Pot and Kettle

[Laundryroom David]

I don’t mind. Never did. It’s flattering. Not under the impression that my business will fall apart because people are making clones at home. If Ibanez is still selling hoards of Tube Screamers, believe me, I’m not concerned. I sleep on a couch in the shop at least four nights a week, no more than six hours a night, sometimes with shoes on so I can just get up and start going, running around like a headless chicken every day because I can’t build them fast enough — so in fact, by all means, if anyone wants to take over… I could use a nap.

Came here previously to help by correcting a mistake on the schematic and to note that first-stage transistors needed to be biased properly — which to me doesn’t seem all that controversial, especially when someone is saying their build is sputtery exactly for that reason — but was met with the dogs, and all the info I shared was deleted. All I can do is laugh it off, I have work to do.

But bring this back! Lol

View attachment 48891

Nah, I decided to go in a different direction. I was trying to riff on something from another thread (the “cram hole” of fitting shit in an enclosure) because of the pots and switches. Also I’m a petty bitch sometimes and yeah there’s been drama. The whole idea got too convoluted and the decal looked like shit, so I took it off and put the davies clone knobs on for a classier appearance.

Your pedal is cool. I have no idea if the Pot and Kettle sounds like your pedal. I hope it does, bc it sounds killer.

 

[Laundryroom David]

That’s the one. If people are using these builds as placeholders to represent my design, taking them around town and saying, “This is what a BlackBox sounds like,” don’t y’all think I understand it’s in my own interest to help make them sound as good and as close to the real thing as possible…?

Jamie Stilman just texted me about my Parentheses mini fuzz build oh shit

 

[snouse]

Hey @snouse I've seen your guts.

Someone remind me not to bend over in the shower anymore

 

[snouse]

How are you finding the availability of transistors & such that you need to keep your Builds going out the door on time?

It’s been a massive headache. Pandemic era was destructive in this regard. There are dozens of online electronics dealers smaller than Mouser, and tons of small shops all over the country who are not online and are happy to get rid of a bulk of components that have been sitting in a storeroom. If you chat with them long enough, they’ll keep an eye out for anything else you’re looking for, too.

Recently relented and hired an assistant, part of whose job it is to do a list of searches online to see who has gotten what in, along with some calling around. I buy everything out that isn’t absurdly priced. Hunting the stonks is full-time-part-time job.

 

[Laundryroom David]

I would release a decoy pedal, wait for Robert to tidy up my layout and then rerelease as a v2 limited edition sparkles mode. But that speaks more for my layout skills than anything else.

Awesome sauce. We may take the piss but I think the bulk of us are happy to see pedal makers thrive. Even more so when they engage in our community of semi-well behaved trolls.

Hey now. I may be a troll and part of a community, but I am not semi-well behaved

 

[MGB]

@snouse ... Even though I built one of Robert's board, I still have my Blackbox Stage Pro Mod order somewhere on your production line. I even got my UPS Tracking May 1st but it has not shipped yet.

BTW, shipping charges to Canada were more than decent. Respect to you, greatly appreciated !

 

[Diynot]

Hey now. I may be a troll and part of a community, but I am not semi-well behaved

But aren’t you from the great white north?

 

[Paradox916]

Good job @Laundryroom David on the guts, sorry to see your build report get hijacked.

@??? Not everything is about you.

 

[Laundryroom David]

But aren’t you from the great white north?

To quote James McMurtry:

“I’m not from here
I just live here”

 

[HamishR]

Well really we do need to look after independent pedal manufacturers because that's where some of the best ideas come from. I still buy pedals from time to time. I only really build my own because I want to change something. I might build something stock and if I like it enough I'll make changes. I'm definitely not suggesting that I know better - I really don't! - but I have things I particularly like in an OD which probably don't matter to most players but do to me.

I have tried a Snouse and I think it's a cool pedal. Friends of mine love theirs. But I have pedals I prefer for various reasons and have my own version of a Bluesbreaker which started off as a modified Protein Blue but has changed a long way from the original now. It might not suit everyone but it suits me! I would never get into pedal building as a living because it looks too hard to me. I am lucky that I have had success in other ways of making enough money to get by.

 

[JamieJ]

What changes did you make to the protein @HamishR ? The bluesbreaker is my favourite low gain OD. I’m messing with it on the breadboard at the moment and alway interested to see what others are doing.

 

[Guilherme Collateral]

Well really we do need to look after independent pedal manufacturers because that's where some of the best ideas come from. I still buy pedals from time to time. I only really build my own because I want to change something. I might build something stock and if I like it enough I'll make changes. I'm definitely not suggesting that I know better - I really don't! - but I have things I particularly like in an OD which probably don't matter to most players but do to me.

I have tried a Snouse and I think it's a cool pedal. Friends of mine love theirs. But I have pedals I prefer for various reasons and have my own version of a Bluesbreaker which started off as a modified Protein Blue but has changed a long way from the original now. It might not suit everyone but it suits me! I would never get into pedal building as a living because it looks too hard to me. I am lucky that I have had success in other ways of making enough money to get by.

This! I do build pedals as a job, have my own comercial projects, and I also build some stuff for myself for fun and personal use. And I ALSO buy a lot of pedals, specially from small businesses. I think we can live in peace and make the pedal market and online forums healthier and more positive places

 

[HamishR]

What changes did you make to the protein @HamishR ? The bluesbreaker is my favourite low gain OD. I’m messing with it on the breadboard at the moment and alway interested to see what others are doing.

I ended up making extensive changes to the front end with some guidance from Chuck. I wanted to do two things - the same things I want to do from any OD really. I wanted a bass control and I wanted to reduce the fuzziness of the bass string sound. It came a long way and while it doesn't really sound much like the original pedal anymore it does sound really cool. The key is to start the circuit with not much low frequency content, especially before the clipping stage. Then build up the low frequencies through the circuit. This way you can get lots of clipping and distortion but a tight, controlled low end.

The Protein Blue is probably my favourite BB derived pedal because it has the extra gain stage to boost output and a healthy amount of low-end content. It does this while keeping the parts count relatively low. I like the sound of many BB derivatives but get frustrated by the lack of low-end punch.