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After watching a recent Rick Beato video on AI, I decided to test out Suno's V4 AI system. We musicians are in trouble, because this sounds straight up sick:
https://suno.com/song/08e584da-4c7d-4da3-af31-caf56d3ad829?sh=6LbxuoHh8OlPGVGV

Recently Reverb.com had some special edition cast iron Plumes and Blumes Earthquaker pedals that supposedly went on sale on their site. The things sold out so incredibly fast that there wasn't even time to look at the official listing! No doubt there will be second-hand ones that will pop up soon on Reverb for 3X the price as soon as people start getting them in the mail. I wasn't interested in buying one, but it is ridiculous how frantic "collectors" go after these things just to try to make a quick profit off something that really is no different than the original sound-wise. Do they just sit at their computers all day hitting the refresh button with 300 custom searches lined up? So the reason to own one has nothing to do with playing guitar. It's just the old ticket-scalping routine.

I've recently had a USPS priority package disappear into the ether. The more I look into what might of happened, the more it seems the entire USPS network is self-destructing. TubeDepot.com has a warning not to use USPS if you want to receive your items in a timely manner. I've found recent news articles from all over the country of people complaining about lost packages, late deliveries, and no cooperation with tracking information. In fact the TubeDepot article implies their tracking is not working at all anymore. I tried to log in to USPS.com and it said my "account is disabled". I tried to create a new account and it said it's "unable to process the request". The city of Boston has even tried to subpoena USPS to testify in court over why there are so many problems...and they just blew them off!
How can this even be real? I thought USPS was part of the Executive branch of the US federal government. This is more like the behaviour of a drug cartel!

[$5 billion a day.]

Major U.S. ports on the East Coast and Gulf are very likely to strike on Oct 1st. Here will be the result:

"The ports that could close in a strike handle more than 68% of all containerized exports in the U.S. and roughly 56% of containerized imports, according to industry data. So even a short strike would cause significant disruptions in regional trade flows. One analysis estimated that could cost the U.S. economy as much $5 billion a day."

Who will pick up the $5 billion a day tab? YOU WILL
This will make COVID look like a cakewalk. At least during COVID essential products still moved around on a limited basis. This strike will bring everything to a complete halt. Zero. Nothing. It won't be, "oh, we've run out of some things." It's going to be, "we have nothing."

We all know the classic pickup types/configurations that are tried and true recipes for great tone. But I'm more interested in what pickup configurations you've found that work great, even though they're a bit out in left field. I've recently come across this one for my Strat:
- Dimarzio Air Norton S wired with parallel coils in the bridge.
- Fender "player" series Telecaster neck pickup in the neck with the cover removed.
The real surprise was how great the player-series Telecaster neck pickup sounds with the cover off. It's thick and punchy (around 9K on a meter). Wiring the Air Norton S in parallel coil mode gives it a more Strat-like single coil sound, and the two together just sound fantastic. Full-range with punchy bass and brilliant Strat jangle on the top end. I'm definitely gonna stick with this combo for a while.

I know nobody manufactures them, but with 3D printing so prevalent, I'm sure somebody could make them.
Transparent resin printing
The most practical use for these would be to add LED lighting to vintage pedals without having to drill or modify in any way. The washers could either be for a 1/4" jack or the stomp switch. With how ridiculously bright LEDs are these days, I'm sure the light would bleed out just fine.

Scratchy pot? The solution:
https://caig.com/product/deoxit-fader-f100l-l2c/
Deoxit fader lube is amazing. Works perfectly. Put it right on the carbon track. I resurrected and old wah potentiometer with it and now it functions better than it ever has. Not even the slightest hint of a scratch. Where has this stuff been all this time???

