Well it seems that my pedal building powers have matured a little. I have been doing a lot of work on the actual look and design of the pedals rather than copying a circuit and bunging it in a little metal box. The Orange Squealer was one of my first pedals. Built from scratch and heavily modified from the original schematic this pedal was the product of accident through process of elimination. The Orange Squealer is a high gain booster pedal. Giving you only a high gain overdrive that sings and squeals like some kind of  howling banshee. Loads of sustain makes it a great lead pedal that rocks mids and highs like nothing else on earth. This pedal produces high frequencies rather well. Pinched harmonics are easier than ever and its range gives great cut through for the mix.

This beautiful example of one of Gibson's better experiments has got to be genius. The Gibson Nighthawk was Gibson's attempt at creating the worlds most versatile guitar. And to be honest, they actually pulled it off. This guitar has a huge amount of range. You can get glassy Stratiness out of it and with the flick of a switch you can fall into full creamy Humbucker "Les Paul" heaven. Originally scorned by both Fender and Gibson fans, the Nighthawk never really took off and was discontinued just a few years after its carnation.

I have been very busy just lately. Guess that's why I havent posted anything ina  little while. I've been building pedals alright! At least its been something worth doing. A whole lot better than sitting around in my cave looking at the cave paintings on the boulder I use for a pillow. I've been through quite a learning curve I can tell you. Just a couple months ago, I knew absolutely nothing about electronics. Now, I still know absolutely nothing. But I did manage to learn enough to slap a few pedals together. There was a post a little while back on the prototype "Tank" fuzz pedal. Well. Now I have 4 pretty cool finished pedals and they have been painstakingly made by hand. Very burnt hands that is. I managed to record some demos and post them here for your enjoyment. I will also post some links to the wonderful sites that provided me with this info.

Wow! I went on a mission the other day and decided to make me some guitar pedals. It cant be that difficult. I was pleasantly surprised that is was a lot easier than I thought it would be. My first project was a simple "Muff" styled transistor based fuzz pedal. Built around two 2N5088 transistors for a nice high gain but vintage type of tone. What really blows me away is how it cleans up after the volume is dropped on your guitar. And riding the volume down to 4 or 5 gives you a nice clean boost with a slight touch of  hi-freq crunch. It sounds really nice. In fact I hate my DS-1 even more now.

Above is an image of the finished "Prototype". Its living in a pretty "South African Defense Force" or "unpainted Army" looking housing at the moment and would probably withstand a direct nuclear attack in that case. But it looks like shit. Oh, and I diddnt buy any knobs because the SADF use ones that don't fit on the pots I already had in my box. So it's kinda like a generic pedal / tank. I intend on ordering some Hammond 1590BB enclosures for it. Thing is, they come in boxes of 10 from my local electronic nerd. Will have the bux at the end of the month. If I don't spend it all on booze and loose women before then.

Well, here it is. The actual guitar is a great example. Beautiful finish with a real feel of quality. The first guitar I ever played was a friends dad's Suzuki which has still got a great tone all these years later. This Hummingbird "copy" is extremely close in quality to their Gibson counter parts having compared it with my "late" Gibson JC-180 I can honestly say that the build quality and finish is definitely on par with the Gibson. Although I'm not sure about the inlays. Are they pearl, like the Gibson or are they plastic. I am leaning towards the latter. The tuners also seem a little cheap. Perhaps they are not original but feel like they belong on one of those Cort abominations. Apart from that everything looks sweet. Binding is very good and bridge design looks excellent. No major fading or belt rash on the body just a bit of sticky substance near the bottom strap hook. Beautiful sunburst finish that does look a little brighter (Cheaper) than the Gibson counterpart.

So what is wrong with the guitar? Well,,,,, not all that much. The body is fine and with the old stretched strings on, intonation seemed very good. Tone also seemed to be very nice. Fretbuzz is the problem with a quite apparent flat/back bow to the neck. It buzzes around th 12th fret but all good round the 1st - 6th. Action is obviously a little low. My logic is telling me that some new strings would increase the tension on the neck and perhaps promote a little more front bow. So I dont want to look at any truss rod adjustments until I have a better idea of string tension after restringing. If the guitar gods are looking down on me, its all this beaut is going to need. But as Murphy is one of my best friends, I seriously doubt that. The thing is, If there is some neck adjustments needed, who do I take it to? I can do most things, but a bowed neck is something for a pro to look at. Problem is, here is South Africa a guitar pro is a very difficult thing to come by, there are loads of idiots pretending to be pro's who actually end up screwing your guitar up. (It happened to a Takamine I took to the local guitar shop for bridge repairs. They really screwed it up!)

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Ha ! I was just informed that Gibson also use plastic for their inlays! Next time I'm in the market for a $3500 Les Paul I will look with suspicion. It better sound bloody good! 

A colleague of mine recently brought in his Kiso-Suzuki W65A Acoustic guitar for me to have a look at and possibly get it running a little better. Its a beautiful example of Japans quest for imitation perfection during the 1970's. There were many companies including Ibanez that were spending great quantities of time painstakingly replicating classic guitars. The Suzuki W65A is a replication of the Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar which was famously played by Elvis. This "copy" is so accurate that it features perfectly shaped Gibson headstock and inlays. In fact some of these copies where so close that Japanese guitar manufacturers face legal proceedings from western guitar companies. There are even people out there that insist that some of the Japanese knockoffs of the time are better than the originals. 

So what is wrong with the guitar? Well, the Finnish is fine, the frets and neck are in great condition, the bridge and nut have plenty of life left in them. So whats the problem I hear you ask? This guitar suffers from some serious action issues and some major fretbuzz. Clearly a truss rod issue, there is some noticeable back bow. Thing is, I know I'm not a pro guitar tech, so I am very concerned about the idea of adjusting the truss rod myself. I did attempt it (After watching a youtube video on how), but I found that it was so stiff that it would have taken force to adjust it. A wize decision to leave it alone. 

I've been looking at getting a new amp. The fact of the matter is I sold my 70's Fender Bassman a couple years back. I was leaving the country and diddnt think I would miss it as much as I do. I am beginning to consider a new approach to my amplifier setup. My days of jamming on stage are over and the idea of dragging a big ass stack everywhere to impress the crowd just seems stupid to me now. I am not interested in Marshall stacks anymore. I want a recording solution.  I do have quite a lot of experience with recording guitars and generally find that the best sounds come out of a single 12 or 10 inch driver, specifically a Celestion G12 Greenback. So, wouldn't it be a good idea to buy a single 1X12 cab and then buy a selection of relatively low watt heads for some tonal variation.

It seems that low watt valve amps are becoming more popular these days. With Fenders Champion 600 combo and the Vox AC4TVH head. Huge Amps are not needed in the studio and with a lower wattage I can drive my amp a little without blowing the room off my live room. For me it provides a more controlled and focused sound. And a small head/Cab combo kit would be fantastic for some quality tones in the studio and bedroom. Small valve heads have received a lot of interest lately with the release of the Orange Tiny Terror and the Vox Night Train series. The AC4 is a 4 Watt RMS option that is a bit cheaper than the Night Train series and Boasts single 12AX7 on the pre stage and an EL84 on the power stage.

Its been quite a while since I visited the Gibson site to have a look see at their latest offerings. And I got the feeling that I've been asleep for the past few years. When did Gibson go all Hi-Tech? My god! What doesn't this guitar do? Hex Piezo pickup system, Acoustic guitar patches, Low impedance active output, Over 2000 pickup models and combinations and a "Pure Analogue" Audio engine. But none of this would be complete without the very impressive Robo-tuners and God awful grand dads favorite chair wood Finnish.