my effects pedal business is going

Telesonic · March 2004

so i went into meridian music here in indianapolis last week to see if they'd be interested in the overdrive pedal i've made. the guys in the store tried it out and were blown away by it! 3 of the 5 guitar instructors there bought one off of me over the weekend. one of the them said he used to own a fulltone fulldrive2 but said he like mine alot more. also, the manager of the guitar department agreed on a consignment deal to sell my overdrives. basically, they will stock 4 or 5 of my pedals at a time and for each one they sell, they take 10% of the final sale price and cut me a check for the rest. not a bad deal at all i think.

whats nice is that all the guys that work there are enthusiastic about selling it. these guys are all just really cool. it was just awesome to see their reaction to my pedal. made me feel so good. also, i brought my compressor prototype in too, and two of the guys there wanted to get one. i agreed to sell my other prototype of it to one of them. i've got to sell some overdrives first before i can start producing the compressor.

i'm so damn excited about this right now! i'm gonna probably go to some other independent guitar shops around the city this weekend to see if they'll do something similar. maybe be able to sell some to the employees there too.

WiLL75 · March 2004

That is awesome man!!! One of these days I'm gonna pick one up...because really, everybody needs 3 distortion/overdrive pedals nowadays. ; )

MissYouAllDay · March 2004

Congradulations man. That sounds really exciting. I will buy one when I'm done school in a year and a bit

who's_pearljam? · March 2004

Congratulations

I know how good your overdrive is, because I have one! It is a great piece of work, and I wish the best to you.

Whatever else you make, I'll try out!

Telesonic · March 2004

thanks guys. and bob, are you gonna get yours back to me any time soon so i can mount that external switch? i guess you're pretty busy though. also, unless you like that volume mod i did, i was gonna change it back to the original spec, like i'm selling them now. oh, and thanks again for that review on HC.

Pacomc79 · March 2004

It's the Shannon overdrive right? How much were you selling them for again?

Congratulations, that's great news. The more people that have them the more people that will want them.

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by Pacomc79
It's the Shannon overdrive right? How much were you selling them for again?

Congratulations, that's great news. The more people that have them the more people that will want them.

yes sir...its the Shannon Overdrive. The store is going to sell them at $145, but i'm offering a direct early bird special of $130. The ones I make now have that clipping select switch located on the outside as suggested by bob. My whole approach for my business is to offer "boutique" pedals but without the boutique price. this will be my website address:

http://www.shannon-effects.com

i don't have a whole lot of experience at web site development, but hopefully i can get a decent page up in the near future.

and thanks paco. you know, if i can start to grow this thing and come up with more pedals, i'll need someone like yourself with a good all around knowledge of guitar related products to hire. how are your soldering skills?

Pacomc79 · March 2004

Soldiering.......yes I can soldier. I just can't make it pretty and I'm fairly slow. Most of mine get covered up with electrical tape as I'm used to joining wires toegther.

I need to put my Direct Drive up on Ebay and I like it a lot but I'm getting board with it. I'm getting my new Strat soon so a new overdrive would be really cool to play with too, It'd be pretty neat to get in early on the next big overdrive thing. If you can get it into the buzz bin in the back of Guitar World you'll sell plenty.

Bob's suggestion is a great one. Analogman now offers that option on a modded SD-1 so having it on a custom pedal is more of a reason to buy it in my opinion.

Two questions, how is it for clean boost and how are the harmonics when you push it.

exhausted · March 2004

i'm set for overdrives but i'd be interested in a really good clean boost if you decide to develop one at some point. mine's breaking down.

Pacomc79 · March 2004

Originally posted by exhausted
i'm set for overdrives but i'd be interested in a really good clean boost if you decide to develop one at some point. mine's breaking down.

We all could use a really clean boost with tons of headroom.

You know what I want. I want a combination compressor/clean boost kind of like Jacques model only less rubber Tonka truck looking. Something with amazing headroom and tons of clean volume before the amp starts to break up that would really bring out the quietest single coil. Then again with what it might take to build it, It might be to expensive to build. I think theres a market for that loud sparkling clean to just slight breakup especially from the blues/jazz players. 24V internal operating voltage would be a good start on headroom and harmonics though.

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by Pacomc79
Soldiering.......yes I can soldier. I just can't make it pretty and I'm fairly slow. Most of mine get covered up with electrical tape as I'm used to joining wires toegther.

good soldering just comes from experience and knowing a couple tricks, but you have to get a good iron first. i've got a hakko 936. its like $100 but well worth it. i've been using this model at work for the past 3 years. its a champ.

you're going to get an american duluxe ash strat right? i played the american duluxe fat strat this weekend and i'm in love with it. i'll probably sell my 60's mexican strat so i can get it.

in terms of being a clean boost, it works great. it does a similar thing to keeley's where it have less gain than a tube screamer would at the lowest setting. with the clipping switch set to asymmetrical, it works best. harmonics really start to come out the last 1/3 to 1/4 of a turn on the gain knob. the increase in overdrive at this point is less noticable, but the sustain and harmonics are increased. a couple of the guys in the music store liked to keep the gain towards the upper end and use the volume control on the guitar. you can ask bob what he thinks.

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by exhausted
i'm set for overdrives but i'd be interested in a really good clean boost if you decide to develop one at some point. mine's breaking down.

your pharoah is crapping out? what's it doing?

exhausted · March 2004

Originally posted by Telesonic
your pharoah is crapping out? what's it doing?

i can't get rid of the pop and capacitor replacement hasn't helped. etc.

it's not a big deal and it's still functional but i don't trust it anymore. fortunately, i bought it used and don't have much invested in it.

i would just buy a microamp but i don't like dunlop's methods.

and since i don't play live anyway, nothing's really criticical.

