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We don't make pedals any more... But we're still trying to thin the stash a bit and one of our friends was wanting to buy the PS1A. Not a pedal we'd sell, but Cleggy remembered there was a board out there that we'd given another friend, got in touch to see if they were going to build it and if not if they'd be prepared to part with it. Planets align and we end up making our first pedal in many years.

So the parts mountain was a bit diminished. Buying parts for a single build isn't fun... Thankfully Cleggy still had a matched set of trannies kicking around, just in case. No epoxy meant no envirotex, and not worth buying any for a single build. So it's in a plain old Hammond, and they didn't have the bigger one in stock I wanted to put it in, so this is what we got... It's not my tidiest installation, but it is a little too snug for this effect truth be told. As usual Cleggy did all the board builds as that side of things tends to bore me, and I did the installtion as that's the bit I like.

Still the best phaser out there.

Cleggy reckoned I should post this here also to show we're still around and soldering stuff, just not guitar pedals (though we occasionally still repair them for friends).

So this was our latest project, a video output board for an Atari 7800. All Atari's prior to the ST have dire video quality. Though you really didn't know back in the day because you were connecting them via RF to a period domestic television. Trying to connect these things now to modern kit becomes a problem as most TVs don't have analogue RF tuners in them any more. Also the quality of them has increased somewhat so they can show some of the deficiencies due to the corner cutting/penny pinching of the designs.

Which brings us to the Atari 7800, particularly the PAL one. This is a later (1987) console that's actually two consoles in one as it's got a Atari VCS (aka 2600) in there also. The problem is that the two machines share a common colourburst clock and there chroma output is blended. All of this causes horrible interference which is very apparent on the broadcast monitors we now run.

The journey is here on Atari Age if you want a read (it kicks off on page 2). As it is, here are some pictures.

This makes me happy. Though we were never a company.

While purging the pedal mountain a regular of ours and his godson bought out all our remaining valve pedals. Said godson (who runs a studio) fell in love with the Big Baby and wanted another, when the godfather heard, he wanted one too. So despite trying to retire from pedal building, we have two more! That said, it does something really rather special that's hard to pin down... Cleggy is now wanting one.

Lastest project 99% complete, a Mister FPGA box. A subsidised computer on a board (a bit more advanced than a Raspberry Pi). It's being used to emulate old arcade machines, consoles and computers in hardware.

Being almighty pikeys, rather than buy a 3D printed box, we've used a load of scavenged old kit and built a pair of them in old NAS enclosures.

The only thing we're waiting for now is an EU maker of the 128MB memory module. Then we're sorted.
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So I stopped making pedals, then someone over on a UK forum talked me into making one... Bah!

It's a '71 Triangle muff with a mids control.

Possibly the most bespoke pedal ever. It's doing some odd stuff, but it's for a very specific installation for regular 4000 mile Phil.

So in the middle of this thing is a DGM3 muff and a Klone, one of them is always on and they're switched externally by a switch box of some description (hence the relay switching from Jason). There's also a momentary switch on the back to test that should you not have that plugged in. Next there's a cocked-wah, with two settings selectable on the centre stomp. They can be pre-set with the trimmers internally. Finally there's Jason's rather marvellous and borderline silent boost. The switch again internal to select flat/treble boost/mid boost. That works somewhat traditionally.

It's a mess of wires inside, but there's a lot going on...

The time has come for me to pack in making pedals. It's come from a few things, I'm not making anything for myself lately and we no longer sell enough for the hobby to be self funding being two of the biggies. But also because I'm simply not enjoying it like I used to. I'm making a final multi for a friend and my heart just isn't in it.

This doesn't mean I'll disappear from the scene. I still come here every day, I'm a lot less active than I was regardless because of what's been going on. It does mean that I'll be having a bit of a blowout on PCBs and pedals shortly when I can sort them out. That'll likely occur on TFB in the UK, but I'll link it up here also.

It's been fun, but it's time to move on.

Built a Klone for a friend who wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

See, we still do build pedals!

I can't remember how long ago Alan sent us the boards for this... The PCBs has been built for about 6 months (Cleggy on the case for that). Finally I've got around to measuring up a template and squeezing it into a 1590XX.

What can I say, it's a Lovetone and they're very much their own effects It's also not finished yet. We've tested the stereo, the loop (reverse delay in the loop is awesome/bonkers), need to test the CV and maybe give it a final bias to make sure it's spot on.

I was more interested in it working properly inside than making it pretty... I'd also re-do the decal if I was doing it again as it's a tad hard to see.

This one is Cleggy's old Electric Mistress, it was misbehaving a little (it had been built in a time when we used recovered caps and things like that), also the box had been rejigged so had holes in it. Seems as good a reason as any to swap the caps out and put it in a new box with new stomp hardware.

It's been a long time coming! Parts of this have been built for well over 12 months, maybe longer... We've been slack.

So in here is a 280kg Gorilla Compressor (DOD280 clone from Jason), into a DGM3 muff, into a noise gate, into EP Boost from Fuzzdog into a Deux Profundis delay. The switches are to turn the effects on and off for setup, but they're all designed to be set up as a single effect, hence the single stomp.

Holy crap we've made some stuff!

First up is a Karma Gear multi containing a Yorkshire Echo (Deux Profundis), a Fuzzdog Phase 90 clone and a Grind Tenebrion reverb.

The last pair are more Cascadias. Jason's (Jubal81) amazing pre-amp pedal. A bit different here in that one is stock and the other is a silicon derivative.

A totally uninspired decal (should have been Bruce Willis...), but the internals are a bit more interesting. Cleggy made the vero, which is not usually his thing, but he was obviously in that frame of mind. I just dropped it into the box. It's a Hudson Broadcast clone built on IVIark's vero layout.

We've actually made 4 pedals, but one is a present so no pics of that one until after xmas

We have here a Yorkshire Cascadia, Jason's (Jubal) awesome distortion. This time squeezed into a 1590BB. Next the Yorkshire Pasty, we looked and we actually made the PCB for this 10 months ago... It's taken a while to stick this in a box for some reason. It's kinda an Colorsound Overdriver/Powerboost with a Cornish-ish buffer on the front so it plays nice with other things. I'd totally forgotten how good this sounds!

Last but not least is Tom's mini-multi. Tighter than expected, it's got an Enchanter (Timmy-ish) and a Guvnor clone (Fuzzdog PCB).

A Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe clone built on Jason's Bad Medicine PCB. A really rather good little fuzz that can do some quite different things.

A bit of recycling going on here, so it's an old enclosure (re-decalled), bottom end wiring and knobs with a new effect in it. We don't like to throw things away

Electric Mistress clone on one of Bean's Current Lover PCBs.

A clone of a Devi Hyperion for a fella who bought a BeeBaa clone from us in a purge. He wanted this to match aesthetically. I like to think it's a little tidier than a real one...

EHX MXR P90 clone on a Fuzzdog PCB and a Small Stone clone on a LectricFX Space Harp.

Well I wasn't expecting to build one of these! Found a bag of PNP transistors so it'd have been rude not to build a Mk2 bender. One of which turned out rather awesome so got boxed up.