sparkle motion and more life updates

the sparkle motion list is now open!
see this post about ordering info.
some really cool happenings over here lately!

*the other day there was a block party on my street and i happened to be wearing one of my smallsound/bigsound shirts. as i was talking to a friend, some guy was sort of staring at my chest for a minute and i looked at him inquisitively. he asks, "is that a smallsound/bigsound shirt?" i was kind of blown away that anyone would even know what that was... he proceeded to tell me about the team awesome! his friend gave him a few years ago - how sweet it is, how it's been the only pedal on his board since. when i told him that i built it, he was so psyched he went home and got it! anyways, a nice guy who plays in a heavy philadelphia-based band, suncrusher. check them out!

*my girlfriend and i were accepted for a public art installation at the university of the arts in philadelphia! it's going to be pretty ambitious - a mobile made of cast aluminum shapes housing small speakers/circuits which will play back snippets of music/sound/etc based on the movement of the viewer. i'll be using brian eno's "music for airports" and, to some degree steve reich's "music for 18 musicians", as sonic inspiration...

tshirts! and sparkle motion update.

finally here and looking AWESOME.
terrible iphone pics since i left my camera at home. whoops. i rocked the stache just for that photo, though... i wanted to include a little bit more win.

sparkle motion is going strong! list time is almost here.
PCBs are all built, design is happening this weekend, building will happen next week.
FUCK YEAH

neat experience

so i've been trying to get my pedals into a guitar store which is right around the corner from where i live - dipinto's guitars in philadelphia. i went in once and they didn't seem too interested, i assumed because they are a small shop and don't get a ton of foot traffic... anyways, i guess evan from the dangerous ponies dropped the smallsound/bigsound name to the right guy in the store and they wanted to check out my goods. kewl!

so i dropped by a few days ago with some stuff. homey played guitar while i sat on the floor and twisted knobs; explaining the controls on each pedal. people came in the store and since it's a small place they seemed to be pretty interested in both the dude sitting on the floor and the sounds they were hearing. one guy started asking me about a particular sound he had heard us messing with and wanted to try it out - it was a team awesome! he was a bassist and had been interested in a particular grind-y sound. i did the same walkthrough of the controls, etc. while he played and he wanted to buy it then and there - turns out he was on tour and playing philly that night. after walking across the street to get a coffee together, i find out that the producer my band just worked with (the amazing john agnello) had just recorded their band a few weeks prior... wow! small world!

we made the deal and he used the pedal that night. my girlfriend and i went to the show and we ended up hanging out for a while drinking with the band - all really cool people who were fine conversationalists. they're called mean creek and you should check them out!

slightly new direction for new finishes?

cape may, nj photoshoot = good times.

tshirt design

maybe?
other colors will probably be available and i'll whip up some other designs in the next week...

secret design is almost ready too!

what's happening this month with only 2 weeks left

another batch of drilled enclosures arrived at the beginning of the week and they're at the screenprinters. all of the artwork will be slightly revised to make it a bit more consistent for the next runs, as well as printing a small run of tuxedo tafms.

i'm working really hard at the breadboard this week to finish 2 designs - the mountain range and another special secret named the best friend, both of which will probably start as smaller runs, though will most likely be production models... i hope!

i'm going to finish up some custom artwork pedals, have a repair to get to, need to revise each PCB to fix some small mistakes/layout mishaps and then layout the other 2 newer circuits. busy busy!

contributions from some great ilovefuzz members... thanks guys!
*some comparison soundclips of the fuck overdrive against a durham electronics crazy horse and a paul cochrane timmy by lintybits.
*a really nice video demo/jam with the fuck overdrive by carlsagan.

"comparison of the Fuck, Crazy Horse and Timmy. Gain is 1/2 way on each 1st time then 3/4 (fuzz dialed out on the CH) rest of the knobs are noon (Timmy bass/treble CCW)"
1 - CH-FUCK-Timmy by Lintybits

"Fuck and Crazy Horse, gain 3/4 of the way up then gain on full (fuzz still out on CH)"
2- FUCK-CH by Lintybits

"Fuck at 3/4 gain Hit by a Timmy at 1/2 gain"
4-FUck-timmy by Lintybits

it's been awhile!

i've been so busy with my band, cymbals eat guitars, that i haven't had a chance to add much here.
we're recording (currently mixing!) our new record at headgear studios in brooklyn, NY with awesome producer john agnello.

lots of smallsound/bigsound all over the record, too!

anyways, i recorded a bunch of new fuck overdrive demos, mostly showing the gain range on some different guitars. they're all on the youtube channel, but i figured i'd post the one longer clip here.



i got my stickers in 2 weeks ago and have sent tons out to people all over the world. they're free for all(!), so if anyone's reading this and interested in grabbing some send an email over to brian@smallsoundbigsound.com with your mailing address and i'll get them out to you - it doesn't matter where you are!

by next week i'll be back in the swing of things so i'll be finalizing the mountain range circuit, getting some new circuit boards printed and getting a nice fresh batch of silkscreened enclosures - maybe some slightly different designs/colors? who knows!

talk soon
big hugs

shit's getting serious now.

oh yeah, i might start working on a delay too. by might, i mean i am...

happy!

i'll let the pictures do the talking.

mountain range/screenprinted pedals almost done...

still continually anxious about not being able to get many pedals out due to the silkscreen wait, but thankfully i got some pcb design work in for fuzzrocious and fuzzhugger pedals - both very nice companies/people to deal with who are making neat stuff! new stickers are on their way and i should be in the pedal zone with the new enclosures by the weekend - meaning it's 12-hour days for me next week. got to make up for lost time!

i finished the mountain range circuit design and have the pcb all laid out already - now it's just a matter of finalizing the graphics and controls... i'm going to keep it simple so i can keep the price down, but so far the controls are:
pregain, gain, tone, volume and a clipping switch.

both gain controls are different, yet yield similar tones when used independently. together, they bring the overdrive into slightly saturated fuzz territory - not too wild, but really nice.
the tone control is, at the moment, a simple high-cut control that still needs a little attention... i may change this completely to a one-knob bass/treble control? need to think about it a bit more...
there's a nice amount of boost and the pedal so far plays really well with others. i'm in love with how subtle it can be, yet how it warms the signal up.

i'm going to give it a run on some other gear in rehearsal today and see how it fares at louder volumes and with more speakers.
though i can't post it at the moment from my iphone, there's a pic of the prototype over at facebook.

website is up! and other stuff...

ok so the smallsound/bigsound website is finally up! it's still massively in progress and at the moment i'm missing the most critical elements, such as pictures, videos, etc. but all of that will be added/uploaded in the next 2 weeks as the enclosure screenprinting finishes up. it was built in wordpress, so it looks like i'll be double blogging. sweet! (not)

also, it's my birthday! i'm 28 years old.

fuck overdrive + analog synths = lovely.

i'll let the video do the talking - korg polysix > homemade analog delay > fuck overdrive



additionally, check out william basinski's epic "the disintegration loops" if you're not familiar with it...

more happiness and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

2 things made my day today:

1. i got my enclosure proof #2 in today and although there were some extraordinarily minor changes that needed to be made (2 measurements needed to be changed by 1/64"), they are done and will probably be shipped out by early next week. which means i'll get them at the end of next week and give a few days for the silkscreening... blah soooooo close.

2. and this message (amazing), in regards to a fuzzmachine (by the way, not the same person as the last quote):

"i like it so much i sold my other fuzzes."

also, the fuck overdrive is officially my new favorite pedal. i've tested it out in 2 rehearsals and it's already replaced my boost and become my most used pedal... excite!