REAL TUBE ACTION!

I've been waiting for the clear coat to set up on the latest batch of Wayfarer pedals before final assembly, but I get board easily, and so I was off finishing up another project in the meantime.

This other project is the Hybrid love-child of my interest in pedal building, and my new found fascination with tube amps.  Plain and simple, it's a tube based overdrive pedal.  I finished building one up last night as a prototype and immediately fell in love with the idea.

Here are a few shots:

 It's a pretty simple concept really, and there's plenty of these tube-based projects around the web, but most of them are based on low-gain preamp tubes like the 12au7, and I really wanted to build one based around the 12ax7 to give it a little more of an edge.  

So here it is.  It looks like something right out of WWII or as standard issue to all Dharma Initiative rock guitarists, but it sounds so good, who cares what it looks like! 

ahhh....

bask in that warm tube glow!

Price Shift

This recession's been tough on everyone, so I thought I might help ease the strain on everyone's wallet.  I've decided to go back to a direct sale model and cut all of my prices by about $15.  

This means the new Wayfarer will only be $105.  And if you order before Monday you'll still get free shipping!

I'll still do short runs of a few pedals to keep a few in stock, but if something you want isn't in stock you can still contact me to order.  I can build just about any of my pedals with a 3-4 week estimated delivery after payment. 

Pre-Order

One Wayfarer is spoken for out of the five that I'm making, and I've decided that I'll run the pre-order free shipping deal through June 5.  Save yourself 10 bucks and pre-order today.

With that WWII bomber nose-art aesthetic, I can't think of a better memorial day present to yourself!

#001 - Sold
#002 - Sold
#003 - Available
#004 - Available
#005 - Available

Wayfarer Pre-Order

The Wayfarer Overdrive is now available for pre-order.

I'm only making five of these, so get 'em while they're hot.

Price is $120
Pre-order for $50 (remaining $70 due when ready to ship) and get free shipping in the ConUS

CLIPS:

GUITAR (Gibson LP / Princeton Reverb):
  Wayfarer Demo by Jimmy Rocket 
(please excuse the weird static in this recording, something was up with my recording rig.  I'm going to record another demo in the very near future)


BASS (Fender Jazz / Aguilar AG500):

  Wayfarer Bass Demo by Jimmy Rocket

A hot little number

Ladies and Gents, I'm proud to introduce to you, the Wayfarer Overdrive.

The Wayfarer is a silicon/germanium hybrid overdrive designed to give you all the warm gritty bite of a classic small tweed amp in a simple and elegant design.  

The Wayfarer marries the warmth of Germanium diodes with the bite of a Silicon transistor to give you a dynamically rewarding drive without overtaking the fundamental character of your tone.

The "drive" control adjusts your overall level and the "dirty" switch acts like a boost letting you choose either a slightly gritty edge to your clean tone or a more aggressive drive.

The Wayfarer will be in limited production by late May and will be $120.  Pre-order for $50 and get free shipping.

The warm glow...

I've had some questions about those random tubes from a few posts back, and I thought I'd show the rest of the set.  

Those glowing emitters are from a replica of the famous '65 Princeton Reverb.  As I mentioned a few posts ago, I've gotten into tube amps and I've since built two of my favorite historic Fender designs - the '57 Tweed Princeton and the '65 Blackface Princeton Reverb.

Here are a few build shots:

And here's a shot of the tweed Princeton. That nameplate came from my grandad.  I initially thought it came from his footlocker at basic training, but I believe it was on his locker at the factory where he worked as an electrician for decades.

 
I used his soldering gun to do both of these builds.  Meet Jasper, my trusty WEN 450

9 volts

Dr. StrangeFuzz, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ditch the Battery

So, it's Earth Day, and I've got an appropriately earthy topic to talk about.  I don't know that I've ever mentioned this in any earlier posts, but it's one of the major trends in pedals coming from small builders - the move away from 9v batteries.  

If you open up any of my pedals you won't find a battery snap. No, that's not a cost saving measure, it's an ideological choice.  Not only are batteries a perfect symbol of the disposable culture in which we're currently living they're a major environmental stress.

Dano over at BeavisAudio.com has made the point about as succinctly as possible, and so rather than to restate his argument, I'm going to quote it here:

The Case for the Prosecution

There are environmental and practical issues to ponder...

• Batteries burned in waste combustion facilities can release mercury or cadmium to the air and water, ultimately entering the food chain and posing health threats to people and the environment.
• After 1994, manufacturers stopped adding mercury to alkaline batteries. But alkalines still contain potassium hydroxide, a corrosive agent.
• The manufacture of batteries is an odious business and has a very negative effect on the environment.
• 9 volt batteries wear out real quick. Which means if you use them, you are likely going to use a lot of them. Think about this: what it is the carbon footprint of making a 9 volt battery, and when it gets down to around 7 volts, it won't power most stompboxes. So you are throwing away something like 60% of the "product."
• The standard battery-disconnect design for stompboxes (disconnect the input jack to disconnect the battery) is brain-dead. How many batteries have you burned through because you forgot to disconnect the input jack.
• Batteries are crazy-expensive when compared to AC/DC adaptors. For the cost of two name brand alkaline batteries, you can buy a cheap 9 volt adaptor.
• Have you ever forgot that old cheapy battery you left in a stompbox four years ago, only to re-open it later and find a bunch of acid sludge?
• Battery snaps are usually the first thing to break on a pedal due to the mechanical stress on the wires and the battery clip itself. What a hassle.

So using batteries simply doesn’t make sense.

And so that's it.  You'll always be able to rock out any of my pedals nice and hard with standard 9v power adapters, but I implore you - do your grandchildren a favor, go easy on the earth and ditch the battery  :)