Check out the latest and greatest gear from the third day of the 2014 Summer NAMM show.
There’s so much that goes into bringing a pedal to life. Here’s a stash of DIY kits in various stages of completion at the author’s workshop.
Do you scoff at pedal prices? Here’s a deep look at the process and expenses of bringing a pedal to market.
You’ve come up with something special and inspiring on the breadboard and are ready to put the circuit into a pedal. How do you do that? You could hire a contractor, but let’s go full DIY.
You will need a CAD program to lay out the schematic and the subsequent circuit board. Once purchased, you need to learn to use the software to create a digital schematic and PC board. This process is not strictly about understanding the software—you also need to learn PCB layout practices as they relate to grounding, trace length, footprint design, and other common elements. While adhering to these, you also need to layout hardware, like potentiometers and toggles, in specific locations that allow them to appropriately mate with the enclosure that they will be stuffed into.
Now that we have our circuit laid out, we need to create specific file types to send off to a fabrication house so that they can open the files and manufacture the PC boards correctly to our design. Once we’ve submitted the files and they are approved, we wait with excitement, and dread, until they come in. Why dread? Well, we won’t know if the PCB is correctly populated with components that fit the package footprints and distribute power correctly, and if the audio sounds like what we designed on the breadboard, until they arrive. There may also be noise or other issues that we’ll need to track down before we can call the PCB finished. The first PCB that I ever designed came in looking exactly like the digital file, but did not work whatsoever.
After we’ve debugged the PCB to make it work, we get to a fun and frustrating step: putting the circuit into our enclosure. The enclosure part is fun because it’s the external, artistic side of the product where the builder’s creativity is first seen. An unappealing look could be the deciding factor for a consumer. I’m sure most of us have made a decision on a guitar or pedal before it’s even plugged in.
Trying to squeeze everything into an enclosure can become discouraging. The more hardware that’s affixed to the PCB, the more every measurement counts. This means every knob, toggle, footswitch, audio jack, and DC jack will play a role in making the PCB line up with the drill holes on the enclosure. That’s an aspect we haven’t even covered yet.
“An unappealing look could be the deciding factor for a consumer.”
Most of us in the industry have our enclosures manufactured at one-stop-shop locations. This is because having the facilities and tools to do drilling, powder coating, and UV or screen printing in-house is simply not feasible for most. Once we get a line on an enclosure manufacturer, we need to get them our drill measurements. This includes drill-hole diameters and locations related to each other, and from the edges of the enclosure. Once done, we need to get those measurements into digital form along with any artwork. We also need to pick a powdercoat color from the thousands of colors available. Not all powders adhere the same way to metal and not all powders work well with UV printing. So how do we take our drill measurements, powder color, and artwork to the next step? This is stomping grounds for Adobe Illustrator—another software program to purchase and learn. Crud!
After the enclosure files are sent off, made to spec, and received, we hold our breath and hope the populated PCB fits into the drilled enclosure. If it does, we dance. If it doesn’t, we break out the ruler and calipers and measure the places that we messed up. If the changes are to the PCB, we make them and order new samples. Same goes for the enclosure. While those revisions are being fabricated, we can focus on the packaging for the pedal. This is another fun part, and something that the customer will interact with upon receiving.
This is where I need to leave you. Before doing so, I’d like to point out that we haven’t gone into the remaining aspects of bringing a boutique pedal to life. There are still major considerations like product photos done in a photo area with a nice camera and edited with (more) software. Website construction to display that pedal along with copy and SEO, packaging materials, a label printer, and shipping software that talks to the website.
And at that, I’ve omitted a lot of small and medium steps in the breakdown of bringing a pedal to market. So I ask, are pedals really overpriced?
Strong midrange-focused personality. Particularly vowel-ly and vocal sweep. Feels controlled.
Some players will miss silkier, hazier bass-range sounds.
$249
Dunlop Mick Ronson Cry Baby
Park and fly with this mid-focused but very vocal wah honoring Bowie’s right-hand man.
Dunlop Mick Ronson Wah - MAIN by premierguitar
Mick Ronson—lead ripper, lieutenant, riff-dealer, and arranger in David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars—was such a cool amalgam of ’60s British guitar voices. He had Keith Richards’ sense of rhythm and hooks, Jimmy Page’s knack for evil-sounding ear candy, and a preference for loud, simple rigs: Les Paul, Marshall, Tone Bender, Echoplex, and, most critically, a Cry Baby wah. You know the sound of this Cry Baby. It’s everywhere on early 1970s Bowie records—“Queen Bitch,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Width of a Circle,” to name a few—and it put discernible fangs and venom in his playing. There are many such sounds in Dunlop’s excellent new tribute, the Mick Ronson Cry Baby.
