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...

more new finish hotness

i just finished up a nice batch of beautifully finished fuck overdrives and team awesomes. some were my own design and others were inspired by requests.

a minimalist, mark rothko inspired design.

a simple lo-fi stamped version. scratched surface with rubbed in stamp ink for some staining...

my bloody valentine theme

a simple, minimalist frank stella work

bottom of the sea

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.

all in a day's work.

time to get started! the boards are double-sided, through-plated, silk-screened fabricated boards that i spend countless hours laying out - it's a long process, but i really do enjoy it - it's a unique and fun puzzle every time!

this is for a batch of team awesome! fuzzmachines. originally i was going to do 8, but my wrist was a little sore from the other boards i did that day and i pared it down to 3.




resistors in first.
parts go in according to their height - shortest to tallest - that way things stay nice and snug against the board when it gets flipped over to clip the leads off.









here are the 3 boards with the resistors plugged in, ready to be soldered.












lots of leads. good for jumpers, etc. so i keep a little pile around at all times.












step 1 done! next.













IC socket for the voltage inverter for the PNP germanium fuzz, reverse polarity diode, temperature stabilizing ge diodes and a few small value capacitors.










more capacitors.













the good stuff.

nice russian germanium transistors. pretty consistent, low leakage, reasonable gain and low numbers of rejects.

fun and spage-age looking, too!







got the russians soldered in as well as their silicon friends.












electrolytic capacitors and bias trimpot installed and IC socketed. all of the components are done; now it's time for the potentiometers, switches and wiring. never a dull moment!










pots ready. the fuzz pot is a different type of pot and is a little bit shorter than the others... there are worse things in life, so i'm ok with it.











mids switch, boost switch and wires for the clean blend pot are in place. not much left to do except drill additional holes in the enclosure, put all the external hardware in, wire it up and test it.

more later...

happy!

i'll let the pictures do the talking.

patience patience

2/3 of the silkscreen designs are done. they look so good. so so so good...
website is done except for new pedal pics/demos.
new manuals are done.
enclosures apparently arrived today.
circuit boards are populated and ready to put in enclosures.

last but not least...
enclosure screenprinting.
stickers.
putting everything together.

lots of very patient customers and a few accommodating shops that are being just as patient as i am... thanks for that. seriously. i think this little (ha!) overhaul will all be worth it!

fuck overdrive demo videos

two videos showing a pretty nice range from the fuck overdrive.

first video is guitar > ibanez ts9 > boss rv5 > fuck overdrive > amp.
*i'm pretty close to the camera, so you can hear a bit of the guitar in the room.

second video is guitar > ibanez ts9 > team awesome fuzzmachine > fuck overdrive > homemade analog delay > amp.
*i'm further away from the amp here so it's a little boring to watch. this is what i get for simply recording using the camera microphone instead of a more hi-fi setup... oh well

both are on the shoegaze-y/post-rock side, which is what i gravitate to on guitar. i'm hoping other people will make some more versatile/varying videos, though...

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!

no, but YES

i've been very up and down lately. since i'm waiting for these enclosures and such i'm not building any pedals and for the moment have zero income... every day i'm crunching numbers, etc. but it's a little stressful. it will be great when the enclosures DO finally arrive, but until then i can't help but think the worst and get a little more anxious with each passing day. i haven't really been sleeping very well, either, so the lack of rest is starting to wear on me as well...

thankfully, there has been at least ONE truly positive thing happening per day!
yesterday i got a really nice email from someone who had bought a team awesome used and found it too loud; also, someone had adjusted the internal trimpots "for guitar". bummer, because out of the few unusable/crummy settings on those internal pots, the previous owner had found one of them... i re-adjusted them so the pedal was balls to the wall and it's safe to say that homey was pretty psyched to get it back all fixed up. (i'm not the biggest fan of builders having a ton of quotes and such on their page, but i needed the cheering up so i just figured i'd repost it - my favorite part is the interjection about the color!)

