Are you building or are you playing?

In recent months, are you a builder or a player?

  • I'm a tone chaser, so I can't stop building!

    Votes: 21 53.8%

  • I got what I need for now, so it's time to just play!

    Votes: 18 46.2%
  • Total voters
    39
I haven’t hardly built anything this year. Had nothing to do with being satisfied, and more to do with just not feeling it. Of course, I’m still haunted by tones. I’ve had a Current Lover PCB sitting here for a year now. Meanwhile, I bought a 2nd-hand E-Lady for $35…

A month or so ago I decided to just build something from nothing: no pcb, no plans, just a hand drawn schematic, and whatever I had in stock. I now consider this “raw-dogging” pedals. So I built a BossTone from scratch, and then a Tremolo, and then an Echo, then the Fuzzolo (excellent fuzz, btw). Now I’ve got two wah’s in the works, but I’ve hit a pause…I ran out of solder.

I have found in my life that I have a tendency to ‘idealize’ things, and then can never reach that ideal. It’s not an expectations/reality thing…it’s more a limits thing. There’s only so much I can do. I don’t really do artwork because I am not artistically inclined. My ideal for that is actually pretty low, but still beyond my abilities. Another example: I love the sound of the Maestro FZ-1(a). I love how buzzy and flinty it is. It is not an easy circuit to build. Try and I have, while coming close, I’m still not satisfied. Of course, I could buy a real one…and I don’t think it would satisfy me anymore than the pretty close tone I get through my Ge Fuzzrite…

I guess my point is that sometimes the suffering is the art. It’s a roller coaster of emotions, building a pedal: excitement, anxiety, stress, anger, joy, enchantment, disappointment, intrigue, romance (?😘), stress, anxiety…did I say that all ready? Of course, it’s not about the ‘friends we made along the way’ or any gyatt like that. It’s that when you are done, you feel the same as when you started. But you did something in the meantime, you rode the rollercoater…
 
Coda said:
I haven’t hardly built anything this year. Had nothing to do with being satisfied, and more to do with just not feeling it. Of course, I’m still haunted by tones. I’ve had a Current Lover PCB sitting here for a year now. Meanwhile, I bought a 2nd-hand E-Lady for $35…

A month or so ago I decided to just build something from nothing: no pcb, no plans, just a hand drawn schematic, and whatever I had in stock. I now consider this “raw-dogging” pedals. So I built a BossTone from scratch, and then a Tremolo, and then an Echo, then the Fuzzolo (excellent fuzz, btw). Now I’ve got two wah’s in the works, but I’ve hit a pause…I ran out of solder.

I have found in my life that I have a tendency to ‘idealize’ things, and then can never reach that ideal. It’s not an expectations/reality thing…it’s more a limits thing. There’s only so much I can do. I don’t really do artwork because I am not artistically inclined. My ideal for that is actually pretty low, but still beyond my abilities. Another example: I love the sound of the Maestro FZ-1(a). I love how buzzy and flinty it is. It is not an easy circuit to build. Try and I have, while coming close, I’m still not satisfied. Of course, I could buy a real one…and I don’t think it would satisfy me anymore than the pretty close tone I get through my Ge Fuzzrite…

I guess my point is that sometimes the suffering is the art. It’s a roller coaster of emotions, building a pedal: excitement, anxiety, stress, anger, joy, enchantment, disappointment, intrigue, romance (?😘), stress, anxiety…did I say that all ready? Of course, it’s not about the ‘friends we made along the way’ or any gyatt like that. It’s that when you are done, you feel the same as when you started. But you did something in the meantime, you rode the rollercoater…
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See, I identify with this.

I'm a dude that likes whimsical bullshit. I'm also not much of an artist. Nor do I hold any particularly original ideas in my head.

I mean...I played in a heavy metal band. I toured, recorded an EP, lived that life. Then I became a HVAC mechanic and slowly watched the creative side of myself atrophy into a miserable shell that survived on a diet of nicotine and anger.

