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Yes, It’s Another Peach Custom Fuzz Sample

I whipped-up yet another sample of my fuzz effect, The Peach. I'm really liking pushing slightly beyond the "normal" fuzz tone into this sort of hybrid fuzz/distortion/noise territory.

http://www.railheadeffects.com/sounds/The-Peach-001.mp3

This was recorded with my 88 Les Paul, bridge pickup, tone rolled all the way out.

Posted at 4:45pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (5)

A Hunting We Will Go

The time has come to finally get rid of my wife's 6 year old car: her much-loved G35 sedan. It's been a good car and a pleasure to own — but she's ready to get into something bigger and less car-like. So, we're going to haul off to the Infiniti dealer this afternoon and check out the 2009 FX35s. These are crazy-cool looking vehicles, let me tell you. To me, they're totally girly looking — but they have an awesomely feline and mildly mean-looking profile. She may go color opposite and get the brown, since she's kind of tired of white. We'll see.

I'm also hoping to replace my Nissan Titan with a Land Rover LR3 in the coming months — a vehicle I've been wanting for quite a while. Since the Land Rover place is so close to Infiniti, we'll swing by there, too, so I can see how well I fit in the thing. Being 6'4" and 225 pounds, I'm pretty picky about the cabin in my vehicles — but according to the specs, it's almost the same size as my TItan.

I've always like Land Rovers because I'm a fan of the geometry of their design, but a lot of people think they look like a box on wheels. Of course, I'm the guy that would be driving a Willys Jeep if I could find on in working condition, so the "military" squareness is right up my alley. But, you never know what'll happen when I get to see one up close and personal.

The biggest downside is that I have to deal with car dealers in the Texas summer heat...

Posted at 9:01am CDT | Permalink | Comments (2)

On A Tone Quest

Recently, I've begun tweaking my guitars with different capacitors to modify their tone's feel and quality, and I'm finding it to be dangerously addictive.

From a purely mechanical standpoint, if the tolerances are the close to the same, you'll not hear a whole lot of difference as far as the range of tone is concerned — between different types of capacitors of the same value, that is. However, the quality and feel of the tone is noticeably different between different types of capacitors. From ceramic to paper in oil, different materials will make your tone more bright or brittle, and others will sweeten and round it out.

I've spent the last week playing with some .022uF Tone Factory Vitamin Qs, and they really gave my Les Paul a more woody, rounded sound. Wired in the 50s style, my Les Paul has a great bark to it (no pun intended), and an overall warmer sound. When played with my high-gain effects, I get a nice rough sound, and great harmonic overtones.

That said, now that I'm mildly addicted to doing this, I'm trying out a few more "vintage" caps. The first up will be some Jupiter Beeswax Paper Foil caps, and I'll be giving the .022uF and .01uF caps a try. No pun is intended (again) but these beeswax caps — more so than other beeswax caps — are said to really sweeten the tone with nice lows and solid highs.

I'm also snagging some Sprague Vitamin Qs at .015uF, which are said to have a tighter tone than the Tone Factory Vitamin Qs. We shall see...

Posted at 3:33pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

RAILhead Effects io Finalized

I've finalized the look for my io Super Distortion, and here it is:

For the curious, here's a gut shot showing off the uber-clean interior. All that's missing is the 9-volt battery holder I'll be installing in all my pedals.

Posted at 3:20pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Peach Custom Fuzz Teaser

I'm finally ready to unveil the final artwork for my RAILhead Effects Peach Custom Fuzz, so here you go. Note, though, that these are just quick-n-dirty teaser pics, so the lighting is non-existent (thus the odd blue/white background). Regardless, you get the gist:

Here's an interior shot, showing off the most crisp and clean build I've ever seen in any pedal — if I may say so myself:

Posted at 3:52pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wednesday, Miscellaneously

I hate writing User Manuals. I mean, it's not like it's hard to write or anything — it's just the idea of having to write them. I think knowing that I need to write them, rather simply wanting to write them, makes the whole thing annoying. At least I don't have a lot of them to do (they're for my effect pedals)...

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I got my Gretsch Country Club in Monday, and sweet fat on a stick, I'm in love. MUTHA! I love the action on this puppy — not to mention the sound, which is perfection in the neck position. I don't know if I'll ever let it leave the house, though.

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I'm getting closer and closer to opening for RAILhead Effects for business. We have a meeting with our CPA to finalize the good ol' Big Brother crap, and then we're good to go.

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One of the girl here at work is hacking up a lung. I'm getting sick just listening to her. And of course, the last thing I need to be is sick since I take Dad to his Dr. appointments every week. I really, really wish I could tell her to go home, but I can't — so maybe I'll just leave...

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I'm craving spaghetti squash for some reason.

Posted at 3:44pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cycle 1, Day 7

We had our first "Fast Track" blood work lab today, 1 week after Dad's first chemo cycle. Everything is moving just as expected, so that's totally great. His white blood cell counts are on the way down, and his platelets dropped a bit — but that was expected. All of his other blood items were better than they were the 15th, which is nice.

