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RAILhead Effects Is Online (and more)!

I took a big step forward in going public with my guitar effects shop, RAILhead Effects, today: I opened the site's pages. I now have almost everything online, save for detail pages of the effects (see the post on the site for info).

I really like the RAILhead Effects site for several reasons. First off, it's a chance for me to share so cool effects with my fellow musicians. Second, I like the way the site looks in general. And third, I'm taking full advantage ExpressionEngine. I've spouted praises for EE before, but the more I use it, the more I love it. I'm able to host forums, allow purchases directly from within my site, easily manage hundreds of pages, etc., etc.

Anyway, pop over to RAILhead Effects and check it out!

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My posting schedule may be out of whack next week, so if I seem to vanish, I'll return shortly.

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I just got another picture published yesterday, so that's cool. It was the shot of my new cell phone, of all things:

Posted at 10:12am CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

OzzFest, the Pulse, and More

Jim shot out an email to a bunch of us to let us know Metallica was headlining this year's OzzFest, and within hours, we began scrambling to figure out a plan to go. One quirk with this year's event is that it's only going to be one show — no more gigs across the States — so the assumption is that it'll be packed. No worries, though. Tickets go on sale the 31st, and we're already looking forward to the road trip.

From the previews, it looks like this next Metallica album will see them drifting back to their best roots (the Black Album and Justice...), so it will be awesome to see them live again. I've seen them twice, and both shows were awesome.

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Phillip made himself a little tap-tempo switch a while back, and it got me to thinking about adding something similar to my effects lineup. I did some research on what's available on the market, and it turns out that everybody and their brother makes these little buggers. Truth be told, this is mainly due to their simplicity: a switch and a jack and shell. There's nothing fancy about it, no wiring to speak of (4 solder joints) and it's about as "beginner" as you can get — but I decided to add mine to the flooded market, anyway. Yes, there are already loads out there — but mine will look the coolest. =)

That said, here's a shot of the basic paint job, sans logo graphics:

This little bugger is named the Pulse™, and yes, you'd expect it to be red — but I already have a red pedal. Besides, I'll probably offer it in a variety of colors and schemes, so it'll be a moot point. The above is the basic version, and I'll also have one with little-bitty toggle switch for changing polarity (BOSS's tap-tempo has theirs on the inside for some crazy reason). I thought about adding an LED, but this tap controls a second effect, and the tempo will be displayed on that effect anyway — so it's kind of redundant. However, I may offer a version with an LED that lights when you tap, just so you can see the flash and know the tempo is registering.

You can see a really big version of this pic at its Flicker page.

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Speaking of effects and names, you may have noticed the trademark symbol next to the Pulse's name above. I've been going through the trademark red tape for all my effects, and the approvals are finally coming through. This is a pretty expensive process, but it makes sure no one else can use names like io, The Peach, PURE, Switcha-Rooski, SLACR — and other names I'll be using in the future — for their guitar effect-related products.

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We just bought tickets (for my wife, her Mom, and a friend) to go see Third Day in October. Talk about selling tickets early. They're playing at The Woodlands, and we snagged seats on Row M in the right section, close to the aisle — so they're pretty dadgum good.

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I went by our local Buc-ees to grab a blueberry muffin for breakfast, and as I waited, I noticed the lady in front of me had three dogs in her car with her. As if that's not bad enough, two of the little creatures were poking their heads out the car window, trying to score a pet from the Girl At The Window. The third mongrel was just sitting in the passenger seat, getting butt all over everything.

So the lady gets her coffee, and I think she's done — but wait...Girl At The Window is handing her something...a lid...with whip cream on it? And another. And, yes, another. I'll be dadgummed.

She finally pulled away and when I got to the window, I asked Girl At The Window if that lady just got whip-cream lids for the dogs, and she told me the lady does it every day.

To each his own.

Posted at 10:36am CDT | Permalink | Comments (5)

Yet Another Amp

I added a new member to my Guitar Gear Family: a Goodsell 5. This is a little 5-watt, 1x12 amp — and it is one nasty little beast!