But stickwife is an artist, and she understands the creative impulse. So she encouraged me to do the musics, and I've found a way to marry my technical and artistic skills into something that I enjoy the process of creating.

But there are still ups and downs. The process of making the artwork for my pedals is typically an exercise in improvisation off of a prompt. It's not always gonna be perfect, and sometimes I'm disappointed by my results.

But sometimes I'm able to make something that makes me smile, laugh, etc.

Buddhism teaches its followers that pain X resistance = suffering. The pain is just something you gotta work through, cause getting stuck in that "you're not good enough" mental loop is the other sharpened edge of that creativity blade. Sometimes you just gotta say "Yeah, it's not perfect. Suck my stick balls."

One might presume that is why I've adopted this...uh...*particular* internet alter ego. To distance myself from the pain of associating too closely to my failures. Or maybe it's just cause I'm aneurotypical as fuck and particularly enjoy a good, transparent farce.

Although they would be wrong, as I actually am a Stickman IRL.
 
I've gotten to a point where I'm quite happy with the electronics I built right into my main guitar, so I now mostly just pick up the axe and play on a whim. That was the whole point of my loooong journey into onboard electronics: eliminate as much friction as possible between feeling like playing and actually playing (as opposed to "nah, fork it, too many cables, too much work, I'm tired"). I can be a master procrastinator, so I have to get all excuses out of the way if I want to get anything done at all.

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My build pipeline has slowed down, and I'm trying to play it bit more instead. Still have a backlog of pcbs/parts calling out to me though.

With winter coming I'll probably get more builds done. But with the weather over 100F this week, I'm not sure we have winters anymore.
 
Interests swing back and forth all the time. It's about where you get your energy from at a given time. Want to be meditative, or expressive? Thing is, getting older, comes with the sense making sure time's not been wasted as much as the 20s and 30s, when the "life ahead" seemed innumeral still. There's so many waters to dip your toes in. So I play the rol of jack of all trades, master of none... Keep the mind occupied. Keep the body occupied. A few hours of this a week, a few hours of that. None of it matters, so it should at least give comfort. Be it noodling with notes. Be it soldering. Both are fun exercises. Both demand some level of focus. But there's also a lot of repetition involved. Both are soothing and be of value.
 
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I play and sing at least 16 hours a week, mostly in 4 and 5 hour stints. Most of that is acoustic, but I do pull out the mics and amps and pedals from time to time.

I'm still trying to get into a 'place' where the house is clean (over 2000 square feet and a large yard and garden)... since my wife kicked the bucket in 2021. She used to say "you don't realize how much work I do". Boy howdy, you can say that again.

I'm getting much closer. There are major home repair projects in need of 'doin'. Fitting them in, between regular life maintenance is daunting. But, I'm whittling away at them. Getting there. Hopefully SOON, maybe even this year, I'll have a normal life again and have more time for more hobbies.

I am SO CLOSE to getting this 59 Bassman done it's making me antsy. And on that note, it's time for yard work on this 101f day. Oh boy....
 
I went way too hard building and burned out a bit. I’ve only done a couple of UV prints but I like them so much that I don’t want to build anything until I’ve designed a print, which is daunting because I spend all day looking at a screen 😂 . Someone recently posted a bunch of builds that used a standard-ish print template and that sounds like a great way to fix my motivation problem.

My most recent project was a DIY attenuator and that’s actually really made me want to play more than any recent pedals just because I can play at non-painful levels and still get the sound I want.
 
All I wanted to do was clone a f*king Darkglass Omicron. Fast forward a year, give or take, and now I’m 14 pcbs deep, reading articles and books where I’m forgetting things quicker than I can learn them.

I bit the bullet and re-bought an omicron which is in the mailbox right now. Gonna shelve this stuff until December where I’ll probably pick up the building bug again. Looking forward to brushing up on my chops for the time being
 
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About mid year I realized that I had a bunch of pedals built, but not completed (in terms of decorating them), and worse, to me, was that several were built for friends and relatives who have been very patient. (Who would be happy with them in their unpainted states, most likely.)