Yay. Exactly what we needed in an already oppressively-crowded pedal market:
https://reverb.com/news/just-in-jhs-relaunches-ross-with-new-effects?utm_source=braze&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Midweek_Content_V2_20230816_(US)&utm_term=Variant_2&utm_content=general-version_feature-2_effects-and-pedals

I was surprised to stumble on this since there seems to be little to no hype around it at all.
https://sunnamps.com/
I wonder what this is going to mean for the band, and the Earthquaker life pedals, which have been plastering Sunn's registered trademark on their stuff? I wouldn't want to take on Fender's legal team...

The title says it all. This is the circuit that is built into the Kustom 150 tuck and roll heads from the early 70's. It's just a fantastic tremolo! Swampy, greasy, but can also be dialed in with the intensity control to be subtle and musical. And you can blend in Vibrato as well, which makes it really unique. Yes, it is exactly that "Born on a Bayou" sound. It would be awesome if somebody reverse-engineered this into a modern stompbox:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uZWRTByEbNL4LQCZ0LYVIo_NmSh7So8M/preview?pli=1&rm=demo

It's no secret that overdrives rule the guitar pedal scene. The most valuable guitar pedal is an overdrive. The most copied and popular circuit is an overdrive. The most talked about and debated tone-shaping devices...overdrives. With that much hype and scrutiny surrounding overdrives, it amazes me that some big brand offerings pretty much fly under the radar. Enter the Boss OD-2. This particular one is a MIJ model from 1986. It does not suffer from any kind of unity gain problems that I've heard some people complain about with some of these. And the fact this is a MIJ "black label" model in this kind of condition, I can't believe you can still get these in the sub $100 range.
Other than modding the ACA power supply to work off 9V, I haven't done anything else to the pedal, and this thing is spot on for what you would want from an overdrive. The mode 1 setting can go from mild to fairly crunchy. It sounds just like my OD-1 modded SD-1. The mode 2 "turbo" mode can get into straight up stack distortion. And that one trim pot works very much like a variac for the turbo mode. Starving the gain stages to get more distortion at lower volumes...I wonder who started that idea? All this in a pedal that uses no op amps. It's actually a pretty unique circuit design that was partly used in the highly-regarded Blues Driver. To put a caveat on all this, the later Taiwan version and the OD-2r version are not the same as the original MIJ OD-2. So if you can get your hands on the MIJ version, do it. You won't regret it.

I guess they're no longer the iconic British company:
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/marshall-amps-sold-to-swedish-speaker-company 
Maybe they'll come out with a JCM model that has a built-in Boss HM-2?
The Marshall Amplifikurgen. (You have to assemble it yourself)

I recently picked up an original Maxon PT-999, from back when it still mentioned Greco on the label. This is a slightly modified version of the Phase 90, and I have to say that so far it's the best 4-stage phaser I've ever owned. This thing stacks great in front of an overdrive and gives it that classic 70's "chew" that has been on countless recordings. It's a very musical phaser as well that doesn't overpower the mix or add a ton of it's own tone (and no volume drop). It just enhances whatever you've got going on with swirly goodness. I've never tried an original script logo Phase 90, but from what I've read online, this Maxon version is better. I'm impressed with the condition it's in too, considering it's 47 years old. If you like phasers and don't own one of these, it's highly recommended.

Did I miss something? All of the sudden, "8" size reverb tanks with the "A" low-impedance input have sold out worldwide. People seem to have gone nuts trying to gobble them up. Does that particular tank somehow create free beer when you plug them in or something? Just today I watched them sell out on Ebay in the 20 seconds or so that I found one listing for a few. I couldn't click buy it now fast enough, apparently. Other sites all say, "out of stock" or "that page doesn't exist". There aren't any on Reverb.
They're just all of the sudden gone and if one does show up, people frantically buy them before you can even look at the listing.
It's weird.

As we all know, mid to late 80's DOD pedals are famous for the battery door to disappear into another dimensional void. Nobody ever seems to be able to keep track of them. Well, I ordered a replacement door since there are many sellers making new ones with 3D printers. The guy dropped it off at the post office, and it proceeded to disappear in the mail. Reverb just says, "status unknown". So apparently even the replacement doors suffer from being sucked into the same void! It's a lose, lose situation.

