cool Cat Fuzz CF-1. The beginner-priced pedal can still be found on Reverb for very little money, but as you can hear, the tone isn’t cheap.
Rounding out Andy’s choices are the DOD FX65 Stereo Chorus—an analog chorus with delay time control—and the Boss PN-2 Tremolo/Pan. The PN-2 was a short-lived model, but with its stereo outputs and four modes, it’s a powerful and versatile stompbox to widen and waiver your signal.
15 More Underrated Pedals
Andy’s taste may be impeccable, but it’s not exhaustive, especially when there are countless other pedals worthy of a second look. Below, we’ve assembled a list of also-rans, misfits, and other woefully neglected stompboxes from yesteryear.
Have your own favorite, underrated pedal you don’t see here? Let us know in the comments.
Fender Starcaster Chorus
There’s not a lot to be said about effects that were originally sold in action-figure style blister packaging. Most aren’t worth trifling with, simply because packaging like this signifies a perceived lack of effort—not to mention this pedal was sold in stores like Best Buy. However, I can tell you this: this pedal sounds awesome. It’s a great, full, tweakable chorus with a solid metal chassis, rugged knobs, and a nice stout footswitch. Thankfully, the unit isn’t as gigantic as it seems; they say the camera adds ten pounds, as it were. the pedal resembles a slightly elongated Boss-type shape.
Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive V1
There were a lot of feathers ruffled when Danelectro released the first iteration of its Cool Cat line. Pedals such as Frantone’s Peach Fuzz and Xotic’s BB Preamp fell into the gears of the cloning machine. Perhaps no outcry was greater than the case of the Transparent Overdrive—the circuit contained therein was none other than the legendary Paul Cochrane Timmy. These days, Cochrane has dealers but when the Transparent Overdrive was released, the only way to obtain a Timmy was to call Paul up and chat with him about things. Of course, the idea of a faceless Danelectro suit calling up Paul and sweet-talking a Timmy out of him only to clone it rankled a lot of boutique gearheads.
The backlash was enough for Dano to completely change the circuit—making the first Transparent Overdrives sell for big bucks. However, demand has subsided and the TO has fallen into the realm of the underrated once more. The circuit is a timeless low-gain overdrive-preamp with individual bass and treble controls, good for a wide range of music.
Ibanez WD7 Weeping Demon
Right next to the Danelectro Dano Wah, the Ibanez Weeping Demon may be one of the funkiest looking wah pedals in the history of the effect. In keeping the Tone-Lok pedals aesthetically similar, some questionable design choices were made: a slotted treadle, remote footswitch, and miniature potentiometers under the treadle, to say the least.
However, the WD7 has an answer to all wah players’ needs. Would you like the treadle to be spring-loaded, or would you prefer a traditional design where the treadle stays put where you leave it? Why not both? The WD7 features a lever on the side that alternates between the two configurations. The pedal is so well-conceived that it includes a miniature pot to control how long the effect stays on after releasing the treadle in spring-loaded mode.
Rocktron Austin Gold
Rocktron is responsible for a large amount of cheap pedals, and the problem with most Rocktron pedals isn’t that they’re underrated, it’s that almost all of them are very precisely rated. The savior of the line is the Austin Gold. Now, hold your horsies, this is a gold low-gain overdrive pedal, and most of us know all about metallic gold low-gain overdrives. In case you don’t, Klon is the word. And yes, the Austin Gold sort of sonically resembles it, but the point is to love it for what it is—and what it is is a really good low-gain OD with a Pre-Bass knob instead of a Treble knob. Yes, the knob just controls bass. The reason for calling it Pre-Bass is just as big as the mystery of why this pedal isn’t on more boards.
Boss CE-2B Bass Chorus
As a rule, effects labeled strictly for bass guitar usually work just as well for regular guitar. That said, the Boss CE-2B Bass Chorus really cuts to the quick of the issue. Surely anyone that’s considered a chorus pedal has come across the same manner of forum crosstalk; the Boss CE-2 is the king, accept no substitutes, and so on. The fact of the matter is, substitutes should be accepted, mainly this one.
Whereas the CE-2 features two knobs for Rate and Depth, the CE-2B has three: Rate, Depth and Mix. The circuit, aside from the addition of a Mix knob and one capacitor value, is the same. For those that don’t know what a CE-2 sound like, it’s a rich, thick chorus that several manufacturers have attempted to emulate over the years. The Cure used it to great effect on many albums. And to think, this effect can be had with more features for far less money.
DigiTech Expression Factory
Since the XP300 Space Station was discontinued, the effects scene has been in a progressive uproar. Devotees of the unit were sad to see it go, and thanks to a bounty of user demos on YouTube, word has steadily spread about its eccentric capabilities. While DigiTech has been mum about a reissue of the unit, the company quietly snuck some of the most beloved Space Station patches (and a whole bunch of others) onto the EX-7 Expression Factory. However, let’s be honest—nobody is buying the Expression Factory for anything other than the Space Station stuff. As an added bonus, the bypass on the Expression Factory is good, unlike the dreadfully tone-sucking bypass of the original unit.
Danelectro Fish and Chips EQ
The only member of the Danelectro Food series making an appearance across the list, the Danelectro Fish and Chips EQ has been a very well-kept secret among more budget-oriented players. Of course, the humble equalizer isn’t a very flashy pedalboard component, but much like a power supply, it’s a utilitarian necessity in one’s sonic arsenal. There are some concerns with the enclosure and switch, as both appear to be somewhat flimsy, but this is an EQ pedal we’re talking about here—the likely application is to be an always-on device that needn’t be stepped on for any reason. And because the Fish and Chips is dead-quiet, it excels in that role.
Of course, like many graphic equalizers, it can be used as an ultra-transparent clean boost if need be. For all the concerns with the construction, the switch holds up quite well, and the pedal is so small, its enclosure is sturdier than one might think.
Ibanez BPL Bi-Stage Phaser
Feedback knobs are always a great feature on a modulation pedal, but with switchable stages thrown into the mix, the BPL Bi-Stage Phaser becomes a bonafide winner. Switchable from 6-stage (Phase 100) to a then-unheard-of 10 stages, the BPL delivers a versatile range of phasing, from warm and subtle to ridiculously non-musical. Even the universally lauded Mu-Tron II Phasor couldn’t compete with its six stages, and only the gargantuan Mu-Tron Bi Phase, in an enclosure the size of a Buick, could muster up 12 stages at eight times the price. Truly, the BPL gave aspiring psych-rockers of the time something to crow about in a pedal that could fit in their pockets, and they still hold up years later.
Boss CS-1 Compressor
It might be a little noisy—it is a compressor from 1978—but this thing sure can squish. It’s unbelievable for chicken pickin’ and all that, but there is nary a compressor on the market today that can step into the squish ring with this one and come out victorious. In fact, many users complain that it’s too squishy even on minimal settings—the squish is inherent to the design. Like some other pedals on this list, a large number of people on typical gear resale sites equate age with value, but hold your ground. This was a compressor released in the late ’70s, at a time with few available options, and Boss sold a ton. They are out there. And they can be had for cheap.
Ibanez CD5 Cyberdrive
Within Ibanez’s Soundtank series, the Echomachine and Crunchyrhythm already grab high sums, but the Cyberdrive remains relatively under the radar. The Cyberdrive resembles an MXR Distortion+ circuit, with a wah circuit and LED clipping. The combination may not be for everyone—look on forums and you can see plenty of hate—but it’s a unique auto wah, and all that hatred makes these available for cheap. With Range, Depth, and Sensitivity settings, you should be able to find plenty of tones to your liking.
Danelectro Fab Tone
Shaped like some manner of weird, 1950s knick knack that sort of resembles a car part, the Fab Tone sounds nothing like one would expect—neither in aesthetics nor in name. In actuality, the Fab Tone is a gnarly distortion that has more low-end than almost any other pedal out there. Honestly, the Fab Tone gets unbelievable heavy and snotty at the same time—it goes from crunchy to borderline unusable with a few minor knob adjustments. But don’t take my word for it: notorious eardrum-splitting bands like Mono, Mogwai, and Oceansize all use the Fab Tone to great effect.
DOD FX96 Echo FX Delay
The FX96 was DOD’s last analog line of defense against the digital delay intruders that followed. The unit featured the same MN3005 chip as all the classic analog delays of yore, and because it was the last revision of the DOD analog delay, it contained a feature that wasn’t found on any previous iteration—the low-pass filter. DOD called this control Tape Quality, and it shaves more high-end from the repeats the more it is cranked. This gives the feeling of a real tape delay whose color is in various states of chroma. As expected, turning the knob fully clockwise creates quite a shadowy wash of delay that is barely usable but very cool.
Another upgrade from the FX90 is the delay time—the original unit maxed out at 300 milliseconds, whereas the FX96 boasts a much higher 800. This pedal is also a bit historic: DOD dared to tow the analog line while others went digital; the FX96 was the only contemporary analog delay of its time, and it proved that analog wasn’t dead.
Zoom Choir 5050 Chorus
A lot of the earliest Zoom pedals are winners—despite the fact that the company’s mostly known for their beginner multi-effects—and of the earliest pedals, the Choir 5050 is uncontested at the top. It features five lush modes of chorus, including chorus delay and chorus reverb. At the end of the dial is a crystal clear digital delay. They routinely go for around $100.
DOD Vibro Thang
Vague by definition, never before has the word “thang” been used so accurately. DOD’s loose attempt at a vibrato yields some pretty inspiring results rarely seen in any typical vibrato pedal. Usually when a manufacturer decides to declare a pedal a “vibrato,” it means one of two things, never both: either a pitch vibrato or a classic “Univibe” sound (which is a two-stage phaser). The Vibro Thang does both very well, in addition to a neat modulated wah effect and a very serviceable brownface tremolo.
