Taking a break...Anybody else feel like this?

Pauleo1214

Pauleo1214

Well-known member
This place is a super cool community to be part of. Honestly, there are a few things frustrating me;

1. It will be two months until I regain the use of my fingertips after slicing them off with a mandolin.
2. I haven't felt any burning ideas come into my head to push the envelope with builds.
3. A number of my FV-1 builds have decided to crap out for no good reason.. Even my crown jewel Oroboros Looper stopped taking power (don't ask me how) and I feel like throwing it away would be more cathartic than finding out what's wrong or breaking it down for parts.

All this is telling me I'm burnt out on pedal building (and other things too). Has anybody ever come across frustration that is similar? If so, feel free to share your experience.

Be well everyone!
 
I fucked up an amp build, got crusty old dude bad attitude on a forum trying to get help. Didnt touch a soldering iron for like 3 years. Picked it back up again, built a ton of pedals, learned how stuff worked, fixed the borked amp, and I've been cooking ever since. Wishing you a speedy recovery with the fingers
 
It happens. For me it was the point where I realized running my own am- business wouldn’t pay the bills, and I entered the workforce again. Was so burned out on electronics that I didn’t pick up a soldering iron for a few years…and when I did then, I was still a bit burnt. Wasn’t until the last few years did I find happiness in it.
 
I’ve been in a similar funk before too. Even down to the hand injury. I sliced my right index finger down to the bone, stupidly trying to pull a stainless steel metal shaving off of a 1/2” drill bit. It took seven stitches to close it up and I lost most of the feeling in my index finger thanks to nerve damage. I couldn’t hold a pick initially and had to completely retrain my brain on how play guitar with my right hand. It took 2 years before I finally regained about 60% of the feeling back in my finger and that’s where it stopped. Point of the story… that was 12 years ago now and I play better and do way more guitar related crap than I ever did back then. Just keep at it and you’ll find a way to bounce back if you’re passionate enough about it.
 
I hear you building pedals after awhile gets a little well repetitive. Tweaking them makes it a little less. I don’t build nearly as many as I used to. But I find the skills lend well to other things. I love finding broken pedals/amps etc and trying to fix them. I find it much more rewarding a lot more time consuming sometimes depending. But man when you get it does it feel awesome.
 
I had a forced cathartic break because I was home and workshop less for a while. Probably just as well as I'm now itching a bit more to get things built.
Taking a can be a quite useful and invigorating thing, I concur with @Harry Klippton, also hope the fingertips. I do scratch myself all the time with my work so I can relate, I'm a band aid VIP customer.
 
The solder-station that burns twice as hot burns half as long — and you have burned so very, very brightly, Paul.

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Yeah, been there. Got so frustrated when build after build after build were being stalled: going wrong, running out of parts, parts-status reaching unobtanium...

I got seriously burnt out on MTBing at one point, never in a gajillianzillion lifetimes did I think that would ever happen to me;
I couldn't understand how anyone could hang up the bike (after seeing many do so).
Then the universe conspires with hubris and... BAM! You get a shot of the ol' spice weasel.

You're not alone.
Laundryroom David is still on hiatus, since Dec 18, '23. (Hope he's doing well and enjoying his break).

Take a break. I do hope you come back with some wild tangle of circuitry again, and again...
 
Pauleo1214 said:
All this is telling me I'm burnt out on pedal building (and other things too). Has anybody ever come across frustration that is similar? If so, feel free to share your experience.
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Of course. I've had a tube bass amp build sitting unfinished for, eh...three years? I could have finished it at any time with one or two long days of work, but I already pretty much know what it'll sound like (great!) and it's quite unlikely I'll keep it around. But I only want to build this thing once, and as well as I can manage.

More to the point, I completely retired from gigging on bass in 2018. Only in the last few months have I even started going out to a few open mics, and I'm mostly playing other instruments for now. Change is good, might as well embrace it! Building pedals is more or less new to me, especially clones or other people's designs in general. It's been a fun way to recharge a bit, but I don't think the buzz is going to be sustainable in my case. Kind of like playing cover tunes: useful, great learning and social experience, and ultimately just not all that satisfying to this old geezer. ;)
 
A few months ago I decided to stop populating new boards until I get off my butt and finish (by which I mean taking the 15 or so builds that I’ve been enjoying apart, bringing them into my old shop, and painting them and applying graphics). Initially that didn’t keep me from buying more boards, but at this point the backlog is around 30 (and I have another 8 to 10 populated but not wired into boxes…).

I also have several much more involved home audio builds (mainly a differentially balanced preamp with a good low output head amp in it) that have just been sitting in boxes waiting for me to commit to getting back to the focus needed to complete them; and the almost instant gratification of pedal builds was not helping with getting back to those hairier projects.

Not that I have gotten back to them, yet. I have several life long hobbies, and tend to focus on one more than the others, become more immersed in it, for a spell. Lately, it’s been photography. Guitar playing is a constant though. And while I haven’t been nearly as active in this forum, I still spend time here everyday–it remains my favorite online gathering place.

I think pulling back from loved interests is part of the process. Even with playing; when I travel, and go for a few weeks without playing, when I get back home—although my fingers may be rusty, my brain usually seems to have finally figured out a bunch of stuff, and my playing is both fresher and deeper than it was. I notice this (but to a lesser extent) with my other interests too.
 
