Monday, May 2, 2011

Thursday, April 28, 2011

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!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

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

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

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

Thursday, March 17, 2011

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...

Friday, March 4, 2011

shit's getting serious now.


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

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

happy!

i'll let the pictures do the talking.