Ibanez PM7 Phase Modulator
Part of the defunct Tone-Lok series (like the DE7 Delay/Echo above), the PM7 exhibited a versatility usually found in pedals costing far more money. At its core, the PM7 is a phaser, but it gives you some expansive control over the LFO waveforms and period of the modulation. Using the pedal on its sine wave LFO can deliver some lush Small Stone–esque phasing, while the square wave mode sounds more like a juicy resonant filter than a phaser. The “mode” slider is very interactive with the knobs and LFO settings, to the point that a player will spend hours exhausting the pedal’s capabilities.
Contributors to this article include Nicholas Kula and Joel Handley.
In a typical day, I get anywhere from 10 to 50 questions and req
uests to do something for others at no charge. A small number of these are from actual friends, some are from acquaintances, some from people who know me (and I don’t know them) and others from referrals. I know that many others are in a similar situation. Perhaps not getting nearly the same volume as I do, but nonetheless, it is troublesome or has the potential to be so. Today I’ll be sharing the 7 reasons why I can’t do “free” and I’ll be writing a follow-up post giving tips to those of you in a similar situation.
1. The Time It Takes
Many people who ask for free help from others don’t consider the time involved with providing it. I know they think – it’s only a simple question. It shouldn’t take long to answer, so it shouldn’t be an inconvenience. I beg to differ.
I track everything I do – both the time spent on things as well as the volume. I’m updating this post on February 8, 2016. In the first 37 days of the year, I received 961 requests to do something for free. If it took me an average of 10 minutes to answer each person properly, that would mean 9,620 minutes or 160 hours or just over 4 hours a day.
Even if all I did was tell people I can’t provide free advice, if it took 2 minutes to read their request and tell them I can’t help them, that works out to 32 hours of time so far this year. That’s basically a full working week!
Most of the requests I receive somehow come back to helping someone else realize their dreams in some way. The thing is – I have my own dreams. I have more things I want to do than there are hours to get it all done in.
2. It Takes Away From My Paying Customers
The things that people ask me to do for free are actually offered as a paid service through one or other of my companies. If you were a paying customer with one of my companies, how would you feel if you knew I was offering services free to other people just because they asked? It’s not fair to my existing customers.
3. It Zaps My Creative Juice
Each of us has only so many truly productive hours in a day. In my own case, I can get in about 5 solid productive hours on a typical day. It’s like a bank for me. Each day, I start off with this reserve of 5 hours. As I do work through the day, the reserve gets depleted. But it gets depleted at a faster rate when I have to shift gears more frequently. If I had a day where all I did was fulfill 5-10 minute requests, it would likely mean I’d be able to do maybe 20 of them in a day and absolutely nothing else productive. A complicated “simple” request might mean I need to do an hour of background thinking to figure out an answer, it might mean 20 minutes of research, it might mean contacting one or more people for input.
I think that a part of the issue is that some people see me active in social media and engaging, so they assume I have all this time available. Bantering with people about our respective days, the weather, the weekend or some current event topic does not require creative energy on my part. This is mental downtime. It doesn’t impact what I can get done in the day. Ask me to put on my thinking cap, even for a ‘simple’ question, and it’s a different story.
4. Most People Don’t Value Things They Get For Free
There have been countless times where I have helped people. In some cases, I’ve spent an hour or more of time with someone because I thought they genuinely needed the assistance. Whenever I have followed up to see how things were, it’s been very rare that they actually took any action on things. Often these were cases where someone was fired up about an idea, reached out to me before they even thought things through themselves, but when it came to actually doing, they lost their enthusiasm.
Now, there are some people who sincerely would value free assistance. But is it up to me to provide free help to anyone who asks for it on the basis that a small percentage of people will take it and run with it? No.
5. I’m a Professional Who Works Online
I worked my butt off to make it through business school. I had to work full-time in conjunction with school pretty much from my teens. I’ve been in business for over 20 years. I’ve paid my own dues. I am a professional. My knowledge and expertise, even if it simply a matter of answering one question – has value. It may have taken me over 2,000 working hours just to have the knowledge to answer a brief question skillfully.
Customers who pay me for my knowledge contact me through the same methods that those who want assistance for free do. The Internet is my office. You’d not expect a doctor, lawyer, accountant or other professional to provide free assistance – I should be treated with the same respect.
6. It Doesn’t Stop at One Request
I used to be much more generous with my time – that is until I got to the point where it was detrimental to my own life and well-being. One of the things I discovered is that a significant percentage of the time when I helped someone out for free, they would come back – often repeatedly – for more free help. It has to end somewhere.
I thought I had this post finished when my partner at Frontspace, Steve Jones, reminded me of a trifecta of other issues – quality control, responsibility and reputation management.
I pride myself on doing as excellent a job at everything I do as is humanly possible. It is impossible for me to do things for free and maintain the level of quality I’d want to.
By the same token, when offering slipshod free advice, I am also opening myself up to responsibility issues that I’m not willing to take on. Let’s say if it should have taken me an hour to research something appropriately, but I short cut it to 5 minutes and miss something significant. I tell the person the 5 minute answer. They act based on this advice. It is wrong. Where are my responsibilities here? What damage could be done to my reputation if this person went public and said I gave them wrong advice. In some cases, I could be opening myself up to legal issues.
Approaching this topic – and blogging about it like this – is very difficult for me. In an ideal world, I’d love to be able to help everyone I could. I hate coming across as a bitch. But part of the reason people come to me is that I have had success in business and a big reason for this is because I know the lines that have to be drawn. This is one of them.
When I’ve told people I can’t help them or don’t offer free advice, they often get testy with me. The reality is – free for others comes with a price for me. It’s a price I’m just not willing/able to pay these days.
I know I’m not alone. Probably many of you reading this post get a varying number of requests for free help with things. In an upcoming post, I’ll tackle some ways that I have dealt and will be dealing with these requests. Hopefully it will help some of you.
Parting Words
If you need help with something and there’s someone you respect enough to approach for help, realize their time is valuable. Before contacting them directly, check out their website. See what their options may be for paid assistance or even if they take questions they would answer publicly.
If you are on the receiving end of requests for free help, realize it is okay – and healthy – for you to answer, “no.”
Need More Help?
I’ve received literally thousands of messages from people after writing this post. Many people had asked for guidance on how to handle various situations relating to brain picking requests and for free help. Others wanted to know when free can be used. I put together a program called “Converting Free to Paid” that almost 1,000 people have now taken. It’s inexpensive. You can get started with it immediately plus I’m available to people who go through it for questions through a Facebook group and q&a calls.
After 14 years at Waikaretu deep in remote rural Franklin Dexter Mods has uprooted and found a new home in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in Whakatane.
How will this affect you?
Turnaround should now be faster as there is no rural delivery connection to deal with. You will still get the same personal service as before as there is no ‘we’ at Dexter Mods, all mods and services are handled by Dave Stewart and no one else.
Dexter Mods will still be New Zealand’s leading pedal modification enterprise and still have the best mods available.
Well, no. There are more than a hundred different fuzz pedals on the market, each one achieving that distinctive, textured sustain in one of several possible ways, each with a claim to its own sonic territory in a surprisingly broad fuzzy aural landscape. And while there are certainly distinguishing features that define fuzz, the range of variation is great enough that no two fuzz boxes sound exactly alike.
Fuzz pedals were among the earliest effects, preceded only by reverb and vibrato. Originally it was an accidental effect of a damaged amplifier with a defective or poorly fitted tube or a torn speaker. Some blues guitarists found inspiration and a creative voice in the raspy sound, and by the time rock and roll emerged in the 1950s, it was a somewhat common practice for a guitarist to intentionally alter an amp by dislodging tubes or slicing, tearing or punching holes in their speakers in order to get “that” sound. By the early 1960s, inventors, designers and engineers began experimenting with ways to create the effect by way of an electronic circuit.
There have been a handful of iconic designs, like the Maestro Fuzztone and the Sola Tone Bender, for example, that have left an indelible mark on music and deserve special consideration in their own article. But none have had a greater impact on as broad a range of music as the Fuzz Face and the Big Muff.
The Fuzz Face was introduced in 1966 by Arbiter Electronics, Ltd. It has since been produced by Dallas Arbiter, Dallas Music Industries, CBS/Arbiter and, since 1993, Dunlop. Upon its introduction, the Fuzz Face became a favorite of Jimi Hendrix, who used it as one of his essential stage effects and recorded with it extensively on his debut album, titled “Are You Experienced?” and on most of the classic songs he recorded throughout his short but legendary career. Since then, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, George Harrison, Eric Johnson and countless others used the Fuzz Face as a cornerstone in their sound.
The Fuzz Face is an extraordinarily simple design that uses a mere eleven components. Initially designed around a pair of Germanium transistors, the first’s output feeding into the second’s input and, in turn, having its bias controlled by the output of the second transistor in a series feedback circuit. The resulting naturally asymmetrically-clipped signal sent to the amp mimics the roughly square-waved fingerprint of an overdriven preamp or a damaged speaker. Of course, germanium transistors perform with notorious inconsistency across a different temperatures, so the original design was adapted for newer, more dependable silicon transistors that created a brighter, edgier effect that some would say is noticeably harsher. But, obviously, the “new” tone has never been a deal breaker for most since it has been the sound of the Fuzz Face for all but the first few years of its decades of production. In recent years, the original germanium design has been made available.
The Big Muff is a far more ambitious design that, technically speaking, straddles the entirely imaginary line between distortion and fuzz. Introduced in 1969, Electro-Harmonix’ original signature pedal, the Big Muff Pi, is designed with four independent silicon transistor stages. An initial clean boost cascades into two consecutive clipping stages followed by a final stage that restores the lost tone and volume before outputting to the amp. Within weeks of its release, Jimi Hendrix picked one up and it soon became an immediate hit, lending its sound to the music of Kiss, The Isley Brothers, Thin Lizzy and David Gilmour, starting with Pink Floyd’s “Animals” album. It has since been used to shape the sound of rock guitar throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s by artists such as Dinosaur Jr., Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, the White Stripes, the Black Keys, Mogwai and countless gigantesque metal bands. Over the years, more than a dozen variations have been engineered and released, most famously the Sovtek editions crafted by Electro-Harmonix sister company, the Ram’s Head and the V1 Triangle, the Metal Muff and the Little Big Muff, all with noticeably different sounds. If you’re considering a Big Muff, it’s worth taking some time to find the one with the sound you seek. It is as much fun as “research” can be.
