DIY Wah, or DIWAH?

Checks notes Back in April of 2023 I built a Colorsound Inductorless Wah clone, without any real plan beyond building it. Afterwards I thought that maybe I would come across a dead wah pedal and just put my circuit in that housing. The reality is, if this scenario were to ever present itself, I would most likely just repair the original circuit, leaving my own circuit to remain homeless. So what is a DIY wah clone circuit supposed to do? Go to Aliexpress, of course! Aluminum wah enclosures are all over the place on that website, and during their holiday sales I decided it was time for me to go ahead and bite the bullet on buying one.

Now, I currently have my brother's BBE Ben-Wah in for repairs, so I can compare this enclosure to a genuine wah. Alright, I hear you snickering at the fact I just called the BBE a genuine wah. I know, I know. Anyway, the BBE is MUCH heavier, and feels much more substantial than this enclosure. My only concern is the longevity of this aluminum. The 1590B and 125B style cases are fine, because they're smaller, but this one being bigger gives me a bit of concern for how many wahs this pedal will let out before it wahs no more from stepping on it too much. Time will tell!

As you might have noticed I had to do a little modification due to my supplies. Most wahs use an internal power jack, as where all mine are external, but it works. The treadle tensioner is an oldschool design, but it also seems to work. Instructions on this are really tough to find, but if you're curious look up Mammoth Electronic's tutorial on their 4SWAH enclosure. Pssssst. It's the same thing! Shhhhhhh. Keep that between us. In 2023 I built the Colorsound inductorless, as well as a Bespeco Weeper clone. This one will be the Colorsound and when the Weeper will get a home is beyond me. If you do decided to buy one of these from Aliexpress please note that sometimes they're missing parts. The parts with mine came thrown into the box, and probably fell out of the cracks in the box in transit. Just a buyer beware situation. Overall, not a bad deal for a DIY wah pedal.

My Christmas Gift to Myself: Healing

For the past twelve years of my life I've dealt with pretty serious anxiety off and on. This year was one of the worst relapses, and I'm still having a hard time shaking it. In previous years, when I had a relapses, I relied heavily on the most amazing support systems I've ever had, but sadly she decided in 2019 that was all she could take. I understand, sometimes I don't want to be with me either. She always promised me, up to the day she left, we were going to be together. It was never a matter of if, it was a promise of someday. Either way I have to stop staring at that closed door hoping it will ever open again. What hurt me the most was, to semi-quote Take That, in the twist of separation she excelled at being free. It was as if her escape was planned very well in advance. That's her choice, and I fully support it as I'm sure she's happier without me.

Now I look at my life and realize I can't let everything around me fall into disrepair anymore. I need to take my health, my happiness, and my life more seriously and find what I deserve and where I deserve to be. It's going to be a long, hard road, but I've got some really great people on my side already. I also have you, the readers. If you've come here for a new pedal building update, or small electronics fix tutorial, I'm sorry. That's why this blog is called Sam's (or my idiot younger self chose Samz) Asylum. It's my little place on the virtual world; a hodgepodge of all things I'm feeling, working on and what I want to share with whomever will read it. For those of you who have stuck around through all my personal entries that aren't fun to read, thank you. I promise you 2025 has some more pedal builds, and hopefully here soon I'll be able to give an update on a build from 2023.

No longer can I wait, unhappy and longing for the past to return. No longer can I sit back and let life pass me by. It's time to take charge of what I can control, and hope what I can't control shows me a bit of grace and mercy. I'm super excited about a few major events in 2025, and we'll just have to hope for the best with everything else. Hopefully things will be better than the past five years have been. Hey, I love building pedals, but I was never doing well emotionally. Now let's put a positive mental attitude and my pedal building skills together and see where that gets us. I'll keep those of you who wish to know updated. For the rest of you, the pedal build stuff will start back up in Spring, so only a few months to go. I'll see you then and wish me luck. I'll need it!

Virginia's Run (In With the Trailer Park Boys)

Here we go again! I watched a movie just to find the Trailer Park Boys connection. This time I watched Virginia's Run, which had been on my radar for quite some time. This movie doesn't focus around any of the actors from TPB, but rather a little girl, named Virginia, whose mother died in some horse related accident. The father, being so angry at the horse that killed his wife, has sold the horse, but Virginia still tends to it. The horse bites the dust while giving birth, so the foal imprints on Virginia as its mother. From here we have your typical, cookie cutter early 2000s coming of age movie. Father and daughter disagree, father makes a huge (and financially irresponsible) gesture to apologize to his daughter, and now magically has complete and total faith in adolescent daughter's decision making skills, after having spent the first part of the movie questioning them.

I know this movie isn't aimed at me, so I won't judge it too harshly. I'm not into horses, nor could my family ever afford one, so two strikes right there, but that's on me. Much like with Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor I hope the target audience find their solace in this film as well. After the huge apology gesture from her father, Virginia enters into a horse race, but not before she has an interaction with the town bully, a rich kid, whom Virginia and her horse completely smoke in an unsanctioned race. As revenge for this, and to avoid losing in front of the whole town, the rich kid horsenaps the horse, causing Virginia to be late to the race.

This is where all four of the Trailer Park Boys actors meet up. In the first few minutes Mr. Jeremy Akerman appears, and later comes back as the overseer of the horse race. While recovering her horsenapped horse, Virginia runs past a traffic stop, where none other than John Dunsworth is portraying the sheriff. Once Virginia is escorted into town, by Sheriff Jim Lahey (not really the character's name), she is held back from entering the race by Mr. Akerman's character, who is a DICK! Which causes a pair of men in the crowd (credited as JP and Rob, aka Julian and Ricky) to chant "Let Virginia ride!", repeatedly.

This is where all four of them interact, before Akerman's character finally relents and allows Virginia to enter the race. The scene switches to Virginia who is now mounted up and in hot pursuit to catch up to the race, even though she's like fifteen minutes behind. Do not fear though, as this is a feel good, coming of age movie it only takes a few minutes before she's battling for the win. This leads to a side by side battle between Virginia and her rival, which results in him pulling some typical rival bully tricks and causing Virginia to take a tumble. In true feel good movie fashion she recovers and within a few more short minutes they're both battling it out to the finish line.

Sheriff Jim Lahey!

My only real complaints about this movie are the jaw harp that had to be used for almost any reason at all. Does it need more cow bell? No! It needs more jaw harp! And Gabriel Byrne did a pretty abysmal job with his accent. His acting was good, but his accent wasn't sure if it wanted to be his native Irish, or hillbilly American. As for the Trailer Park Boys connection, Mr. Akerman, JP and Robb were all featured pretty heavily throughout the final part. As for Sheriff Jim Lahey, well he was there at the end, but didn't say much else. Now shit hawks here, folks!

Freedom 35?