Has anybody else noticed that the asking (and often selling) prices for new or used guitar gear has suddenly taken a massive increase? We're talking 50% or more increases! It was just this last fall (October) I bought a Fender HRD amp for only $200, and it had sat on OfferUp for a while at that price with zero interest. The guy even threw in a nice crybaby wah that I ended up selling for $40, so I really got the amp for $160. Now, I see used Fender HRDs going for $500+, and there's not that many out there for sale. New pedals are being listed for beyond MSRP on Ebay and Reverb.
I tried to sell my mid 80's MIJ Fender Strat at the beginning of 2020 for only $400. I had absolutely zero interest then. Now they're selling on Reverb for $800+. I'm glad it didn't sell back then, my guitar is now worth more than double what it was just a year and a half ago.
It's getting to the point where I have to worry that somebody will want to steal my FX90! (you couldn't hardly give those things away in 2017)

https://tedweber.com/
That's never a good sign. It seems that everywhere that has anything to do with power transformers is taking some kind of hit.

I recently stumbled across a craigslist ad for an odd MIJ pedal from a company I never heard of. It is one of those Fuzz/Wah combos from the 70's that it seems like everybody and their grandma made around 1975. It was cool-looking though, funky, pretty cheap, and didn't work...so I took a chance.
After finding out some information on it, and doing some mods...it is great.
It's a Pax Pedal Number One. It has what amounts to a Univox Super Fuzz in it, (although in stock form they did some weird circuit changes that made it sound god-awful). I modded it back to a proper "orange/blue" Super Fuzz, and now it sounds fantastic.
The wah circuit is basically the best I have ever used...and I've owned/built some great wahs. Nothing comes close to this thing.
Unfortunately, the original tread was gone and had been replaced with duct-tape. Underneath the duct tape was a very old garage sale masking tape label that said:  $10-. I put some replacement grip tape on.
Anyway...this pedal sounds awesome:

It's the only explanation I can find for what happened to my Tayda shipment. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday, and in fact, the USPS site said it was "out for delivery" from my post office. Now, magically, when I put in the tracking number it says my order shipped out of Denver at 7:00 am this morning.
How did my package get from nearly being delivered at my door last night, to suddenly leaving Denver earlier today? Just the logistics of processing it from going from my post office back to the distribution center onto a plane to Denver, getting processed all through there, then back on a plane back to here to go back through the distribution center...that's like a two day process that happened in a just few hours!
Yes, they have transporters and aren't telling us...
Beam me up!

I recently have been doing some mods to my Strat. I thought it would be interesting to combine my volume and tone control into one concentric potentiometer, just like they do on some Tele's and Jazz Bass's. As far as I know, the only concentric potentiometers Fender sells are made by CTS. The one I bought is part #0019268049.
So far, so good. It's a very nice potentiometer.
Now for some genuine Fender-branded concentric knobs. They have upper and lower concentric knobs (sold separately, of course) which are part #'s 0049411049 and 0049412049, respectively. The upper concentric knob fits perfectly and uses the same size allen key as a typical Strat bridge saddle.
Great!
Then all hell breaks loose. For some idiotic reason, the lower concentric knob uses a tiny allen key that is not a standard size on any typical allen key set. And of course, they don't provide the key with the knob. Then in an even greater bout of stupidity, the Fender-branded lower concentric knob does not fit the Fender-branded concentric potentiometer!
I had to drill out the center of the lower knob to get it to fit. On closer examination, the upper and lower knobs aren't even made by the same manufacturer. Yet all three parts are in genuine Fender packaging, supposedly made to work together.
Oy, vey! Obviously nobody in the entire company is actually testing their replacement parts to see if they fit.
What else is being done wrong?