I own a Goodsell Super 17 MkII, so I had confidence that the Goodsell 5 would be a nice little bedroom amp to use in my effects shop — but I had no idea it was going to sound as good as it does. It has a great, full tone with lots of resonance and bottom — and I couldn't get the volume much over 9 o'clock when playing my HWY 1 Tele without it being painfully loud. NICE.

Richard only made 19 of these amps, and I'm glad I scored one.

You can see a full size version on my Flickr page.

Posted at 9:55am CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday: PCBs, Cigars…

After a few hiccups that were totally my fault, I've finished-up the PCB for my "io Super-Distortion." Man oh man, CadSoft's Eagle is a sweet program! Anyway, I took a couple of screen shots of the finished board since I'm somewhat proud of this layout. In the first shot, you can see the top (red) and bottom (blue) traces and the component locations — everything in grey — which will be silkscreened onto the board:

In this next shot, you can see the massive ground plane I was able to place. This will help with RF interference and other potential noise.

I'm going to get just a couple fabricated at first, just to make sure everything is in the clear — then I'll be able to get these suckers mass-fabricated and save myself untold amounts of time. SWEET!

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I have recently became a fan of Romeo y Julieta cigars, and now that my humidor is starting to thin out, I snagged myself a box of Romeo y Julieta Habana Reserve Toros. These have a Nicaraguan wrapper and binder, and use Honduran and Nicaraguan filler — so these promise to be a nice, full-bodied smoke.

There's just nothing like sitting out on the patio in the peace and quiet of the evening, enjoying a fine cigar.

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It just hit me this morning that it's going to be 4 months — four months — until I get my new guitar. I could lose an arm between now and then! Man, that stinks.

Posted at 1:43pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Daunting Task

I've made some massive progress in getting my effect pedals (and their site) up and running over the last few days, and one big item was my selection of a PCB manufacturer. Rather than me making the boards one at a time by hand, I can have a box of them mass-produced and ready to have parts dropped in. Not only with this save me money (after the setup investment), it will save my most precious commodity: time. Of course, I won't need fancy boards for all my stuff, but for effects with lots of components and traces, it'll be nice to have machined boards.

This then, brings me to my Daunting Task of the Week: converting my "io Super-Distortion's" Photoshop-drawn PCB trace into an Eagle CAD file. Only when I've done that, can a PCB manufacturer machine boards. Ugh.

As you can see in the above pic, I have 38 components and LOTS of crazy traces to place, and I am TOTALLY not look forward to it. For starters, I have to create the schematic from scratch in Eagle — and that'll totally stink. And by the time I finish this conversion, I could have probably made a dozen boards by hand. But, once I get it done, it will be done forever — so I just have to buck-up and take the lumps for now.

You can also tell I'm procrastinating by whining about it here...

Posted at 2:24pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

STP Tickets! w00t!

I don't get excited about much of anything since I'm a pretty low-key kind of guy, but I am most DEFINITELY excited about going to see one of my all-time favorite bands, Stone Temple Pilots, in June.

I was able to grab 4 tickets pre-sale, before the general public sale, so I got really good seats (considering I wanted 4 in a row). And as you can see, they arrived in the mail yesterday.

Posted at 10:09am CDT | Permalink | Comments (5)

Switcha-Rooski Prototype Artwork Finalized

Now that I have this site setup and running — and my wife's schedule is more open — I can get back to work on my guitar effects (over at RAILhead Effects) more steadily. Part of the downtime was due to me waiting on CE certification and other fun compliance paperwork to process, but that's all done now. I was also fighting to get my low-gain overdrive to sound just how I want it — and I'm almost there.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. A while back we finalized the design for my hand-painted A/B channel switcher, the Switcha-Rooski. The short version of the art's story is this: I handed my wife a drilled enclosure and told her to do whatever the heck she felt like doing to it. Boom — she went to town and come up with a wonderfully bright and colorful design. Here's the final result, fully assembled:

Posted at 9:43am CDT | Permalink | Comments (7)