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by Pacomc79
We all could use a really clean boost with tons of headroom.

You know what I want. I want a combination compressor/clean boost kind of like Jacques model only less rubber Tonka truck looking. Something with amazing headroom and tons of clean volume before the amp starts to break up that would really bring out the quietest single coil. Then again with what it might take to build it, It might be to expensive to build. I think theres a market for that loud sparkling clean to just slight breakup especially from the blues/jazz players. 24V internal operating voltage would be a good start on headroom and harmonics though.

thats weird that you say that paco. cuz my compressor that i've prototyped works just like that. it doubles as a clean boost. flip a switch and it bypasses the compression circuit. the compressor is actually based off of the dan armstrong orange squeezer. uses an op amp to boost the signal. it has tons of volume, almost too much. one of the guys that tried my prototype out at the store primarily plays country and he was pretty impressed. one thing thats great about it is that its pretty quiet.

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by exhausted
i can't get rid of the pop and capacitor replacement hasn't helped. etc.

it's not a big deal and it's still functional but i don't trust it anymore. fortunately, i bought it used and don't have much invested in it.

i would just buy a microamp but i don't like dunlop's methods.

and since i don't play live anyway, nothing's really criticical.

pops when you hit the footswitch? did it not do it before?

exhausted · March 2004

Originally posted by Telesonic
pops when you hit the footswitch? did it not do it before?

yeah. it's a switch pop. they all pop to some extent, including my compressor, but it's gotten worse over time. and it's leaking voltage to the LED when the effect's off too. meh. it still sounds good though.

Pacomc79 · March 2004

Originally posted by Telesonic
thats weird that you say that paco. cuz my compressor that i've prototyped works just like that. it doubles as a clean boost. flip a switch and it bypasses the compression circuit. the compressor is actually based off of the dan armstrong orange squeezer. uses an op amp to boost the signal. it has tons of volume, almost too much. one of the guys that tried my prototype out at the store primarily plays country and he was pretty impressed. one thing thats great about it is that its pretty quiet.

Cool
I dig op amp based compressors. Especially the O squeezer, Just having a volume knob would be a big improvement over the original one with just the switch.

the thing is I want to use the compression with the clean boost. kind of blended. So I can still get the volume but My amp won't break up. It's a seemingly ridiculous Idea I know. The simple solution is to buy a higher volume amp for cleans. I'm just wondering If it can be done with only 2 EL-84's

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by exhausted
yeah. it's a switch pop. they all pop to some extent, including my compressor, but it's gotten worse over time. and it's leaking voltage to the LED when the effect's off too. meh. it still sounds good though.

the one downfall of true bypass is that slight pop. i've found the best way to help lessen it is to ground the input to the effect when it is turned off. i did this on my pedal and its less noticable and doesn't happen as frequently.

Telesonic · March 2004

Originally posted by Pacomc79
Cool
I dig op amp based compressors. Especially the O squeezer, Just having a volume knob would be a big improvement over the original one with just the switch.

what i did was actually add an external volume, gain, and bias knob along with the switch. the bias knob adjusts the amount of squish. the gain knob lets you compensate for output level of different pickups. turn the gain knob down for higher output and up slightly for single coils. he helps eliminate the distortion that would occur on the dan armstrong when playing hard. the gain and bias knobs kind of work hand in hand with each other for varying the compression. this thing can do a massive squish if you want it to with the gain and bias both turned up.

exhausted · March 2004

Originally posted by Telesonic
what i did was actually add an external volume, gain, and bias knob along with the switch. the bias knob adjusts the amount of squish. the gain knob lets you compensate for output level of different pickups. turn the gain knob down for higher output and up slightly for single coils. he helps eliminate the distortion that would occur on the dan armstrong when playing hard. the gain and bias knobs kind of work hand in hand with each other for varying the compression. this thing can do a massive squish if you want it to with the gain and bias both turned up.

this is awesome. kudos for making a pedal with a twist instead of all the clones the market is flooded with.

Pacomc79 · March 2004

Originally posted by Telesonic
what i did was actually add an external volume, gain, and bias knob along with the switch. the bias knob adjusts the amount of squish. the gain knob lets you compensate for output level of different pickups. turn the gain knob down for higher output and up slightly for single coils. he helps eliminate the distortion that would occur on the dan armstrong when playing hard. the gain and bias knobs kind of work hand in hand with each other for varying the compression. this thing can do a massive squish if you want it to with the gain and bias both turned up.

That's excellent I love the spongy single coils especially of Teles and Strats especially with quite a bit of compression. It just rings and sustains forever on chords and blues/chicken pickin solos come to life. It's the reason I like the MXR dynacomp and the Keeley. The Orange Squeezer is one of the best compressors ever made for nice smooth guitar compression. I also really like the nuevo Ross copies. The keeley, Bi comprosser (OSqueezer) (Comprossor) My favorite is probably the Way Huge Saffron Squeeze but I pretty much love everything from Way Huge I'm just not paying for it.

So you are working on a fuzz too I'd wager?

It'd be pretty cool if you built some volume boosts/overdrive/fuzz/octave what ever inside an old Wah casing or custom wah casing whatever with the volume pot or gain whatever attached to the treadle. I've always wanted something like that. You have to be careful not to price yourself out of the market though.

my effects pedal business is going

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