Opening Day: Pedal Building 2025

For months I had been excitedly waiting to building my Southland overdrive clone. All I needed was to find the perfect day to start my 2025 build season, and that day was March 13th. The day was beautiful, the animals were out in full force, and the temperature was set to be the highest it had been in months. I gathered everything and set up my work station outside. The build went pretty well, but there was a sense of agitation in the air the entire time. Although I was finally building the overdrive I had been wanting to build, it just wasn't feeling like I normally do, or hoped it would. I'm still not sure what it was exactly, but there have been a few things going on in my life that could be the culprit.

Even testing wasn't what it used to be. Normally I'm an neurotic mess as I plug everything up; ready to be completely let down by another failure, or at least another troubleshooting session. Deep within myself I felt like this was no longer what I wanted to do with my time. Something is different, something has changed. The strange thing is this circuit came to life immediately. Not even a single second of delay to sow the seeds of doubt. It just worked outright, and perfectly. I can't remember the last time that has happened.

There is a lot going on in my head right now. I'm closing a chapter that I worked on for fifteen years, and now I'm starting fresh. All of this has me in a shaky headspace, more so than I already am. I still have builds that need parts ordered, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be building. Is this an ending, or maybe a shift? I'm not sure. All I know is life is about to get very complicated soon, and I'll need to adjust everything to accommodate it. While some things are falling into place, I need to wrangle other aspects to keep them in line. Getting old is far more complex than just aging gracefully. A lot of things, despite your best efforts, simply don't, and won't go the way you want them to.

I guess in a way, it's a lot like building a pedal circuit. You can plan it to a T, but there are always things you never planned for. No matter how I feel, I'm trying to urge myself to be excited about the Ram's Head Muff clone I have planned. It's one of the builds that still needs parts. I have a lot of simple builds this year, with fewer bigger projects. Maybe in this new chapter I'll have a more inspiration to build, and this year's season just started off in a funk as a sign thing can only get better. We'll see.

Hello, Semi-Hollow!

It all started when I saw an Ibanez AS93FM (emerald green one), and a desire was born. A lot of my blues heroes used a semi-hollow guitar, so I think it's finally time to see if I connect with one. I looked into the Ibanez Artcores, used Gibson ES 335s, Epiphones, Firefly guitars, even an ES 339 caught my attention, but I decided against all of them for one reason or another; most of them weren't in my current budget anyway. Ultimately I decided it had to be a cherry red Harley Benton HB-35 Plus, as it addressed my biggest concern about gelling with a 335 style guitar. On most 335 guitars the input jack is on the front, while the HB-35 Plus has it on the bottom, like most guitars. It also had a lot of features that I like, such as a flame maple top, the switch at the top like a Les Paul, and push/pull pots to split the coils of each humbucker.

I told my brother to keep an eye out for 335 style guitars, especially a used HB-35 Plus. Both Friday and Saturday he texted me a ton of pictures of guitars, but nothing had all of the features that made the Harley Benton my favorite. Then he sent me a photo of a cherry red, flame maple 335 style guitar with the switch at the top, and I got excited! At first I thought it was an HB-35 Plus, because the headstock wasn't visible, but once I noticed the gold hardware I could tell this wasn't a the HB-35 Plus I was looking for. If it looks like an HB-35 Plus, but isn't, what could it be? It' a Peavey!? Yes, a Peavey JF-1, to be exact. After my brother sent me a photo of the headstock, I quickly went to work researching what it was. In most of my research I found a lot of people seemed to like them, so that helped me decide this was the one for me.

The Peavey JF-1 retailed for $399.99 many years ago, so I wonder if the HB-35 Plus was based on it. These were Peavey's entry into Jazz Fusion, thus JF model. The only feature the Peavey lacked, compared to what I wanted from the HB-35 Plus, was the push/pull pots. It did surpass the HB-35 Plus in the pickguard style, which is much more 335-esque, compared to the LP style of the HB-35 Plus. It had some bumps and bruises, but nothing I couldn't overlook. Overall she's in good shape, although she does need a setup. To its credit, as per the Peavey website specs, the tuners are Grover, the neck is set-in mahogany, and it is completely wrapped in cream binding, including front and back of the maple body. If I had any complaints at all I would say I'm not a fan of gold hardware, but that will continue to wear over time.

Another minor gripe is these pickups may get changed at some point. The neck pickup seems to sit around PAF territory, where I want it, but the bridge is a bit too hot for what I want to do with this guitar, at 14k. I may also install a push/pull on the neck, if I change out the pickups, for the out of phase sound. Overall she sounds nice acoustically, and plays really nice. After some elbow grease she cleaned up nice too! It's great having another guitar that rings out acoustically, like my Les Paul. I've already bonded with this one in less than 24 hours of having it. Really nice for what it is, and I got it at a super deal. An easy pick up and play guitar to help me test pedal builds too!