So, which is better, the Fuzz Face or the Big Muff? That depends. The simple design lends The Fuzz Face a much more transparent sound. Plug your Strat, Tele, Les Paul, or your old Ibanez Roadstar II into a Fuzz Face and it will sound like a fuzzy Strat, or a fuzzy Tele, or a fuzzy Les Paul, or a fuzzy old Ibanez Roadstar II. It doesn’t have any tone control but it does get progressively brighter as you turn up the gain, it cleans up with the volume knob on your guitar, especially the Germanium models, and it responds to your dynamics, your fingertips on the strings are still the primary influence on the quality of your sound. The Fuzz Face, however, does not deliver overwhelming amounts of gain. For that you need a Big Muff. Because it is a much more sophisticated series of circuits, the Big Muff will take anything you play into it and fundamentally transform the tone and character of your sound from the ground up. The inherent compression of the four stage effect will take a considerable amount of your guitar’s dynamic response out of your hands, but any bottom end of your guitar’s natural tone will become a deep, subterranean wall of seismic activity, and the tone control will give you considerable brightness on top of that for an overall massive sound. It is a huge effect, and it’s up to you whether or not you like it. When it comes to deciding which one to get, most guitarists are inherent drawn to one or the other, but, of course, there is no rule against having both.
It’s great to get some good feedback on my mods, but it’s even better when the feedback is about a mod I worked really hard on to get something really special happening…
This is an email I got today.
Hi Dave,
Sorry I meant to get back to you a few weeks ago with
my opinion about the modded CS-3 I bought from you.
I think it is great. I haven’t had a lot of experience with
compressors because until now I haven’t really seen the value of them.
An unmodified Boss CS-3 was the first compressor I used years ago and
it was cold and noisy with a kind of lisp on the attack of a note that
was very annoying. The general noise seemed to float around on top of
the sound. I used the compressor when I needed to but did it
reluctantly. I then went to a Boss multi effects pedal and the
compressor on that was actually better though still hard and cold with
some lisp and noise but not as much as the CS-3. Neither of those
compressors impressed me enough to want to use them for anything but
for a little bit of a boost for a clean guitar solo. I did use
compressor plug ins that came with Cubase VST 32 within the computer
on recordings and they seemed to work well enough doing what I was
wanting of them on the recording, just to bring up the quieter sounds
and limit the louder ones.
Your CS-3 with Woolpress mod has given me a whole new tool to use in a
live situation. It is warm (compared to the original and the Boss
digital I mentioned) smooth and quite and very versatile. A quality
piece of gear. It can add a whole new dimension to a song. I can see
it being very useful and me using it a lot. I wouldn’t want to have to
do without it now. With the other two compressors it was a case of
working hard to find a compromise setting and stick with it but with
the Woolpress mod I can use the compressor in many different ways. I
compared it to the latest MXR Dyna-Comp that a friend had lent me and
there is no comparison. The Dyna Comp is warm but it is very spongy
sounding and it feels a little as if you are dragging the sound
through mud or something. Even though it has that thick slow mud like
attack the rest of the sound is actually quite thin sounding and I
just don’t like what it does to ruin my hard earned tone. The CS-3
with the Woolpress mod does nothing to detract from the sound, it is
very neutral or transparent and does exactly what you would hope a
compressor does without taking away from your tone or sound quality.
It does seem to add some compression and hardness or coldness to the
sound when on bypass, especially the bass notes, but I have it
isolated in its own effects loop so that doesn’t really matter, though
if it wasn’t like that I could save the loop for something else.
Anyway Dave, once again your hard work has been of a good benefit to
me so thanks for that.
I tried out the TS10 Tubescreamer you modded for me with the
alternative OP amp you provided (I think it is the Stevie Ray OP amp)
and I actually like it better like that. Still smooth but with a litte
raged edge, it seems to have more depth or dimension to me or
something.
How is your Tokai guitar? Seven months or so ago I bought a 1984 Tokai
Strat. It is an ST80, one of their top of the line models back then,
and it is a beautiful guitar with a lovely tone.
I will get back to you in the near future about modifying my Marshall
Jackhammer pedal.
My Bloody Valentine is a magnificent noise, an astonishing balance of the visceral and the atmospheric, a beautiful barrage of rock-solid pop slathered in ethereal commotion. Rooted in melodic songwriting that would certainly stand on its own in any form, the band elevated the sonic experience with layers of giant, undefinable and unpredictable guitar sounds to create a new, otherworldly form of musical expression.
My Bloody Valentine was formed in Dublin, Ireland in 1983 by American-born guitarist Kevin Shields, drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig (Cusack) and vocalist Dave Conway. They went through several lineup changes and a move to West Berlin before recording their 1985 debut EP titled “This Is Your Bloody Valentine.” When the post-punk goth rock record failed to earn any real commercial or critical attention, they relocated to London and recruited bassist Debbie Googe. With Googe and Ó Cíosóig nailing down the rhythm, their next EP, “Geek!,” released in April 1986, and the October 1986 follow up titled “The New Record by My Bloody Valentine,” elevated the band’s profile. Frequent gigs in London and a growing following throughout the U.K. looked promising, but Conway was growing disillusioned with music, and in 1987, when health issues began troubling him, he quit the band.
In 1988, My Bloody Valentine’s new, fully developed sound earned the attention of Creation Records owner Alan McGee, who approached the band after a show with a recording deal. Working quickly, they recorded five songs in less than a week for their EP “You Made Me Realize,” followed in November with their first full-length album “Isn’t Anything.” Both recordings earned the highest critical acclaim the band had known to date. Their new sound was both visceral and hypnotic, their songs, created almost entirely in-studio, were timeless, revolutionary and beautifully enigmatic and their shows were powerful and exciting, despite their introverted stage presence. Because they barely moved while onstage and rarely interacted with, or even looked at, the audience, the British press labeled them “Shoegazers,” which quickly became the name of an emerging sub-genre of new bands that clearly reflected My Bloody Valentine’s influence.
The band went into the studio in early 1989 to begin work on the follow up to “Isn’t Anything.” As the year passed and no new album appeared, the British press speculated that Kevin Shields’ perfectionism was crippling the band’s progress. In the interim, they released two well-received EPs, “Glider,” and “Tremolo,” with a short tour in the summer of 1990 to support “Tremolo.” But by the time “Loveless” finally appeared in November 1991, it was rumored to have cost half a million dollars, enough to nearly bankrupt Creation Records. For everyone else, “Loveless” was worth the wait.
And what an album it is. Googe and Ó Cíosóig’s majestic rhythm section, Belinda Butcher and Kevin Shields’ enigmatically melodic voices and the flawless blend of their guitars into a seismic presence that elevates the smart pop compositions at its core to previously unimaginable heights. Songs like “Only Shallow,” “When You Sleep” or “I Only Said” could be performed with nothing more than a guitar and a voice and still impress with the depth of their composition, but with the sonic architecture of perfectly exaggerated noise it all turns into an artistic masterpiece that gets better every time you listen.
Unfortunately, despite the critics’ overwhelming acclaim and the continually growing audience, “Loveless” sold too few copies for Creation Records to recoup the time, money and goodwill spent making it. My Bloody Valentine was dropped from the roster in 1992, and although they signed to Island Records shortly thereafter, no new albums appeared and the band, essentially, stopped working. The band’s 2008 reunion led to many live performances, but now, more than 20 years after “Loveless” the long awaited new album remains a rumor.
My Bloody Valentine certainly created their own unique niche in the Pantheon of seminal Rock acts, and one of the most vital aspects of their status is Kevin Shields’ utterly inexplicable guitar. While it may be beyond anyone to tell you how he achieved his sonic artistry, we can certainly look at the tools he used to create that sound.
It is almost unimaginable to picture Shields playing anything but his Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters. Both have a versatile, malleable sound and a surprisingly stable and expressive tremolo arm that allowed Shields to create his hypnotic, tone-shifting effects. Between his guitars and his pair of Marshall JCM-800 Half-Stacks (for stereo, of course) Shields used a Marshall Shredmaster Overdrive/Distortion pedal to push the amps, a pair of Boss GE-7 Equalizers to fine tune his stereo-split tone into a pair of Boss PN-2 Tremolo Pan Pedals to shift the sound back and forth between the two amps. A Digitech WH-1 Whammy allows for manual control over the pitch while a Digitech PDS-8000 Echo Plus Delay Sampler offers some of the finest lo-fi looping capabilities for truly complex and otherworldly layered guitar textures. A Dunlop Rotovibe adds a subtle taste of modulation for to give the sound a bit of shimmer.
For consistency’s sake, Shields put an ADA MP-1 Midi Preamp in his pedal train to compensate for the widely varying tone of the rental gear with which he was sometimes left. And the midi-controlled Yamaha SPX-900 Digital Multi Effects Processor provided another 50 effects capable of being stacked five-high for just a little extra spice. Maybe Shield’s genius it the key to getting his sound out of all of this, but maybe you would find your own world of sound if you plugged in and experimented with it. Who knows?
I don’t mod amps as a rule. Pedals are my thing. But a little Fender Champion 600 came along on Trademe the other day at a really good price and I was tempted enough to hit the Buy Now button and get it sent up. It arrived this morning.
The Champion is a one knob affair at 5 watts running a 12ax7 in the pre amp and a 6V6 in the power stage. So power up, plug a guitar into the high or low input, turn the volume knob up and away it goes.
I wasn’t impressed with the sound coming out of the little 6 inch speaker at all so I hit up Google for the mods and set to work.
First up it was clear the speaker needed to be changed so I grabbed a 6.5 inch 60 watt Wharfdale Hi Fi speaker from my storage cupboard. The speaker cloth was like 2 way stretch vinyl or suede so I just took it off to let the sound out. I’ll get some acoustically neutral material and put that on.
Next I removed the tone stack, essential according to the gods of the forums, and raised the gain so the amp had more volume.