Ronno was not a wah player in the “wocka-wocka” sense. He primarily used the pedal in a fixed position or with subtle longer sweeps. His favorite wah for the job was an early Cry Baby built in Italy by Jen. These wahs were notoriously, shall we say, “unique” from specimen to specimen. And without Ronno’s original on hand for comparison, it’s hard to know how close the tribute gets to nailing it. But there is an unmistakable mid focus that mirrors and invites Ronno’s biting phrasing—particularly in Bowie’s live recordings from the time. The new pedal’s sweep starts out squawky at the heel-down position, where my other vintage-voiced wahs just sound foggy. That midrange emphasis and presence remains through its sweep, suggesting the Ronson Wah’s singing range is narrow. On the contrary, the many distinctly different vowel sounds within that range color the base tone more strongly than many wahs with a smoother, bassier taper. That profile lends itself to great control and multiple bold, distinct sounds—particularly when an angry gain device is situated upstream.
Legendary shredder Joe Satriani was the first ever guest on Wong Notes, so it makes sense that he’s the first returning sit-in with Cory Wong.
He teases a new song with Sammy Hagar, plus delves into the intricacies of Eddie Van Halen’s playing and why he can’t quite replicate it—every guitarist has their strengths and deficiencies, claims Satch. And believe it or not, Satriani didn’t figure standing in front of huge crowds to be one of his strengths when he was younger. Fate figured otherwise.
Satriani goes deep on one of his favorite tools, the Sustainiac pickup, and talks about how it’s defined his playing—just like his trademark sunglasses, even in dark rooms. (“Stupid idea, right?” he jokes.)
And young guitarists, listen up: Satriani has some wise words on the importance of rigorous practice while you’re budding on the instrument. The big takeaway? Learn. Your. Scales.
The New ToneWoodAmp2 is smaller, lighter, rechargeable, and offers foureffects simultaneously, along with a mobile app and much more.
ToneWoodAmp has released the second generation of its popular accessory that brings a wide array of special effects to acoustic guitars without needing to plug into an external amplifier.
The ToneWoodAmp2 has been redesigned with portability, ease of use, and enhanced performance in mind, featuring a lighter and more compact design while adding more features and capabilities. The new ToneWoodAmp2 has a powerful DSP, a rechargeable battery that lasts for more than 10 hours, and it provides more creative tools as well as the ability to play with up to four simultaneous effects. A new smartphone app allows users to operate the device from either their phone or the device itself.
Reverb Basics | ToneWoodAmp2 Effects Guide
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.The upgraded product is also a fully professional preamp. In addition to the built-in effects, it includes a powerful EQ, compressor, “Feedback Assassin” tools, and more. “While the firstToneWoodAmp provided a breakthrough technology in how acoustic guitar players experience their guitar playing mostly off-stage, the new ToneWoodAmp2 doubles as an on-stage professional pre-amp device with many new capabilities, a perfect tool for performing musicians who need a professional set of tools in a very small footprint package,” says Ofer Webman, CEO of ToneWoodAmp and its inventor.Like the original ToneWoodAmp, the ToneWoodAmp2 attaches to any acoustic guitar via an innovative magnetic X-brace. A new and unique guitar attachment system, called the LiftKit, allows the second-generation device to attach to any acoustic guitar, even a guitar with a curved back.
TonewoodAmp2 features expanded capabilities by its new smartphone app: With its built-inBluetooth®, guitarists can now connect the ToneWoodAmp2 to a free smartphone app for extended control, intuitive adjustments, preset management, and on-the-fly tweaks. The new app is compatible with all modern iOS and Android devices.“The new device is a massive improvement from the original ToneWoodAmp,” says MikeDawes, the U.K.-based guitar player who has twice been named the Best Acoustic Guitarist in the World Right Now by MusicRadar and Total Guitar's end-of-year poll. “This thing is not only reverb or delay or chorus on your guitar it’s everything and more at once. The reason why this is so good is that it’s reducing every barrier that I would have to creativity.”The new ToneWoodAmp2 is available for $300.
For more information, visit www.tonewoodamp.com.