Say Hello to Cherrie King!

Hello March 2025!

We've finally made it into March territory. Being my birth month, March has always had a special place in my heart. Also, being from the mid-west, March's weather potential has always fascinated me. In elementary school I remember being told March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, or vice versa. We would color in lambs or lions and predict which way it would go. We never really paid much attention to which way it actually went though. We were kids, and by the time April came along we had already forgotten what even happened in March.

Here in 2025, March has came in cold and rainy, so take that whichever way you want. It does look like a few nice days are about to pop up though, so that's when I plan to start build season 2025. I've added a few more circuits and ideas to the build list, bringing our total number of projects to eighteen for this year. This still includes the 5F1 that I need a lot of parts for, and especially guts to test. Speaking of small amps, for some reason my Fender Mustang Mini has decided it wants to join the team again. Since it's back in semi-working order I won't be using Buddy (my 386-based amp) as much as I did last year. I always felt the test results with Buddy felt a bit off. Not sure why, they just did.

I won't even lie and say that I'm going to stop at eighteen builds this year, I'll just say that's where we are for now. Will I build more treble boosters, even though I already have tons? You bet! Will I build more overdrives even though I already have tons? Yep! Will I build another amp? Maybe! Will I need to order a ton of parts? Can confirm! Is 2025 going to be a good year? shrug For now I'll take it one day at a time and see where that puts me. The key is to not make too many moves too quickly, but progress has to be made. Let's get after it!

Building Season 2025 is Almost Here!

With 2025 off to a very rough start (long Covid), I know I can at least look forward to a brand new build season in spring. Last year I left off with three kits that were ready to build, and eight that still needed parts. In the past few weeks I've been looking for more circuits to build, but the layout sites have slowed way down with their posts. Despite their slower output with new layouts I've actually added two new builds to the 2025 build roster. I have a third waiting in the wings, because it requires such off the wall parts I'm not sure I'll fully commit to it. There is also a Bluesbreaker variant I'm wanting to build, but it's a bit off the wall too, so it too is waiting in the wings for me to decide what to do.

Among the newbies are a Sun Face clone, and another treble boost, with a Danelectro Breakdown clone being the oddball in the wings. I've wanted to build a Sun Face clone for a while, so I figured now would be the time to give it a try. All together I have thirteen kits, again most of them still need parts ordered, with the Danelectro Breakdown, the Bluesbreaker variant, and the Fender 5F1 build still hanging in limbo. The 5F1 is mostly because I'm still not too keen on messing with such high voltage.

For my sanity I'm hoping the layout websites stay slow with their output this year. As we've seen in the previous two years I make a claim early on, only to end up going wild and surpassing it by some crazy number. Once my parts order is made that will most likely mark the end of prototype building. I need to switch over to repairing circuits that didn't work out the first time, and housing all of them. I have so many circuits in little bags I want to plug in and play, but it's not as simple as that. Even worse, I'll hear something I really like and do all the research into building it, only to find out I've already built one.

Hopefully 2025 starts looking up and I can finally get to writing and recording. I've got a few demos planned, I just need to get some of my pedals finished to aid me in that pursuit. Fingers crossed everything goes better than I expect!

The Bass

In 1999 I became more interested in learning to play the bass, just to add another feather in my cap of musical prowess. May of that year saw a dear friend by the name of Joe offering me his old bass guitar, one he said he never played anymore. Joe brought the bass to school on a Friday, handed it to me and told me to take it home for the weekend. The last thing I can remember him telling me was to let him know how I liked it on Monday. The issue being, our school district had a funny way of rewarding me with more days off from school when I had previously not shown up to school. I was suspended most of that following week, and by the time I returned it was too late. I went back to school with the intention of returning the bass to Joe, but Joe had passed away that Thursday night. Meningitis. He was only 15 years old.

I tried numerous times to get his bass to his sister, but our schedules rarely ever crossed paths. From 1999 until about ten years ago I continued to try and make it happen, but things never worked out. It was as if Joe was telling me this is where he wants the bass to stay, and it has ever since he gave it to me. On the surface it's nothing special. It's a red Mako brand, P style body, maple fretboard, single pickup bass. The strings are still original, as I can't bear to take them off. They're the last set of strings Joe played. Needless to say I've not played it since 1999. It's more a keepsake of a friend who I guess decided I was the safest home for his bass.

I think this year I might just go through and give the bass a tune up, see how it performs. After leaving school in 2000 the bass moved with me to Michigan, then back to Indiana. It's been packed away in box in my closet untouched, but not forgotten, for decades. A new pack of strings, a thorough cleaning, make sure the neck is doing alright, and it might be ready to rock. I still feel as if this belongs with his family, but it's just never happened. I think at this point they've probably long forgotten it.