I put it all back together and spent the next hour having a complete ball. The amp has lost the flabbiness, the gain mod opens up some real distortion and the new speaker handles the amp’s power better than the stock 15 watt part.
Before the amp arrived I gave my 1993 MIJ Fender Squire a birthday, completing the pick up upgrade so it now has Texas Specials in all 3 positions and a new pearloid pickguard to tart it up a bit.
Red MIJ Squire 1993 and Modded Fender Champion 600
All the pedal modding is great fun and gives me untold hours of pleasure just tweaking pedals and mods to get the best out of them but at the end of the day you do tend to ask ‘What’s it all for?’.
Well for a few years now I have worked towards a single concert event on the farm. A few mates get their bands together and we put on a big show for the friends and neighbors.
It’s always a gas, but it’s a ton of work for a one off event.
Last year I decided to put together a Velvet Underground act – Deja VU & Nico we called it. We started rehearsals in September 2011 and the concert was held on Waitangi weekend Feb 5th. The band was Robbie van de Lisdonk on drums, Danielle Smith on bass, Matt Grant on guitar and keyboards and me on guitar.
It was great and we decided to have a bit of a break and see what we felt like doing later on.
Well we’ve had that break and have decided to put another band together with the same line up but with Matt on bass and Danielle on guitar so she can sing a bit more.
We are paying homage to the garage rock sound that we all love so much. This means I get to bring out the dirt pedals that I’ve been collecting/hoarding for years now.
It’s just an exciting thing being in a band like this again. Lots of raw sound, a tiny bit too much volume, and the smell of warm amps drifting out of the garage.
And we really are in the garage. OK it’s got carpet on the floor but I trap the occasional possum in there and it’s got a workshop and oil stains and everything else.
Some of the sounds we’ll be looking for will need to have pedals custom built to get just the right sound, but for the next few months I’ll be in gear heaven as I work through this.
I’ll update with a few posts a we go along and get some recordings done as well.
And some photos.
L – R : Matt Grant, Robbie vab de Lisdonk, Danielle Smith
There are some weird people out there and if you want to meet one read on.
I bought an old acoustic guitar from steve25. He claims to be a drummer, but if you Google him on New Zealand pages all that comes up is a reference to him on www.scambusters.co.nz where he was taken to the disputes tribunal for selling a broken chainsaw to the wrong guy.
I won the auction and emailed stevie25 asking if he had any secure way of shipping the guitar. He replied straight away that he didn’t. I emailed back saying I’d look into getting a college from my racing contacts to see if they could get it home for me. After a couple of days I learned this wasn’t going to work out so after getting a text from the seller to say that he had got a guitar box from the local music store and it was all packed and ready to go I sent through a payment which included $27.50 for shipping.
Immediately after making the payment the seller, who had been quite chatty via texts and email suddenly went quiet.
After not hearing from him or seeing any guitar for 8 days I emailed him asking if the guitar had gone yet.
No reply.
I gave it another day and sent him another email. No reply. I rang him and the seller went into a 10 minute expletive laden tirade.
His story was that his mate, a drummer in the band Rockface, had contracted hepatitis from a blood transfusion in Queenstown and he was required to urgently travel to the South Island to cover for him on the drums. Once there he had become trapped by the snow. He had left instructions for his sons to ship the guitar but could not explain why they hadn’t done it as he had no way of contacting them. Practically every second word in this conversation was an eff word. I told him that all I wanted was a guitar sent and if that was proving to be a task that he was going to not be able to do then I would be happy for him to refund the money and get on with sorting out his problems, of which there seemed to be many.
At this point the seller ranted and raved about how I was being unreasonable and with the toll call looking like it was going to end up costing more than the guitar I quickly ended it by asking that he send the guitar as soon as possible and email me when that had been done.
He claimed he couldn’t do that because he was computer illiterate and wasn’t really very good with email.
Suddenly.
But he did promise to get his wife to send me an email once the package was shipped and on it’s way.
I sent him a text the next day to see how he got on. No reply.
I Google the seller and got his scambusters story.
I went on Facebook asking if anyone knew of the band Rockface.
I got a message back straight away from one of my Facebook friends saying the drummer from Rockface was her daughter’s father. Private messages followed which determined that while the seller was telling me he was the drummer for Rockface in fact the band hadn’t performed for over a year. While he said he was in Christchurch he was in fact at home in Featherston.
The seller was lying to me.
I sent him a text saying I had found the real drummer from Rockface. Nothing back from the formerly chatty seller. I sent another text. Still nothing. I mentioned the police. Bingo.
The seller replied in a series of abusive texts but eventually fessed up to lying over the trade. I told him that being the case I was voiding the deal and wanted all my money back and that was the only thing that would be acceptable.
Several more texts have followed that are both abusive and threatening and I will be referring the matter to a collection agency and the police.
As the scambusters posting shows Trademe are aware of the kind of dealings that this seller inflicts on people he sells to. Trademe are also aware that even after members take him to the Disputes Tribunal their members are still ripped off. Despite this they allow him to be a member and carry on like this.
I have been in touch with Trademe about this ripoff and they have encouraged me to take the matter up with the Disputes Tribunal as well, knowing full well about this seller’s previous Disputes Tribunal issues as I told them about it,
It makes you wonder who the real villains are doesn’t it?
The seller has now posted retaliatory feedback on my Trademe account.
Avoid this trader hes a Pompous Buffoon. A real control freak. Even went back to 27.2.06 & changed the good feedback he placed on me to what now appears! If you don’t want 50 texts & 10 emails in 4 days avoid this clown. He bought $100.guitar 1 hour. after it was listed! Took 8 days to pay for it! I took 8 days to send it! So what? But do read about me if you want a laugh. He threatened me with his daughter who is a N.Z. Police Officer. Even gave me her e-mail address!
27.02.2006 Trade: He listed a snare drum for sale. I bought it. His initial emails were all good and straight forward so I sent the money. After not hearing from him again he replied that he was selling the snare drum on behalf of a ‘mate’ who had now decided to keep the item. I eventually got my money back .
Payments for item: Initially because of the traders feedback and my previous experience with him i asked if he minded me trying to sort out a colleague to collect it from him for me and bring it up on a trip. He was fine with that. it took a few days to find out that it wasn’t going to work, but all the time I kept the seller in the loop and informed of where I was at with it. Auction closed on Thursday afternoon August 5th. He was paid on 8th August, not an unreasonable delay considering and certainly not the 8 days he lies about. Further, I paid once he advised me the guitar was packed up, looking good and ready to go. Obviously more BS from the seller.
Sending the item: The seller claims he sent the item 8 days after being paid for it. 8 days after the money was transferred was when I rang him and he gave me this cock and bull story about being called in to fill in as the drummer of Rockface, The fact that he told me a story that was so easy to check shows that this character doesn’t even consider that the lies he tells can easily be checked. For example, ten days after he was paid I asked him to tell me if the item had been sent and for a tracking report. I never got it. If he had sent it after 8 days why not say so at the time and provide a tracking certificate number? Why lie again? Answer = because he is a compulsive liar.
I do not have a daughter who is a police officer so there is no way I would tell the seller I did. More lies.
Trademe have advised me that they have edited my feedback, because it breached their rules. Clearly Trademe are capable of upholding their rules when the buyer has been ripped off. Why do they side with the ripper off rather than the ripped off?
I recently sold a modded Marshall Blues breaker 2 pedal to a Trademe member in Shannon. Details on the mod can be found here, his feedback is here. He sent me an email that I was so pleased to get because this guy got exactly why I mod pedals.
Here is the email:
Hi Dave,
I have received the blues breaker pedal and I have had a few days to try it out. It’s great. I am happy with the condition of it and the sound is really nice. It is very versatile. I can use it over all the channels of my favourite amplifier and in both boost and distortion modes it enhances the sound nicely. I am sure you have heard all the details before so I won’t go into them.
The modified Blues Breaker leaves all my other unmodified overdrive and distortion pedals (Boss Ibanez and DOD) for dead in versatility and sound quality. I can’t see me using the others again unless I can get you to modify them. I am considering buying another modified Blues Breaker, just in case something happens to this one. I wouldn’t be happy playing without it now. I had given up using overdrive and distortion pedals because I was never really happy with the sound quality, they could sound OK with a band or in a recording but even then I was constantly tweaking them because there was always something missing or something that bugged me. When practising alone by myself they had a time limit on how long they could be inspiring and became tiring. I was happy just using the different channels on the amp instead and I had put my overdrive and distortion pedals away, one of them I still can’t find, I don’t know where I have put it. Compared to the modified Blues Breaker my other pedals don’t sound real. It enhances the sound quality of the amp where the others take away from it. With the other pedals I usually could find only one combination of settings on the pedal that would work for me and as I said I was always tweaking them moving a knob half a millimeter or less here or there to try and improve it. With this pedal so far have found a variety of sounds that I am happy with and I have only just started with it. The other great thing about it is the lack of unwanted noise. The amp is very clean in that way even when dirty and the other pedals dirtied it up with the wrong kind of dirt.
After having given up on using overdrive and distortion pedals preferring to get my overdrive and distortion from the amplifier (at least it sounded real and was of good quality, though the potential for variety was less) I saw your on auctions on Trademe and went on checkout your website. I realised that it wasn’t me being to fussy and expecting the impossible from overdrive and distortion pedals but others had seen or heard it as well. You described problems with pedals that I had been struggling with, it all rang very true. That was what gave me the incentive to give them another try and I am very glad that I have done so. I will be wanting more as the finances allow.
I was planning to send my TS 10 to you for the mod the middle of next week. Will it be OK to do that?
Thanks Dave for the great service.
Regards,
Tony.
Here’s my emailed reply to Tony.
Hi Tony,
What a great email to recieve. Today I had two emails chasing up slow deliveries from NZ Post, one was for a pedal that I only sent 2 days ago. Some people are hard to please 🙂
Really thrilled with your comments and they endorse why I do this, stock pedals are unfortunately designed well and manufactured at the lowest cost possible so many shortcuts are taken which result ion the pedal design being compromised to a point where it no longer functions as it was designed to. A few cents on a few critical components virtually destroys a good design. The wah pedals are probably the best examples of this, but also most ‘dirt’ pedals.