I had been praying that over the weekend, Dad would begin to feel something happening with the mass in his chest. I prayed that he would keep it to himself until he knew, without a doubt, something really was happening — and at 9:30 on Saturday night, he called to tell me the lymph node under his arm shrinking, and that his breathing was also improved. He was also finally able to eat more. This was a total answer to prayer.

Since then, he's been doing great. He hasn't had any of the chemo side effects just yet, but we're expecting them to begin this week now that he's no longer taking the 5-day regimen of Prednisone. The Neulasta injection will be kicking-in — Neulasta being a drug that helps the body create white blood cells. Since this creation occurs in the bone marrow, you often feel aches and pain in your long bones and hips, which is where the highest concentrations of marrow are. This is also the week where his counts will be at their lowest, so he'll have to be extra cautious about what he does and who he goes around.

But all in all, things are starting off great — and we pray that God would continue to be merciful and compassionate as we walk through the next 6 months of treatment.

Posted at 5:55pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

So Close, Yet So Far…

If there could only be one more day in this week, I would have my new Gretsch Country Club, but alas, the Gregorians were plotting against me even hundreds of years ago.

Posted at 3:28pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

SWEET!

I just got a call from my guy at Sweetwater, and my new Gretsch G6196T was finished early — and I ought to have by Saturday. SWEET!

And now I'm off to get my Dad so he and I can go get our heads buzzed...

Posted at 4:39pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cycle 1, Day 1

And so it begins.

I'm currently sitting alone in the hallway next to the B elevators on the second floor of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), just down the hallway from the Ambulatory Treatment Center Bed Unit (ATC Bed Unit). In room 5, my Dad is receiving his first infusion of Rituxan, a drug that enables your body to selectively kill cancer cells on its own. After about 5 hours of Rituxan — which will gradually increase in dosage as they monitor his body's reaction to it — he will then begin to receive the 4 other drugs in his R-CHOP therapy (Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin, Vincristine, and Prednisolone) over a period of 3 hours. As I type this now, his Rituxan dosage been bumped up to 300 ml/hr, with 400 ml/hr being the maximum — and he's handling the drug just fine. We are fervently praying that this positive trend continues throughout the rest of the treatment.

If Dad's white blood cells rebuild as desired, we will have our last treatment — which is called a cycle — on December 3. Until then, we will return every 3 weeks for another cycle, for a total of 8 cycles. During this time, we will return once a week to get blood work done as part of his contribution to the clinical trial he's participating in. If, for some reason, his counts do go up as desired, they will postpone his cycle for 1 week, then go from there.

MDACC is like a different world. This isn't just your family doctor's facility — there are no "runny noses" or "sore throats." Dad said it best when he said that people only come here to live — and there's a palpable camaraderie between everyone here. We are here to live. We are here to fight something that wants us to die at any cost. We are sick. We are dying.

But here, in the midst of all this sickness, there is an undercurrent of hope. There's a pulse, a beat, a constant knowledge that people are being healed and cured all around us. That rhythm reverberates through the staff, and then on to all of us here. It's like we're in our own little, isolated world — like we're a People Group of our own. And, I guess, we sort of are. There's a sympathy in the glances we all exchange as we pass in the halls, and look of "I know" and "I understand." You find yourself talking to strangers as though you've known them for years; the bond made strong in so short a time because of the situation we're in.

As I stood in line at the pharmacy tonight, a man said he'd been seeing me all day with Dad, and when I looked in his eyes, I could see he was looking for someone to say it would be okay. He has a different cancer, and he's hoping to start treatment on Thursday — but I'll never forget the look in his eyes when I told him you just have to keep looking forward to that next bit of good news. I hope to see him again, and I probably will — and I'm quite certain we will chat for a while when we do. As we went our separate ways, I said what I've heard so many "old pros" saying around here: "good luck."

That's the rally cry for everyone here.

I wish I could do a better job of explaining what it's like to be here, because it's so humbling. It's a miserable place in the sense that you know so many people are suffering — and it's a wonderful place because you really do feel like you're in the fight with hundreds (thousands) of other people at your side. I guess you could say it's the human condition at its worst, and the human spirit at its best. It is a Good Place, for sure.

Amid all the science, God is moving without a doubt. You are constantly hearing snippets of conversations about prayers and healing — and that's totally awesome. It's like you're in a lightning rod that's receiving God's spirit.

I could go on, but it's 10:45pm and I'm exhausted. Dad is doing great, and I'm sure he'll be almost finished with his Rituxan by the time I walk back to his room. I love sitting out here, knowing he and Mom are sitting by one another. I cannot think of two people that are quite so wonderful, and I look forward to finally killing this cancer so that they can be free of the burden of this sickness.

Thank you all for the prayers and thoughts. We ask that you continue lifting-up our family in this time — and we ask that you pray especially for us to give hope to those we see and meet, so that we can be a blessing to others as we, ourselves, have been blessed.

