The Opposite of Pedal Industry Faux Pas

finebyfine

finebyfine

Well-known member
What are things that have endeared you to particular pedal companies / builders? Let's turn the frown upside down from the other thread: https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/pedal-industry-faux-paus.13346/ (as much fun as it is!)

Starting this thread because I just read Fairfield Circuitry's Guillaume Fairfield answering some questions about the Randy's Revenge circuitry in a thread on freestompboxes. Basically did all but post the schematic, and his thoughts and comments on the methodology behind that ring mod and ring mods in general were, imho, more useful than just posting a schematic anyway. He answered some questions about power supply decisions for the analog multiplier used, mentioned how the oscillator is structured (and humbly said it is in the datasheet for the component), and to top it all off brought up discrete transistor Gilbert cell multipliers.

I always find it endearing to see posts like that from builders / brands, especially when so many just jump into a thread to complain about their circuitry being traced, to say nothing of how insightful it always is.
 
I know he gets a lot of hate, and has an, let’s say, interesting, background (one that it seems has been given a fair amount of distance), but I would say Josh Scott. He’s honest (mostly), and has done a lot to educate people on pedals. As a trained historian, I very much appreciate his quest for the truth, as well as his reliance on sources. Now, I have never seen a JHS pedal that I have wanted (Colorbox/Crayon aside), so it’s nothing to do with his circuits. Besides, I really don’t like slide guitar, and that’s like his main thing…
 
Coda said:
I know he gets a lot of hate, and has an, let’s say, interesting, background (one that it seems has been given a fair amount of distance), but I would say Josh Scott. He’s honest (mostly), and has done a lot to educate people on pedals. As a trained historian, I very much appreciate his quest for the truth, as well as his reliance on sources. Now, I have never seen a JHS pedal that I have wanted (Colorbox/Crayon aside), so it’s nothing to do with his circuits. Besides, I really don’t like slide guitar, and that’s like his main thing…
Click to expand...

As much as I enjoy clowning on him, I agree with pretty much all of this. The Devi Ever stuff was before my time, and I think the space he's carved out for himself discussing pedal history is more important than his business. I've always really liked that he credited the Super Fuzz's designer - Fumio Mieda - when releasing his own Super Fuzz.
 
There are plenty of great folks involved in the pedal industry.... unfortunately they aren't all incredibly supportive of what we do here.

As long as they aren't asses about it I'm completely understanding that they don't appreciate our "inspired" builds. Some feel threatened, and some have forgotten where they came from... That doesn't necessarily make them bad people, I get it.

I won't put anyone in the spotlight, but we have a few members here who are the builders of some of the original pedals these projects are based on. We've communicated, they contribute, they place orders regularly, and the awkwardness of what goes on has never come up. They don't have to be cool about it, but they are. And I appreciate that.
 
Jason at Fuzzlord Effects. Pretty genuine in his videos. Talks about the original pedals that inspired his products. His FET120 is one of my favorite pedals.

He’s also talked about his journey to build the company and has videos on how to start building your own pedals.
 
JamieJ said:
+1 for Paul Cochrane. He seems to engage with the diy community that build his designs.
Click to expand...

I've had mixed conversations with Paul, but he contacted me offering some information on updating the "Tommy V3" project to a newer revision. I think he's a great guy all around.

How could I forget, we have an upcoming release that is a collaboration with a builder. He contacted me about offering a DIY version of his flagship pedal. I thought that was pretty dang cool.
 
Robert said:
I've had mixed conversations with Paul, but he contacted me offering some information on updating the "Tommy V3" project to a newer revision. I think he's a great guy all around.

How could I forget, we have an upcoming release that is a collaboration with a builder. He contacted me about offering a DIY version of his flagship pedal. I thought that was pretty dang cool.
Click to expand...

Damn you're a tease
 
This one is going to be a bit of a shock, and contrast from the norm...

I had a good conversation with Mike Fuller about a year or so ago. He discontinued the Plimsoul briefly right before releasing the MKII, so I shot him an email asking if he'd be interested in licensing the design for DIY use. I fully expected the typical response, but what I got was quite surprising.

He was not interested, but he let me know that a new version was in the works and gave a nice rundown of the changes he had made to the circuit.

This was not the Mike we've all heard about.
 
I know the guys from Electro Faustus, and they’re all really rad. I’m always psyched to see what they’re doing, and they’re a ton of fun. (also I told Adrian Belew to check their stuff out, and he bought some pedals from them that I think might be on his newest album)

Analog Mike regularly heart-reacts my posts on TGP, and when we’ve chatted in the past about music he was really fun to talk to.

I know mr. Vex is known for being less than happy about the DIY community, but when I was a teenager I talked to him on FB messenger a fair bit about gear and live music, and he was always pleasant to talk to in that regard. On top of that, when I was first getting into building pedals (around 2014 I think?) I asked him about the process he uses for finishing the hand painted pedals, and he told me that the boxes base coats were done by an industrial finishing shop, and then promptly got me in contact with his former hand painter (because they did the paint work for one of the pedals I cited as my favorite design) so they could tell me about the paint brands, thinning ratios, brush sizes, etc. that they used to get such smooth results. People are complex, and for all of Zach’s notoriety among builders, I can’t help but to have the utmost respect for him helping out some goofy middle school kid who wanted to build pretty pedals to the extent that he helped me.
 
from the amp world, Bruce Egnater. He's pretty active in the DIY community and I have nothing but respect for that. from the pedal world? I guess at the top of my list is function(fx). I thought the way they handled the immediate and (imho) kinda toxic behavior from the fsb community was pretty classy.
 
Big Monk said:
He's a super duper nice guy. Can't say enough good things about him. Not a huge talker but he answers questions promptly and we went to the same technical school so we often joke about that.
Click to expand...
Yeah, for sure. He comes out to around where I live for concerts pretty often. Never run into each other, but we’ve seen on Facebook the day after that we were both at the same concert a few times.
 
ICTRock said:
from the amp world, Bruce Egnater. He's pretty active in the DIY community and I have nothing but respect for that. from the pedal world? I guess at the top of my list is function(fx). I thought the way they handled the immediate and (imho) kinda toxic behavior from the fsb community was pretty classy.
Click to expand...
Isn't functionfx owned by a chap that also sells or designs DIY PCB's???
 
I believe it's a group of people, but more or less. the reason that one sticks in my mind is it is kind of a microcosm of some of the more toxic sides of DIY where it feels like there's a disdain or resentment for success and a sense of entitlement that one must immediately disclose a pedal's schematic to fsb because you're a member there and you created something for sale.
 
I believe it might have been Brian from Madbean but he is no longer with functionfx.
I built the Clusterfuzz on Eyelet way back then!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top