What I am doing isn’t rocket science, it’s not even hard, it’s bloody simple in fact. It’s just a case of one of my life mantras being true – sometimes a little can achieve a lot.
I’ll never make a living from it, and I don’t want to, I have a decent income totally independent of the music biz. What I want to do is reach people who care about their tone and making it as good as it can be.
When you find people like that, it makes it all worthwhile, because while I sell and do make a few dollars from this, the real incentive for me making people happy and appreciating what I can do for them.
Another life mantra of mine is “Getting people to pay you for work is easy, getting satisfaction from your work is much harder, but worth looking for”
I sign off every email and answer to a question with the phrase “All the best”. There’s a reason for that. I think you’ve found that out. Awesome.
“I can’t understand how you can justify this price. You buy the pedal for $70 second hand on trademe, then add your mod which would cost less than $20 and add $100 to the price tag. Thats a joke! It’s not surprising I see your auctions closing without bids on them guido_hatzis (54) 10:44 am, Mon 30 May”
This is a common mistake made by people who think that they know far more than they do but actually know very little and certainly nothing about added value buying and selling on Trademe. This comment was made on an auction for a Boss CS3 compressor with my Wool Press Mod. The price for the pedal was $170 which is what I sell mint condition CS3′ s with the mod for if they have the box and manuals. I buy them on Trademe for around $80. Postage back to me costs around $7.50. I sell the mod kit and installation for $50 (the Trademe success fee on the mod only is $3.75) The Trademe success fee on $170 is $12.75.
So while this bloke thinks I’m making $100 when I sell the pedal the reality is actually quite different.
$80 + $7.50 + $50 + $12.75 = $150.25 which are my total costs. It’s a good thing I’m doing this for fun and not relying on making a living from it.
On top of that consider this, on the pedal I buy I get no warranty, when I sell it I give a three year warranty on it.
In a way I’m really glad that people like this don’t buy off me because I’d much rather sell to someone who places a similar value on my work than I do than some twit who is so concerned about the money he thinks someone else is going to make instead of looking at how much better his sound could be if he just looked a little bit further than the nose on the face of the head that he’s got stuck where the sun don’t shine.
My mate Warren Cate has a new CD out and he’s given me a few copies to give away with my pedals in appreciation for helping him out with his website. The recordings were done at The Bunker which is Dave Arrowsmith’s project studio. I’ll get Dave to email me full descriptions of his gears as soon as I can but he’s been sending me a ton of photos via his iphone lately so here are the pics.
This is a song I wrote about how much New Zealand changed in the 80’s, the me, myself and I decade when we learned to stop sharing and caring and instead learned how to be selfish and mean. I recorded it a few years ago and re recorded it recently with Steve Mapstone adding the bass. I did the drums and guitars and keyboards and all that other stuff. Some of the photos are mine taken on various protests I took part in, others are downloaded from Google and the interweb. Recorded at The Lost Note Studio, Waikaretu, New Zealand.
Morris, who was 53, was found dead in Napier on Thursday. He is survived by his wife Kim, daughters Julia and Maude and stepson James.
L to R - Lez White, Bruce Hambling, Peter Urlich, Ian Morris, Dave Dobbyn
One Saturday in 1976 my mates and I all bundled ourselves into our heap of crap cars and drove from Mangere, South Auckland into the big smoke and watched the Battle of the Bands final. A band we’d never heard of won it. They were called Th’ Dudes. Their prize was a gold Shure Microphone.
They deserved the win. They had a rock star singer/front man in Peter Urlich, an awesomely tight bass and drum combo in Bruce Hambling and Peter Coleman (later replaced by Lez White). There was shy guitar player in the wings called Dave Dobbyn, and Ian Morris, out the front and slinging the guitar as if ready to take on anyone with it.
A little while later I played in a band called Siren and the bass player, Dave Arrowsmith, and I strove to be as good a rhythm section as Hambling and White, we might even have made it on occasion. My favorite Siren gig was at The Island of Real one night with The Snipes. Th’ Dudes were there to and watched us as we tried to steal their home crowd.
That summer there was a rock concert in South Auckland, at Manurewa down by where the Cosmopolitan Club is now. Hello Sailor headlined. I noticed the guy on the mixing desk was Ian Morris from Th’ Dudes.
Morris was working for Stebbings at this time and his studio career was about to explode.
Morris went on to entrench himself as the gun producer, turning up with credit after credit on some amazing albums.
Back in the late 70’s it was sheer fantasy to think anyone could make a living out of music and there is a reason why it’s possible to do it now. One of those reasons is Th’ Dudes and Ian Morris. They brought a level of professionalism to the scene that was unheard of.
I’ll never forget them refusing to play a concert (I think they were the headline act as well) because the PA was sub-standard.
Promoters were on notice to upgrade or be bypassed. They all upgraded. Better PA’s like the huge Cerwin Vega and JBL rigs became the norm rather than the exception and Jansen PA80’s were sent back to the practice rooms.
When digital recording was in it’s infancy a clip on the TV music shows appeared. It was Ian Morris as Tex Pistol playing The Game Of Love. It went to Number 1. Morris had nailed digital recording, as he had nailed analog recording, with ease and set a skill level for others to match.
Ian’s production and performance career continued to grow in stature and his name adorns a number of classic Kiwi tracks and albums.
The New Zealand music scene would be so different were it not for the likes of Ian Morris. His talent in my opinion bordered on genius and was obvious from the very start.
It is a huge, huge loss to us that he is gone and his presence will be missed far and wide.
My sympathies go out to all his close friends, and his family. Words cannot make you feel any better, but can let you know that others share your loss.
Rolling Stone magazine has for the first time rated the greatest 100 Beatles’ songs, with the 1967 track A Day in the Life written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney topping the list that was released on Wednesday.
Coming in second was top-selling 1963 single I Want to Hold Your Hand followed by Strawberry Fields Forever, which recalled Lennon’s nostalgia for his childhood growing up in Liverpool in Britain.
The list was released as part of a special collector’s edition issue titled The Beatles: 100 Greatest Songs to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Fab Four’s 12th and final studio album, Let It Be, released in 1970.
“Lennon, McCartney and Harrison had stunningly high standards as writers,” musician Elvis Costello said in the introduction to the Rolling Stone list.
“Then they started to really grow up: simple love lyrics to adult stories… and on to bigger ideas than you would expect to find in catchy pop lyrics.”
Yesterday, McCartney’s 1965 track that once had a work title of Scrambled Eggs while the lyrics were written, came in fourth and In My Life, released on the album Rubber Soul, placed fifth.
Rolling Stone’s Top 10 list of Greatest Beatles songs are:
I got sent a couple of wah pedals the other day, one of those new Vox 847A’s that needed a true bypass, fairly straight forward stuff. The other was an old wah that had clearly seen much better days. A note included in the package saying the pedal had failed and could I replace it with a new board, new pot etc.
On opening up the old wah I could see that the wah was road worn and weary. The pot had failed long ago and had been replaced with one of those blue ones but I also noticed the stack ‘o dimes inductor. The silk screen labeling had long worn off but I knew this wah was not the kind I saw everyday.
Then I realised it was one of the ‘transitional’ wah pedals made by Dunlop after they took over from the Thomas company in the 70’s. The serial number was stamped into the pedal base plate, CB025892, meaning it was a very early pedal.
Click For Larger Image
I emailed the owner and suggested that it would be better to repair what we had rather than butcher the chassis to take a new board and throw in 9 volt power jacks etc.
In the end we fixed up the circuit, replaced the pot with an ICAR taper pot, added true bypass and tweaked the circuit little more to improve it and the end result is one very fine vintage wah pedal restored to good working condition and sounding wicked.
From time to time people don’t read the auction properly and win an auction for a pedal mod when they thought they were bidding on a complete pedal even when it says ‘this auction does not include the pedal’.
Often it takes more than one email for them to realize it.
There are a number of options available when this happens. You can source a pedal from somewhere else. If I have a non modded pedal in stock (I often do) then you can buy the pedal from me and I’ll mod it. You can use the payment you’ve made as a credit on any of my other auctions, or second hand pedals I have in stock. Or you can keep the credit to use within 6 months giving you plenty of time to find a pedal and keep up your end of the deal.
Of course a refund can be made, and that is at my discretion, but I do charge an administration fee for the time spent with communication, refunding money, seeking a refund from Trademe, and bank fees.
Fees vary, depending on the amount of time and effort spent.
To avoid wasting your money and my time please do feel free to read the auction before committing to it.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
It’s been a great year for me with the trip up to Europe being the highlight.
I’ve had a lot of fun modding pedals for musicians from all walks of life and from every part of the sonic landscape and it’s been great reading your emails keeping me informed of what and where you are up to.
Another buzz has been watching Clay of Claytone Pedals and Mods get his mods going and up on TradeMe. I dealt with Clay a bit before he started selling and he’s a nice bloke with a good attitude and I’m sure he will do well. He’s just starting up really and is offering really good prices on his pedals and I’m pretty sure that this wont last as people realise how good their pedals sound with the right tweaks by the right people.
I’ve had a chance this year to slow things down a bit and focus on doing only the things I want to do and that has included upgrading my home studio. I’m now in the middle of recording a couple of CDs and have a concert planned for the end of summer out here on the farm.
I hope this year has been good for all of you as well and that the new year sees you safe and well and in good form for the next 12 months.
Tis the season to be scammed, with New Zealand’s leading online auction site warning people not to trust any requests for instant international cash transactions from online traders.
Overseas con artists were contacting TradeMe users, telling them they had won an auction. They would tell their target they were out of the country and trying to arrange a money transfer through Western Union, TradeMe trust and safety manager Chris Budge said.
On another auction website, a computer user had been stung over a classic 1965 Mustang Fastback, which they were offered in a special deal for $9800, Mr Budge said. The collectors car usually goes for at least $25,000.