Posted at 9:01pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (3)

YAPS: Yet Another Peach Sample

While I wait for my Darlington's to arrive, I've been goofing with more transistor setups for my fuzz effect, Peach. I threw together this quick sample, which is quite poorly recorded (I just have the mic hanging in front of the speaker) — but you'll get the idea. I'm playing my 88 Les Paul since it's my fattest guitar, and the samples go from the bridge pickup with no tone, to the bridge pickup with full tone, then to the neck pickup with full tone. After this, I play a simple sustained lead-line just to show off the sustain I'm getting with my secret formula, then I end with a little bluesy noodle that shows sustain, but without the intentional holds.

http://www.maurymccown.com/images/uploads/Peach002.mp3

Posted at 7:55am CDT | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Switch by RAILhead Effects

We finalized the artwork for my A/B channel switch, The Switch (formerly known as Switcha-Rooski). I am totally loving the new look:

Posted at 10:09am CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

Motorola HEP 53 Fuzz

A friend of mine is a parts junky like I am, and he hooked me up with a few old school transistors for me to goof around with in my fuzz pedal. I'm still looking for pinouts for one group, but out of the others, I really liked the sound of the Motorola HEP 53. I can't put a date on this transistor, much to my chagrin — but it looks like it was something bought in the early 80s. With a maximum hFE of 85 (though I'm getting around 30, measured), it's a pretty good candidate for a classic fuzz sound — and here's a totally lousy recording (the SM58 is hanging in front of the speaker because I was too lazy to go out and get my mic stand). This is my Les Paul, bridge pickup, volume max, tone rolled all the way out:

http://www.maurymccown.com/images/uploads/Motorola_HEP_53_Fuzz.mp3

Thanks, Mark!

Posted at 6:15pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

Finalized: The RAILhead Effects “TUA”

I finished the artwork for my metalcore distortion pedal, TUA — and here it is in all its metallic black glory:

I kept it simple with this art, so it's only text and metallic black paint. I love how you can see the sparkles in the black paint, too — as well as the great reflections from the clear coat.

Coming soon from RAILhead Effects!

Posted at 10:22am CDT | Permalink | Comments (6)

Speaking of Taxes…

Upon further research, it seems that if you sell "tangible personal property" (which is anything you can literally touch) — or if you sell 3 or more items online from your home in a calendar year — you're a business. So, you have to collect and report sales tax on those items. So, if you live in Texas and buy one of my effects pedals, I have to collect and report sales tax, obviously. This also means that if you live in Texas and buy one of my prints — which are ordered from a seller in New York and shipped to me for delivery to you — I have to collect and report sales tax. These taxes are to be reported quarterly, and require a tax permit.

For now, sellers still don't have to worry about taxing people that live outside their State — but Big Brother is trying his best to change that. Last I knew, Amazon had started charging tax for people buying from New York. That totally stinks. And as much as I'd love to tell The Man to shove it and conduct my affairs in hopes of never being found out, my Mom and Pop brought me up too well to be comfortable breaking State and Federal law. And of course, there's the potential for being audited, which brings up another point: you can get your butt handed to you by Feds not only by them auditing you and finding out you're a cheat — but if someone who has purchased something from you gets audited, and the Feds follow the paper trail back to you. Most people forget about customers being audited — and that's how Big Brother gets lots of people.

Isn't Government fun?

Posted at 2:00pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (2)

Early Morning Post

I haven no idea why I'm posting this early in the morning — I guess I mainly need something to do while I drink my cup of freshly brewed, Panamanian Luna de Oro coffee. This is my first cup of this coffee, and I'm quite impressed.

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I have to go to the County Clerk's office today, which is always a fun trip. I always think of the courthouse as I do the DMV, even though it's never been that way before (for me, at least). Anyway, I'm filing my DBA (Doing Business As) for RAILhead Effects to get established with the State. It should be fairly quick and painless.

Speaking of business-related stuff, I also got my tax permit taken care of so that I can properly report taxes paid by people who buy from me here in Texas. A couple of people I talked to thought I was nuts for worrying about it, but it is the law. Even if I sell I a $10 photograph, and not a $200 pedal, I'm supposed to report that a portion of that sale was taxed. A lot of people don't worry about this, though — but if they have an extra $400 to $600 income reported on their 1040 and can't account for taxes when audited, they'll have Hades to pay. Of course, this assumes those people are reporting their extra income like they should be. I mean, I'm no fan of Government, but the law is the law — and with taxes, once you're discovered not reporting/charging them, you can get fined up to $500 a day.

So get your tax permit, people — and report your earnings on your 1040 like you should. Just because your home-based business doesn't generate a W2, that doesn't mean you aren't responsible for reporting the income. Believe me, you don't want Big Brother looking at your papers in 3 years and suddenly owing him back taxes on income you didn't report!

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I finished up the new paint job for my io Super Distortion, and I love it. It's finishing-up its curing, but I'm planning on posting pics in a day or two.

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I have another residential photo shoot today. I like shooting big, empty houses because there are so many cool shots and angles. Hopefully it won't rain and kill the natural light...

Posted at 6:14am CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)