I was at this point back in 2021/2022. I was frustrated with my rig, playing, mental state, work, home. I was burned out, physically and mentally and had built so much for years that I was bored and forcing myself to build essentially. I didn't enjoy playing or building. I stepped away for a while and didn't build anything and focused on other things. When I came back I reevaluated my building and playing goals. I found new purpose in building and playing and spread things out more. Last year I sliced my finger tip wide open doing yard work and couldn't play for over a month I built during that time and played more when it healed. It will come back around again. Get your head back straightened out and back in the game and the building will follow.
 
I've had periods when I was pumping out pedals and periods when I was rarely building, it's just a hobby I fall back on when I need to chill from other stresses. If I were still gigging, I'd probably build more, and if I ever do retire, I'm sure I will build more if I'm still able. But the company just hit me with a decent raise, which is actually incredible seeing how they rarely dole them out. I get the funk with guitar at times also. Right now, I'm doing a little more of both knowing my busy season at the job is just around the corner.
 
I've been on a break for months. It's just too complicated to design and order enclosures from Tayda, here in Europe they're hard to come by and no one does printing, ordering parts is a constant nightmare and overall this hobby is a money hole for me.

The rest of my life has been on an apathy run for over a year now. Nothing is moving.

I've been dragged back into a cover band where no one prepares, rehearsals are a joke. I'm the only one who has charts and the singer and lead guitarist often changes song structures on the fly, throwing me off. I'm tired of being on stage looking like a chump cause no one bothers to get the basics down. The drummer never seems to know any of the songs.

I got a solo show 2 weeks from now. Depending on how that goes, I might gain back some of the enthusiasm for building.
 
Thank you so much everyone. Misery loves company is such a cliche but it is genuinely funny and a bit of relief how many of us got burned out AND injured our hands.

I have a number of guitars coming down the pike I need to get out of my way as well. A couple of them have will have PCBs in them, one being a Speaker Cranker. I hope to at least keep posting in the what's for dinner thread and @fig 's find me a home thread. In fact, I might just make that my next post because horrible real estate photos are hysterical.
 
I was in college in the early 2000s, studying electrical engineering. At the same time I was studying classical guitar with a private teacher (who wasn’t very good). My parents never really supported my interest for music, but my dad had this idea that you could go to college and also get a music degree at the same time because he often talked about a friend of his who did that back in the 70s. Somehow I internalized that idea and was basically trying to do that. I think subconsciously I had this belief that if I got a conservatory degree my parents would suddenly become supportive of me playing music and maybe even accept the fact that I wanted it to be my career.

After a few years of this routine, I was ready to finish my undergraduate degree which culminated in an internship (around 2004 I think). For three months I would go to the internship every day, work there all day, then get back on the bus for over one hour, eat dinner at home and get into a 1-2 hour classical guitar practice. I was learning “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” at the time. Needless to say, that was a recipe for burn out. One day I started having sharp pain in my right wrist which turned into tennis elbow. I had to stop playing guitar for a while and the tennis elbow stuck with me for over two years (it is painful!). But that wasn’t the end nor the worst of it.

I noticed pretty early on that something had changed in my right hand. Even after the tennis elbow was cured, I was making lots of small mistakes and my timing was off. And it kept getting worse, no matter what I did. At some point I stopped playing guitar altogether. Took me a few more years to get diagnosed with focal dystonia in my right hand (around 2013). By then, I had symptoms all the time, not just when playing guitar. For example, I couldn’t touch type on a keyboard anymore with my right hand and had to come up with all sorts of sensory tricks to help.

Ten more years have gone by. I no longer finger pick, but I kept my flat picking technique up and have learned a lot of jazz. My dystonia is still there and I doubt it will ever go away (I hold a pencil in my right hand while typing on the keyboard these days), but I try not to let it rule my life anymore (it’s hard).

Anyways, injuries sometimes make us reevaluate what we are doing with our lives. Silver lining I guess, but good luck with the injury and I hope you find pleasure in your hobbies again, or new hobbies to bring new pleasure!
 
Fingers crossed your finger tips heal as quickly as possible. I took a break for about four plus years after being burnt out due to work. I came back to it when I was ready and you will too. You'll be rusty as hell when you do start again but it will all come back really quickly.
 
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Absolutely I feel like that every once in awhile. When I do, I just put it aside until the itch comes back. With music I've always been able to pivot to a different interest. For me it oscillates between the techy side (pedal building, circuits, and coding), to the performance side (writing music, playing, recording).

Also, ouch! Hope the fingertips heal up quickly!
 
WARNING : Graphic Pictures

This was my brothers fretting arm back in 2016 halfway between his wrist & elbow after his shirt sleeve got grabbed by the Sliding docking saw while checking for Nails in a piece of 4'' x 2'' cutting timber for my Uncle for firewood!
8 hrs of surgery to join one of the bones he cut clean through & joining all the tendons back up!
I had to play Guitar for around a dozen booked Gigs as he is a Solo performer with professional backing tracks for 25 years & in a band with me & others for 20 years before that.
He was back to Playing on his own again after around 4 months.
His arm still gives him some nerve pain but he has full use of it.
Miracles can happen so Time can heal most wounds!
















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