The scammed user didn’t check where the email had come from, or why a message – apparently bearing TradeMe’s SafeTrader logo – was contacting them about a deal reached from a competing service.
“These scams do exist, and it’s Christmas time, so people are more inclined to make that big purchase,” he said.
“People just need to have their radar on. As ever, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. We don’t want any of these overseas bastards ripping off Kiwis.”
He advised site users to not use Western Union for exchanging money for items, to use the SafeTrader service and to read the site’s Q+A section.
Users should check emails about items they had apparently won with information on the auction site before moving around any money, and have a different user name on TradeMe to their email address. He also advised users to set a strong password, of at least six characters, using both letters and numbers.
One of the most popular pedals that people like to play with in my collection is my old school black box Marshall ‘The Guv’nor’. Every time someone has a play on it they want to buy it.
It’s not for sale, never will be.
When someone wants my Guv’nor pedal I put a modded Danelectro Daddy-O in front of their amp and give them the chance to play that. The Daddy-O circuit is essentially the same as The Guv’nor with a couple of exceptions. These exceptions make the Daddy-O quite different and rather awful sounding. However, by comparing the schematics of the two it is possible to convert the Daddy-O into a black box Guv’nor pedal.
It’s not a mod for the faint hearted as it involves cutting traces on the Daddy-O circuit and wiring components point to point but when it’s done you have pretty much got the black box Marshall Guv’nor nailed.
I’ve been gathering up a nice collection of Daddy-O pedals for a little while and will start listing them with the Guv’nor mod before Christmas.
Here’s a pic of some of the Daddy-O pedals I have stockpiled.
Anrew Fagan - Ex The Mockers - Click for Mockers Pic
It’s been 15 years since he last put out an album.
But former Mockers frontman Andrew Fagan is now on the comeback trail and ready to unleash his latest musical offerings on the world.
The Titirangi resident’s new CD, Admiral of the Narrow Seas, will be released early next year.
“We’ve just finished the last three songs,” he says. “I work pretty slowly. For me it’s about quality not quantity.”
Andrew launched to stardom with Kiwi rock band The Mockers during the 1980s.
One of the group’s songs, Forever Tuesday Morning, topped the charts in 1985 and made the band a household name.
Andrew capped off the year by winning the best male vocalist category of the New Zealand Music Awards.
The Mockers shifted to England in 1987 with plans for bigger and better things.
But things fizzled out during the next two years because the group struggled to get bookings and make ends meet.
Andrew stayed in the United Kingdom with his partner, former Radio with Pictures TV host Karen Hay, until 1991. He released his debut solo album Blisters in 1994 after returning home, got a touring band together, and flew back to England a year later.
Well known late disc jockey John Peel was a fan and helped the band get some airplay on his legendary BBC Radio 1 show.
Andrew came back to New Zealand with Karen again in 2002 and the pair soon found their niche working together in the 7pm to 10pm talkback slot on Radio Live.
“It’s quite weird talking to people you don’t know and can’t see,” he says. “But it’s great getting people’s feedback on stuff.”
Andrew is also the music director at Kiwi FM, choosing the songs that make up the station’s play lists.
“I really like giving people a chance when it hasn’t been championed elsewhere,” the 47-year-old says.
“There’s so much good Kiwi music out there. And I know how much effort goes into making a song or an album.”
The father of two is also a keen sailor and circumnavigated the country solo in an 18 foot yacht in 2007 – setting a New Zealand record.
He released a book of his poems called Overnight Downpour about three years ago and says his love of songwriting is as strong as ever.
His voice is still a bit hoarse after playing at a corporate function with Hello Sailor and Sam Hunt last weekend. But he’ll be on stage with his band The People on Saturday night at Titirangi’s Lopdell House.
It’s coming up to the time of year where I have to rack my brain to buy Xmas presents for my nearest and dearest. I have got a lot of help this year from a few musical friends and as a way of repaying them for that help I have had some Gift Vouchers made to pop in their Xmas Cards.
I figured that some people would like to have some as well so I have started listing them on Trademe.
$50 DEXTER MODS GIFT VOUCHER - Click to see larger image
You can find them buy clicking the Buy Now Button below.
RIFFTASTIC: Jimi Hendrix has been voted as having created the best guitar riff of all time.
Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child (Slight Return) has been voted as having the best guitar riff of all time.
The 1970 track beat Guns N’ Roses classic Sweet Child O’Mine – which topped the poll five years ago – to the top spot in the poll by website MusicRadar,com, with Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin coming third.
Just two songs from the past decade made the list; Muse’s 2001 hit Plug In Baby at 11 and The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, which was released in 2003, at 15.
MusicRadar.com’s editor-in-chief Mike Goldsmith said: “Nearly 40 years after his untimely death, Jimi Hendrix is still the undisputed heavyweight champion of rock guitar.
“Of the current generation of six-string stars, only Jack White of The White Stripes and Muse frontman Matt Bellamy feature in the higher echelons of our list. No surprise given both Bellamy and White share – or have inherited – Hendrix’s unique blend of experimental instincts and white-knuckle showmanship.
“Above all though, our poll seems to indicate one thing – in 2009, classic rock still rules.”
Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water and Derek and the Dominos’ Layla – which features Eric Clapton on guitar – made up the rest of the top five, with AC/DC, Metallica, The Beatles, Nirvana and The Rolling Stones also featuring in the top ten.
More than 5000 MusicRadar.com users took part in the poll.
Greatest Guitar Riffs of All Time according to MusicRadar.com top 20:
1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
2. Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
3. Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love
4. Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
5. Derek and the Dominos – Layla
6. AC/DC – Back In Black
7. Metallica – Enter Sandman
8. The Beatles – Day Tripper
9. Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
10. The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
11. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
12. Muse – Plug In Baby
13. Eddie Van Halen – Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
14. The Kinks – You Really Got Me
15. The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
16. AC/DC – Highway to Hell
17. Led Zeppelin – Heartbreaker
18. Black Sabbath – Iron Man
19. Led Zeppelin – Black Dog
20. Michael Jackson – Beat It
I thought it was time I modded my website so I’ve got the latest version of WordPress and added a few nice widgets and have been flat out like a lizard drinking adding content.
There’s still a long way to go with the different mods etc but give me a chance and we’ll be all up to date in no time.
One thing you will notice is there is no way to contact me via the website. It’s not a mistake, it’s very deliberate. This website is purely designed as a vehicle to sell my new and used pedals and mods on Trademe so I make no apologies for that.
So please bare with me while I update the rest of the new website.
I’m using WordPress which is an open source CMS website package that is easily styled to suit any needs and has a number of add-ons that make things like adding images, text, links, videos etc all easy to manage via a simple web-based interface. I also code with Dreamweaver and other HTML programs but I’ve found that these days I need to be able to do my updates online from any location and browser based website editing just works brilliantly for that.
As an aside it might be good to let you know that I have been developing and hosting websites since 1995 when I designed and built the first horse racing websites in New Zealand. I run a couple of servers in the USA (one hosts the websites and the other is a media streaming server) so if you have a website that you are currently hosting elsewhere it might be worth your while to see if I can help you save some money on your website costs.
Website packages start at $150 per year and include annual domain name renewal and management.
I have around 50 or so websites currently in my stable and have room for more.
The term “True-bypass” refers to a method of wiring a pedal’s stomp switch such that when the pedal is in bypass mode, your clean signal goes in one jack and out the other. The signal does not pass through any active circuitry that can corrupt your original tone. Many pedals employ a signal buffer instead of a true-bypass design, unfortunately if this buffer is poorly designed your pedal will “suck tone” when in bypass mode.
2/. Can all effects pedals be wired as True Bypass.
Yes they can, but it’s sometimes an expensive option requiring the pedal to be rehoused in a larger enclosure. A much simpler and just as effective option is to have a True Bypass switching circuit wired into your signal chain and create a True Bypass loop. This is what the Run Off pedal does.
3/. Why do you call it a Run Off pedal?
All of my own mods have a rural theme in their name. A run off is a place where you send your stock to graze while you clean up your good pasture.
4/. How do I connect the Run Off pedal into my signal chain?
You will need two guitar leads and two patch cables. Plug your guitar lead in to the Run Off ‘Input’ jack, plug your amp lead into the Run Off ‘Output’ jack. Using a patch cable plug your effect pedal input into the Run Off ‘Send’ jack. Use another patch cable plug your effect pedal output into the Run Off ‘Return’ jack. You can add as many pedals as you want into the loop between the Run Off Send and Return jacks. To True Bypass the pedal loop just use the footswitch and all pedals in the loop are true bypassed and your signal chain from guitar to amp is not affected by any of the pedals in the Send Return Loop.
Effect Loop Example - Click On Image for Larger Image
5/. How do I change the Battery?
Unscrew the 4 screws on the back of the pedal to replace the battery. The battery only powers the On/Off Indicator L.E.D light so if you want to run the pedal with out the indicator L.E.D you can do that.
6/. Do all pedals need to be True Bypassed?
No. Some pedals are notorious tone sucking devices, others have very good buffer circuits that do the bypass job very well. You can leave these pedals out of the Run Off Send Return Loop if you want and just plug them into your signal chain where you normally would have them between the guitar and amp.
7/. Sometimes I can hear a slight clicking sound through my amp when I engage the Run Off Pedal?
Welcome to the world of True Bypass. The sound you hear is not electrical, try unscrewing the Run Off backing plate and removing the 9 volt battery, if you could hear the clicking before, it’s still there. This is a mechanical issue with True Bypass and effect loops. The clicking is the sound of the the unbuffered switch connecting. This problem can be addressed effectively when wiring a True Bypass switch into an effect pedal but it is not so simple in an effect bypass box. The solution to removing the faint clicking sound is to wire in a small buffer, which puts us back to where we started.
8/. The finish on my pedal doesn’t look like the finish on my Boss pedal.
The Run Off pedal is handmade and hand painted so do not expect the look of a mass produced pedal when your pedal arrives in the post. The enclosures are made of etched aluminium and primed with PA10. They are then given three sprayed coats of acrylic enamel. The pedal is then hand assembled and may suffer a few knocks and scratches in the process. Once complete and tested the waterslide decals are applied. All in all it takes about 3 days from start to finish from a bare enclosure to get a finished pedal. I am experimenting with a baking solution to provide a more durable finish and will update when I have mastered this.