"Finally got home from Tucson last nite. Just plugged in the TAFM. Holy Shit brother, this thing kills! not the prettiest to look at..haha gold is weird!!...but WOW what a killer! Need to figure out how the knobs work together exactly but Sweet Mother of Mercy!!!"

rad.

so today after finally falling asleep at 6am i got a paltry 4 hours of sleep. tired as shit, i decided to go into the shop anyways and it was a good thing i did... besides listening to m83 all day, i got the expression pedal input happening on the fuck overdrive. YES
that was pretty much the best thing that could have happened! (aside from getting those enclosures... *grumble grumble* )

also, here's a sneak peek at the team awesome layout. the jacks are on the long side, behind the row of 4 knobs.

getting ready!

preparing for the damn enclosures to get here... it's seriously driving me nuts since i still need to get them silkscreened and the delays are just taking too long - can't launch the new site until i get those screens!

so i'm preparing... lots of boards.

NEW YEAR! more gear...

so with the new year looming, i figured i'd let everyone know what's going on here in smallsound/bigsound land!
i just got back from a nice family vacation - relaxing and enjoyable - exactly what i needed before life insanity gets started again...

*new circuit boards for everything! i'm changing my enclosure layouts to have all ss/bs pedals compatible with one basic layout - though there will be slight differences in the number of knobs, switches, etc. this necessitated a change in PCB layouts. i'll be populating and building each new PCB up this weekend to ensure that they're working well and have no mistakes.
**the tafm board is exactly the same as before, aside from some very slight differences that won't be noticed by anyone. the main difference in this version (as with the last version) is that i'm using different tapered pots for a better volume range - still super loud, but with more low volume sweep (unity closer to noon, depending on the input volume).

*new pedal(s)!
**the fuck overdrive is done and will even (hopefully!) have an expression pedal in option. need to test that...
**year4545 is revised and bigger and badder.
**i just ordered boards for the PWM fuzz, so don't worry - that project isn't dead!

*lots of stuff in the works! (more-or-less in the order of completion)
**the mountain range overdrive - still tweaking a tiny bit, but shouldn't be very different than the one i made blurzy.
**another unnamed overdrive which will be very different than the fuck or mountain range.
**the utility looper/boost/blend thing.
**warped record vibrato.
**something secret!
**bitcrusher.

*new website!
**after 2 years of thinking about it and procrastinating, it's finally getting there... maybe another week if i really buckle down and get the time in. honestly, i feel really lucky to be where i am without having a website, so thanks to everyone who has supported smallsound/bigsound in any way.

*hopefully some new dealers!
**just crossing my fingers that the new pedals and website brings a flood (ha!) of retailers my way.

*more small batches/custom stuff!
**i'm going to try my hardest to get out a small batch of 3-10 pedals each month or two. they'll primarily be available directly through me, but it will be nice to offer those batches through fuzzhugger, etc. when the time is right. these things will probably either be really simple or really complex, dual pedals or even ideas people shoot my way. the first will be the PWM which should be ready soon.

*new graphics!
**i'm going to see about getting some 2 color silkscreens done locally here in philadelphia.

moving along!

sooooo let's see...

some new-ish ideas that i'm making headway on:
*PWM fuzz is moving along - slowly but surely. i decided to go ahead and get PCBs fabricated for this, rather than make them on perfboard. they'll be way nicer looking!

*i'm working on another 2 overdrives, in addition to the fuck overdrive (which will be coming out in january) funny, because i was never really the biggest fan of overdrives (kind of why i named the first "fuck overdrive") and now i'm interested in making 3 different ones... ha! not sure if they'll all surface, but they're fun to work on.

*i'd like to get started on a cool blend/loop pedal with dual boosts and some other neat features - almost like a swiss army knife of a pedal! the basic block diagram is all laid out, i just need to hit the breadboard.

*warped record/MBV/boards of canada pedal is also slowly but surely under way!

i need another breadboard or two...

here's a pic of the next batch of TAFMs on their way to fuzzhugger.com. they should have them in stock some time next week...