Danelectro's Peace, Love & Fuzz: The Amazing Story of Danelectro Guitars, Snark Tuners, and Foxx Pedals book is available now.
The newly released book chronicles the life and career of Steve Ridinger, the man responsible for reviving Danelectro Guitars and the founder of Foxx Pedals and SnarkTuners.
"His production team worked until midnight trying to keep up with orders for the new pedals, often serenaded by the sound of fistfights and breaking bottles from the seedy beer bar next door."
"The story continues as Ridinger brings Danelectro – dormant for 30 years – back from obscurity in 1998 and sells more than 100,000 guitars in the first year. And later, during a long illness, Ridinger designs a better clip-on guitar tuner. He launches Snark in 2010 and it immediately becomes the market’s most popular tuner, with more than 15 million sold to date."
The book’s 87 pages was brought together to offer a fast-paced, firsthand account of energized entrepreneurship, as well as perseverance through devastating setbacks and challenges.
Ridinger’s prescience and innovation have won a broad range of admirers in the musical instruments industry. “Steve Ridinger is one of the most interesting people in the world,” says Josh Scott, founder of JHS Pedals. “Since his early teenage years, he has always been at the forefront of what was about to happen.”
“Peace, Love & Fuzz: The Amazing Story of Danelectro® Guitars, Snark Tuners, and Foxx Pedals” carries a $9.95 price and can be purchased at sweetwater.com.
For more information, please visit: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PeaceLvFz--danelectro-peace-love-and-fuzz-the-[…]ory-of-danelectro-guitars-snark-tuners-and-foxx-pedals-book.
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Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Neil’s brother-in-law Billy’s Ovation, before Neil’s repairs.
Reader: Neil Crump
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Guitar: King of the Road
My brother-in-law passed away in March. He was a talented keyboardist and, in his heyday, played in bands that toured internationally. As a musician, he naturally had a guitar—a 1974 Ovation—and a “friend” put an unauthorized abstract paint job on it. That guitar had an extremely hard life: Its top was broken and the frets were completely worn out. As an aspiring luthier, I took the guitar to repair it then pass it on to his daughter. This proved to be a challenging task as I had never done anything more complicated than a basic setup before and I had few luthier tools.
A heat gun and thin spatula knife worked fine to remove the top and the bridge. I did my best to glue the new top halves together—but that left a visible seam, so I put a herringbone center strip over it (to match the purfling I would install later). I had no radius board, so I just clamped the pre-radiused braces I bought and was quite pleased that the new top did have a radius! Once I felt the bridge was sanded perfectly, I glued it down. I then replaced the plastic nut and saddle with bone. A hot soldering iron got the old frets out without damaging the fingerboard. (That said, next time I will clean those slots out better before installing new frets!)
“This proved to be a challenging task as I had never done anything more complicated than a basic setup before and I had few luthier tools.”
I was happy with my progress until I started routing the purfling channel. I had no workbench, and the concave Ovation body made things a bit awkward. While basically “bear hugging” the body with one arm and holding the router with the other, I heard a faint “pop.” The edge of an X-brace had come loose. I was able to squirt glue into the void with a syringe, but the concave guitar body made a brace jack useless (without fabricating a complicated caul). I removed the phono jack and jammed a pencil into the brace, keeping pressure on it with a rubber band. It worked!
Neil gave the Ovation a new lease on life with his extensive repairs, the end result of which can be seen here.
I also learned the importance of channel depth with purfling—I did lots of scraping to get everything flush. I am pleased with the finished product and my niece is so happy! I also put a new label inside the guitar body, with a dedication to her father on it.
Overall, there are multiple wins on this project. I gave tribute to my brother-in-law, made his daughter happy, and learned enough to build a guitar from scratch.