As an alternative you can order an unfinished pedal with no paint and no decals. These are discounted by $20.00
I guess it’s pretty obvious how much I like these little orange boxes, I’ve got five of them. The 3 on the left are all Black label Made In Taiwan and the 2 on the right are Black label Made in Japan models, one with the original box and user manual.
Below (left to right):
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 (modded) Made In Taiwan September 1990
Black Label Serial Number ZB88197
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 Made In Taiwan
Black Label No Serial Number
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 Made In Taiwan
Black Label No Serial Number
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 Made In Japan October 1986
Black Label Serial Number 711600
Super Feedbacker & Distortion DF-2 Made In Japan January 1989
Black Label Serial Number G983446
Info below from http://www.bossarea.com/
DF-2 SUPER Feedbacker & Distortion
The DF-2 is a distortion pedal with the added option of holding down the footswitch for endless sustain – in overtone harmonic form of single notes. With the overtone dial you adjust the overtone that you want to feed back. When you step on the pedal and hold it down, it feeds the note back until you release the pedal. This way you don’t need to play at full volume to get a feedback sound. The feedbacked note will stop immediately when you release the pedal. There is unfortunately not way to get a smooth trailing off.
Version differences
The first DF-2s was labeled “Super Distortion & Feedbacker” while the later ones was called “Super Feedbacker & Distortion”. DiMarzio had already registered the name “Super Distortion” so Boss was forced changed the DF-2’s name. The change took place around serial number 500000 (January 1985). Production moved to Taiwan late 1989 and was modified for the PSA adapter from early 1991.
Specifications
Controls: Level, Tone, Distortion, Overtone
Connectors: Input, Output, AC Adaptor
Current Draw: 10 mA (DC 9V)
Weight: 450 g (0.99 lb.)
Input Impedance: 1 Mohm
Recommended Load Impedance: 10kOhm or greater
Recommended AC Adaptor: ACA Series (black label) or PSA Series (silver label)
Labels
Black – Made In Japan
Black – Made In Taiwan
Silver – Made In Taiwan
The DF-2 was sold from September 1984 to April 1994.
Dimension C DC-2 Made In Japan January 1988
Blue Label Serial Number 866364
Info below from http://www.bossarea.com/
DC-2 Dimension C
Dimension C is an analog chorus pedal where you can choose from 4 presets. It is similar to the earlier rack mount effect, Roland SDD-320 Dimension D, but in a compact pedal format. The “Dimension” chorus effect is one where thickness, depth and a sense of width, is added to the sound to produce a kind of 3D effect. It is quit rare and it’s not uncommon to see it go for a lot of money in the used pedal market. There isn’t any way to adjust your sound other than to choose from one of the four presets. The users have never seen this as a problem as all 4 presets produce excellent sounds.
Features
Creates the kind of “dimension” effects used in professional recording studios.
Stereo outputs gives you a wider sense of 3D effect
A built-in noise reduction circuitry keeps noise level down
Specifications
Controls: 4 Switches for Mode Selection
Connectors: Input, Output A, Output B, AC Adaptor
Current Draw: 30 mA (DC 9V)
Weight: 410g (14oz)
Input Impedance: 1Mohm
Residual Noise Level: -95 dBm (IHF-A)
Recommended Load Impedance: 10kOhm or greater
Recommended AC Adaptor: PSA Series
Labels
Blue – Made In Japan
The DC-2 was sold from December 1985 to September 1989.
Compression Sustainer CS-2 Made In Japan November 1983
Black Label Serial Number 367400
Compression Sustainer CS-2 Made In Japan February 1986
Black Label Serial Number 631600
BOSS CS-2 Compression Sustainer MIJ
BOSS CS-2 Compression Sustainer MIJ
Info below from http://www.bossarea.com/
CS-2 Compression Sustainer
The CS-2 compresses high-input signals while boosting low-input signals, giving you smooth and long sustain without degrading the quality of the original sound. The CS-2 uses a VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifier) instead of the photocouplers used by the CS-1. The VCA’s speeds up the signal processing and makes the attack much faster compared to the CS-1. The Attack knob can however be used to control this.
Specifications
Controls: Level, Attack, Sustain
Connectors: Input, Output, AC Adaptor
Current Draw: 4 mA (DC 9V)
Weight: 400g (15 oz.)
Input Impedance: 1MOhm
Recommended AC Adaptor: ACA Series
Labels
Black – Made In Japan
The CS-2 was sold from December 1981 to June 1986.
I just love these Boss Chorus pedals, and have collected 4 of them. One is really beat up and is always on my pedal board, I’ll get a photo of that up soon. These things just nail the sound I am looking for with an analog chorus. The Ibanez CS-9 is very similar in sound to the CE-2, so if you can’t find a CE-2, use the Ibanez.
Below:
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan December 1981
Black label Serial Number 137700
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan September 1982
Black label Serial Number 220400
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan October 1983
Black label Serial Number 350100
Chorus CE-2 Made In Japan January 1987
Green label Serial Number 740800
Info below from http://www.bossarea.com/
CE-2 Chorus
The CE-2 was the first compact pedal chorus from Boss. The CE-1 was released 1976 and contained the exact same circuit as the Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 Amp. The CE-2 builds on the legacy of the CE-1 but isn’t identical. The middle region is boosted in the CE-2 compared to the CE-1. According to the design engineers this may be because the CE-1 had a lower input impedance.
Roland says that they stopped marketing the CE-2 November 1982. The pedal was however still produced and sold at least out 1990. The label changed from black to green 1984. The CE-2 was produced in Japan up until 1988 when production moved to Taiwan.
Version differences
The CE-2 exists in both silver screw and black screw versions.
The font used on the “Chorus” label is wider on some versions. This results in the C in CE-2 to be located under the r in Chorus on the earliest models while it later ended up under the u.
The circuit has gone through some minor changes but nothing significant. All MIJ CE-2s are designed around the MN3007 BBD using MN3101 clock driver.
Specifications
Controls: Rate, Depth
Connectors: Input, Output, AC Adaptor
Current Draw: 9 mA (DC 9V)
Weight: 400 g. (14 oz)
Input Impedance: 470kOhm
Signal/Noise Ratio: 90dB or more
Recommended Load Impedance: 10kOhm or greater
Recommended AC Adaptor: ACA Series
Labels
Black – Made In Japan
Green – Made In Japan
Green – Made In Taiwan
The CE-2 was sold from October 1979 to November 1982.
These are very hard to find now and both of the ones I have got my hands on have lost the battery cover. The effect is to die for though, very 80’s with a real shimmer that only these pedals offer. The bypass is pretty bad, but if you true bypass them in the traditional way you lose the stereo effect. I use them in my home studio and use either a Boss CE-2 or an MXR Stereo Chorus in my live rig.
The SCH on the left is Made In Sri Lanka, and the one on the right is Made In Japan, no noticeable sound difference between the two, both lovely sounding pedals.
Stereo Chorus SCH-1 Made In Japan
Silver Label Serial Number 837311
Stereo Chorus SCH-1 Made In Sri Lanka
Black Label Serial Number 278639
The taper of the wah pot affects the speed at which the wah effect changes. The ICAR taper pot is more abrupt, almost like a linear pot whereas the Dunlop Pot has a longer sweep. The Dunlop is also harder wearing, Dunlop estimate it will last for one million cycles. My recommendation is always the Hot Pot, but I appreciate some people prefer the ICAR taper.
I got a couple of funny emails today from Trademe regarding my auction listings. Seems someone had dobbed me in for linking my auctions to the dextermods.co.nz website. The complaint suggested my contact details were contained here.
Now that’s odd because I knocked this website up for the express purpose of selling on Trademe and I’ve been very careful to ensure that my contact details are not available here. It is against Trademe’s Terms and Conditions to have your contact details contained on any website URL that you have on your listings.
I rang Trademe as soon as their emails came in and they were good enough to ring me straight back so it didn’t cost me anything. They quickly looked into the complaint and found that my website links were totally kosher and they admitted they had made an error when looking into the complaint and apologised.
They also offered a nice credit on my account and to fix the URL’s that had been removed in error.
The credit came in immediately and the URL’s were restored within 30 minutes.
So here’s a tip if you are listing stuff on Trademe and you decide to pay someone a bundle to knock you up a website – make sure to tell them not to include any of your contacts details on the website or you may end up paying them a shipload of money to do a shipload of edits. Websites can be flippin’ blinkin’ expensive so make sure if you hand over a shipload of readies for one that you can actually get some use out of it.
Failing that just shortcut the process and stand over the dunny and flush your money away, cut out the middleman.
Sometimes trades just go bad and when they do there is usually a small window of opportunity to fix them. Both the buyer and the seller have to be reasonable and see things from the other guys perspective and work together to seek a solution that works for both parties.
I recently had a huge spring clean and sold an awful lot of stuff on my Trademe auctions. All was going well until James bought a a Squier off me to mod into something better.
Living where I do I have extra costs if buyers want something couriered or sent urgently. I have an arrangement with my RD man to do special runs up to Tuakau Post Shop for me that saves me 120km two hour return drive but costs me $20. My payment instructions clearly point out that extra costs are involved if the buyer specifies urgent delivery.
James specified that he did want this, in fact he wanted the guitar overnight.
The RD man had been and gone on Friday morning by the time I got James’ email so I got in the car and headed up to town. Overnight courier was quoted at $64. Now I know that it’s harder to seek more postage than to refund so I went with the 1 – 3 day Track and Trace. Postage cost $22 and 2 rolls of gaffer tape to secure the hardcase cost $4 from the $2 in Pukekohe. Total post and packing costs comes to $26. Had I made the RD man trip I’d have got an invoice for a further $20 so my P&P estimate of $45 was close enough.
By the time I got home I had another email from James. He wanted to know the track and trace number so he could pick the guitar up from the depot in the morning. I emailed him the Track and Trace number and pointed out that I had gone the extra mile to get the guitar away as fast as possible.