So, I stopped building more pedals, and began tightening up my designs. Then, I got sidetracked with some small home projects… in any case, I have about 25 designs ready, and will be gutting everything to bring them into my old shop to paint, and apply graphics. While I’ve been tempted to sort out parts orders for the next 15 or so that are in the queue, I decided that was part of the building process, and I’ve stuck to my guns. This means I really am looking forward to starting that next batch. (First up, Aion’s L5…, which I’ve designed so that I could get the graphics done with the order I’m sending in…)

Playing remains a constant, probably 5 days a week, 1 to 2 hours (that occasionally becomes 3.)

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As someone who enjoys working with their hands, I feel as though I've spent the majority of my time this past year on playing rather than building. That being said, I've spent a significant amount of time on building/house projects. I just realized that my build time has been away from pedals a bit. Now that we're in the thick of winter here in the US, my iron has been itching for a good solder session.
 
This summer i started playing with a band again, and i decided to slow down on building pedals, in this 2025 i would like to go back to composing and recording music, possibly build just some pedals that particularly inspire me, certainly no fuzz or overdrive or anything like that. I would like to build just some super weird pedals. Unfortunately i don't have the time to do both (play and build).

These days I'm setting up all the equipment for playing and recording, I'm choosing which pedals to use and how to route the signal in the most original and creative way
 
BuddytheReow said:
As someone who enjoys working with their hands, I feel as though I've spent the majority of my time this past year on playing rather than building. That being said, I've spent a significant amount of time on building/house projects. I just realized that my build time has been away from pedals a bit. Now that we're in the thick of winter here in the US, my iron has been itching for a good solder session.
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I have a number of NAMM builds pending and the show is now just over two weeks out. For extra fun, I think at least one bass I'm supposed be to building electronics for may not have even been started yet. I really, really don't want to do an all nighter at the luthier's shop the day before the van pulls for Anaheim, but it could easily happen that way. :ROFLMAO:
 
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I'm trying to play more guitar so I'm at a point of considering purging anything in my backlog that doesn't really interest me, a lot of stuff I bought more so out of curiosity.
 
I’m fairly consistent with playing. So even when I’m in build mode, I still noodle for at least 15m a day, which seems to be enough to keep me “in shape”.

Last spring I bought my first 7-string and immediately restrung it for M3 tuning, which is why I bought it. It’s still feels pretty fresh, but I’m getting better at being able to “just play” with it. Still a ways from being as fluid on it as a standard six stringer.
 
8pm to 10pm building....

10pm to midnight or 1 or 2am playing....

9am to 8pm working my butt off making meals, cleaning, finance planning, shopping, etc. My fiance cannot walk very well. She's been in traction after breaking hips and legs after not one, but two hideous car wrecks during her life so I do it all. In both cases she was a passenger. Sucks....

I finally got the 5F6A '59 Bassman heaters done on this last night. Big sigh of relief. My least favorite part, but the twisted wires look cool. Someone on TGP mentioned they stopped twisting and just use shrink tube to keep the wires very close and perfectly parallel and it works just as well. So I think I'll try that next.

01.06.25 Progress 5F6A.JPEG
 
RetiredUnit1 said:
8pm to 10pm building....

10pm to midnight or 1 or 2am playing....

9am to 8pm working my butt off making meals, cleaning, finance planning, shopping, etc. My fiance cannot walk very well. She's been in traction after breaking hips and legs after not one, but two hideous car wrecks during her life so I do it all. In both cases she was a passenger. Sucks....

I finally got the 5F6A '59 Bassman heaters done on this last night. Big sigh of relief. My least favorite part, but the twisted wires look cool. Someone on TGP mentioned they stopped twisting and just use shrink tube to keep the wires very close and perfectly parallel and it works just as well. So I think I'll try that next.

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Is that tabasco for some "extra hot sauce toan?"
 
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