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I was going through my Imgur album and I found one of my favorite photos of Culturejam and Madbean.

I could never quite keep up with their amazing sense of fashion.

New Headphones Day.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty stoked about these.  Got them from my good friend at ZMF Headphones.  He's quite the craftsman.  They sound great, too.

I wasn't shopping, but this fell into my lap at a good price so I couldn't resist.  It's an '01 PRS McCarty in Tortoise Shell finish.  It's in pretty amazing condition for a 20 year old instrument.  I don't think it got played much.  While I tend to favor the current production PRS guitars slightly, this is a really nice instrument.

It's a great playing instrument, but the stock McCarty pickups are fairly awful, so I'm going to throw a set of Wolfetone pickups in it.

This was another commissioned build.  The customer wanted a Tonebender Mk.III into a Klon.  He wanted a bigger box.  There was so much room that I found myself confused and disoriented.  I got better. 

Switching jacks so that each circuit can be accessed individually if desired, or just used as a standard 2-in-1 combo pedal.

Lousy pictures, but it's what I've got.

It's a Mk1.5 and a Buzzaround.

"Remember remember! The Fuzz of Tonebender
With Germanium and Volt Bias Pots
I know of no reason, why the Tonebender season
Should ever be forgot!"

I've been wanting to do a stock tele build as all of my other teles are non-standard (although I love them all).

USACG Fiesta Red Body that I got in trade (not a fan of Fiesta red, but oh well)
Musikraft Neck with locking Gotoh Kluson style tuners that I already had
Porter standard tele pickups that I got in trade
Gotoh In-Tune bridge with compensated saddles (man are these a good deal).
Various hardware bits.

I wired it up for four-way switching just to see what that's like.

I got a bit lucky in that it's extremely lively.  Very loud unplugged.  It sounds great.  Plays a touch stiff, but I put 9s on it and it's good.  Setup went pretty easily and I did a rough intonation on it (close as I can come since I don't have a strobe tuner).

Ultimately, I'll probably swap out the neck as it's not my preferred profile.  This will get me started until that point.

Over the years, I've gotten requests for a mini Octavia, but I assumed it wouldn't fit because of the transformer.  When I finally got serious about it, I realized I could flip it over and still fit two pots on the other side of the box.  For good measure, I threw in a toggle to disable the octave if one so chooses.

Some of you may remember I did a Fuzz Face/ToneBender SMT board for the Function F(x) fundraiser.  I've long wanted to do an alternate layout with through-hole parts.  I finally got around to it and am reasonably pleased with how it turned out.

This was a commissioned 2-in-1.  I wouldn't usually do a PCB layout for a one-off, but it sounded like a nice combo and I'll end up building one for me, too. 

Simple graphics, but aimed for a more clean, classic look.

I've decided to tweak both the layout and the artwork of my Mini Klon builds.  I did two slightly different variants of both the PCB and the footswitch and moved the LED off-board since I never wired it where it was on the board.  Still a bit of pain with the amount of wires going to the board, but it's better than it was. 

I decided to change the artwork at the same time.

This is the same combo circuit I posted a couple weeks ago (LBP-1 + CJOD + Rat), but I liked the graphics, so I thought I'd post it.  It's the Kathleen Turner Overdrive



And the ultra-classy B&W noir shot

This was commissioned by a former TGP member who got banned for salty language (Nurk suffers no fools).  The graphics depict a typical Nurkian rant.

Anyway, he wanted an LBP-1 + TS + Rat.  I ended up going with the Clay Jones TS variant because I think it sounds better (he seems to agree).  The Rat is a 4-knob Rat with a clipper switch.

It took me a handful of rounds on the board, but I'm finally happy with it.  It's actually a pretty awesome combination of circuits.

I got a request for a Si Fuzz Face with BC109s in a mini format, so I put together a PCB.  I configured the board so that the input trim and bias trim could be use external pots or internal trim pots.  Obviously in this case I elected to wire up the controls externally.  Frankly, there's so much room on the board that I almost don't know what to do with myself.

The artwork will probably look familiar as it is a modification of the Ge FF art that I use.

I think I posted a built like this a number of years ago, but this is a bit different so I'll post again.  I slightly tweaked the board so I can use ribbon cable for the footswitch I/O wires.

I used a gold enclosure and backfilled the text.  It's a PITA, but the combination is usually one of the better color looks.

Somebody on TGP asked me if I'd do a mini version of the Clari(not) as their original got squeezed off the board.  In a moment of weakness, I agreed.  The board layout was fairly straightforward, but the hardware was a tight fit, especially since he wanted a fuzz bypass switch added. 



I ended up trying a few different LED/LDR and Vactrol combinations.  The first one was a simple 3mm LED and LDR



I ended up swapping it out for a Macron VTL5C3 type.



All in all, an interesting build.  Funky circuit.

Yet another Clay Jones Overdrive.  This time, it has an added clip switch.  Nothing fancy, but a bit of an option for the person who's getting it.  Red sparkle case, but the sparkle didn't show up much until I used direct lighting (last pic).

Here's a mini TB Mk.III I made over the weekend.  Pretty straightforward, except for the external bias.  It uses a charge pump so a standard 9V center negative supply can be used.

I've had this board sitting for a while and finally got a chance to box it.  It's basically a mini version of the deep blue delay.  I had made a SMT version a while back, but decided to do a through-hole version for fun.

The boards still had flux on them when I took the photos.  I've since washed them, but haven't taken new photos.

This was a commissioned build for a local player.  He wanted a Muff/Klon/Zen/Riot in one enclosure, but each circuit needed to have it's own I/O so that he could use an external switcher on his board.  I elected to go with shorting jacks, so they can be wired individually or you can just use the two outside jacks and have it be a multi.  Because of the 8 enclosed jacks, I had to use a slightly taller enclosure than I usually would have.  I made some shorting boards to simplify the wiring a bit.  It's not my neatest gutwork, but I ended up having to take it apart a few times because I had to both make changes to the faceplate and ream out the holes in the box a little bit.  I also decided to wire the shorting jacks above the fray, which doesn't look quite as nice, but has a functional advantage in this case.

Photographs were a bit challenging because the plate is so reflective.

This is my 1590a layout of the ISP Decimator circuit.  I really wanted a tiny version for my board.  I haven't put it on a board yet, but will shortly.









I see that I missed a bit of flux on the board.  I'll go back and clean that later.