Monday rolls around and I have another email from James. He wants to know why I didn’t use overnight courier. I remind him that the auction stated NZ Post Track and Trace and tell him overnight courier for the item was considerably more than he had paid. I told him I work out postage and packing on a worst case scenario and refund the difference once the goods have been confirmed as arrived.
Tuesday and James has his guitar. He sees the postage was only $22 and demands a refund of $23.
I point out that he has omitted to allow for packing costs of $4 and ask that he makes this allowance before we settle on a refund figure.
James refuses to accept the packing tape as a legitimate part of the P&P cost and once more demands a refund of $23 but this time he adds the closing line “I expect you to stop wasting my time and refund my $23.00 for postage as any thing less is tantamount to theft and as much as I really can not be bothered I will take appropriate action which if nothing else will waste your time also.”
I take the opportunity to once more remind James of the packing cost which he deems to be theft and advise him that there is an inherent problem with a negotiating style that involves one party holding a gun to the other guys head and saying ‘do what I say or else’ and that is you are left with too few options if the other guy calls you on your threat.
James reply is predictable, personal abuse and foul language “You appear to be a very petty and small minded twit, take your money and fuck off.”
So I gracefully accept his kind invitation.
James complains to Trademe about the overcharging, I reply to them advising that James was made aware of the extra costs and refused to acknowledge the packing tape costs and they seem OK with that.
James gives negative feedback. I do the same.
End result, James pulled the trigger, lost a $19 postage refund and hopefully learned a valuable lesson about negotiations.
Negotiating while holding a gun to the other guys head is just dumb. When he refuses to back down all you are left with is a bloody mess.
I’ve had a bit of a spring clean around the old farm house and have decided to clear out the clutter. My two spare rooms are full of wonderful items I have collected over the years and digging through them was great fun.
However a lot of this stuff will never be used by me. Also a lot of the stuff is gear I have had for years and has been put in the spare rooms because I replaced or upgraded to newer stuff.
Some of the stuff just plain made me wonder why I bought it in the first place.
So I am quitting this stuff. First on the block are the solid state amps. I was a fan of these for several years and still intend to keep my matching pair of Fender Deluxe 112s and my Jansen Little Ripper. But the rest are never going to get any kind of use and they take up a lot of room.
Next up are the guitars I will not be using. I’ve moved into a recording studio and have selected the guitars I will keep. I have a large collection of other guitars that I will list. These are all good guitars and have been brought to either upgrade or use or simply to satisfy my many curiosities
Also I will be listing old TVs, household items, stereos, cellphones, DVD players, computer components etc etc etc etc etc. And keep going until it is all gone.
After a month off I am now back in business. New Zealand winters are always hard on my old bones so my partner and I headed north. We went to Scotland, and saw Oasis at Murrayfield,
Oasis At Murrayfeild
then we headed into England, and I saw Jeff Beck at The Manchester Apollo.
Been there, done that, got the Tee Shirt
We stayed in England for a while enjoying the heatwave and then spent 4 wonderful days in Rome on the way home.
Something older (and bigger) than me!
The batteries are fully recharged now and I’m raring to go.
Since the collapse of capitalism things have been going pretty slow. I tried a few $1 reserve auctions and watched as competitors undercut me and still didn’t sell anything.
That tells me it’s a good time to take a month off and get on with some projects in my other businesses that have been put on the back burner for too long.
So I’ll only be listing a few auctions for the next 4 weeks and won’t be doing any mods at all.
I’ll also be all but ceasing my buying on Trademe so all you fellers out there that are sick of the sight of my username appearing above yours on auction bid lists can have a field day. Knock yourselves out.
Sure, as long as you ask the question before you bid and win one of my auctions I’m always prepared to do a layby deal.
The way it works is you have to do a Buy Now if it is an option or win the auction with the highest bid. Once the auction closes you will receive an email with the payment details. You’ll need to make your first payment within 3 days and complete all other payments within 40 days so that feedback can still be listed.
Also my Layby deals are no different to other successful auctions, once you win the auction you are committed to completing it.
I’ve been doing some serious upgrades to the studio where I am recording my new soon to be a massive hit CD. I’ve scored some nice amps in the process. My dirty sound is built around a VOX AC15 Heritage usually running a TS9 with my secret mod driving a non bluesberry Hotcake into the Vox. For classic clean sounds I use either my Peavey Classic 50 Tweed amp, or my modified Peavey Bravo and a 4 x 12 Eminence loaded cabinet. When I want a different kind of dirt sound I’m now using a Peavey Valve King 2 x 12 with whatever pedals that are required.
My solid state stereo set up is two matching Fender Deluxe 112 tranny amps coming out of a POD XT Live or a stereo chorus pedal.
I’ve decided to sell off my Peavey Bandits, all four of them. They’re just not getting used any more and are too good to not let someone else enjoy.
If you want a good solid state amp, check out my TradeMe listing for these amps. They’re going out at bargain prices.
Short answer, no. But I do mod the Belcat Delay which is surface mount, and have done for ages. I also do the Dexter Mods ‘Wild Turkey’ Klon Klone mod to the EHX Soul Food pedal which is surface mount. The problem with surface mount technology is that it’s design is inspired to cut costs therefore aftermarket mods have to take into account the economies that are used in pedals using SMD. The risk of damage is simply too high for most modders to contemplate. I’m not alone in this, most serious modders prefer to work with your equipment knowing that they wont damage it beyond repair. The costs for setting up an SMD workshop are minimal, but the risk of wrecking your precious pedals isn’t.
I am looking at moving my pedal modding service into town. Over the next two weeks I am looking at building space in Manukau and Hamilton.
I want to be able to offer a drop in centre where customers can try out my pedals and also bring their pedals into me for While U Wait mods to pedals and guitars.
The economics of this kind of move are huge, and now may not be the best time to do something like this but I have to look at it.
I’ve run this as a mail order service now since it began and that has worked well, but I am always looking for ways to offer new services so this in now something I have to consider.
I will keep you posted via this web page of any developments.
My feedback on the full removal of the input buffer always comments about how much more improved the bypass signal is, yet it’s now claimed by some that it’s is in fact worse.
I’ve seen these ‘true bypass’ mods with the input buffer left in place. They are usually done by overseas modders and have been sent to me for improvement. I remove the input buffer and that fixes the problem.
Removing the input buffer is the largest labour part of my true bypass mod. I could take the short cut and leave the input buffer intact, but I’d have to reduce the price of the mod by at least $35 if this was the way I did the mod.
Any wah true bypass mod that left the input buffer intact and was priced at anything like my price is just overcharging. Plain and simple.
I carry a personal stock of parts that I use for repairs and mods. I buy these in bulk from places like Ebay, Small Bear and Effects Connection in the USA. I usually have to spend between $NZ100 and $NZ300 to make this worthwhile because shipping kills this kind of thing.
As a result I am not keen to sell with these parts because it means that my next order is that much closer.
So if you are missing a knob, or a jack, or you want a single op amp or just one or two capacitors or resisters then you’ll need to understand that if you ask a question seeking these parts and I am prepared to sell them to you there will be a premium.
I have a minimum charge for small items of $NZ5 of which Trademe will take 50 cents of in success fees leaving me with $4.50. The $NZ5 doesn’t bear any resemblance to the cost of the part, which is quite often just a few US cents. This reflects the time I will need to 1/. Check if I have the part you want, 2/. Answer your question, 3/. List the item, 4/. Check my account for payment, 5/. Package and Post the item, 6/. Place feedback.
If you don’t understand that I’m not in the business of selling small units of electrical items but am happy to help out someone who needs a small item in a hurry then you’ll probably be best to go to a US online electronic store and buy the goods there for the few cents that it costs.
As an example let’s look at a JRC4558D op amp. You can buy one of these in online for around $US0.45 cents each. Postage to New Zealand will cost you $US4.50. You’ll pay with your credit card and your bank will charge you a foreign exchange fee of around 6%
You will see the part around 14 days.
If you think this part is still only worth $US.45 cents give me a call when you next place your order and I’ll get my parts from you instead 😉
Good question. You have a choice these days, your job is simply to make the right choice. Besides my feedback which tells you I run a professional modding service and have done for a number of years, you need to consider what you are getting for your hard earned cash.
Sure. I offer the same warranty to you that I get with the pedal. On used pedals this means that the pedal will be as described in the auction and will work as stated.
My warranty does not guarantee that a modded pedal will work with every configuration but that it will work with a set up similar to my test rig which is Yamaha EG112 with SSH pickup arrangement then cable to the pedal then cable to amp which in my case is a Vox Cambridge 30 watt hybrid tube pre-amp and transistor power amp. The pedal is tested with a fresh 9 volt battery and a regulated power supply.
On mods I offer a full warranty against any fault caused by the installation or parts installed for between 1 and 3 years after purchase depending on the auction text. If you decide to sell your pedal this warranty may be extended to the new owner but you will need to contact me first. Unless I am contacted prior to sale and offer to transfer the warranty, the warranty expires when you sell your pedal.
On new pedals I give the same warranty that I got with the pedal. For example, when I buy a new Boss pedal it comes to me with a 1 year warranty, so I pass that warranty on to you.
But wait, there’s more. With any new pedal the warranty is voided by the manufacturer if it has been modified. However I will extend to you the buyer my own warranty on the new pedal so you are effectively getting the manufacturer’s warranty on a modified pedal. I am the only person selling modified pedals on Trademe offering this extended warranty service.
Why? Because I believe in the pedals I modify and will wear at my own cost any problems, including full replacement if necessary, if that’s what it takes to keep a customer happy.
If you see someone selling a ‘brand new’ pedal on Trademe that they have modded ask the question “Does this new pedal come with a new warranty or has it been voided by the mods?”
THESE PEDALS ARE NOT FOR SALE!
I’m getting better at saying no when I get asked ‘can I pick your brain?’
I thought it was time I modded my website so I’ve got the latest version of WordPress and added a few nice widgets and have been flat out like a lizard drinking adding content.
