In late 2014 Mr Hoozammer decided to get back into electrical/electronic engineering, having designed some products in the mid 1980s and in 2009-10.
A digital oscilloscope, signal generator, bench-top DC power supply and other items were acquired and time was spent looking for a few projects to pursue. Perhaps doing things with ‘Raspberry Pi’ or Arduino projects. Or maybe some sort of audio project, such as a DIY home stereo amplifier.
In March of 2015, the lead singer of Melbourne band Pinball Machine* (who was acquainted with Mr Hoozammer) dropped off his 1970s phaser ‘stomp-box’ for repair. “Hey, can you take a look at this? It’s broken”.
“Sure” Mr Hoozammer replied – as he now had a work bench full of fancy electronics test gear at his disposal. All sorts of neat stuff to play with.
So, Mr Hoozammer took a look at the 1970s EHX (‘Small Stone’) phaser pedal. Interestingly, there really wasn’t all that much in it. A fairly simple looking device, with lots of through-hole analogue components and hand-made in the 1970s. Not working due to a broken wire, and a worn-out battery connector.
Easily repaired. There was no need to use any of the new, fancy test gear, just a soldering iron. Instant happy customer.
Detail of top view of device’s circuit board.
The EH1048 is an EH banded chip, similar to the CA3094 from Intersil.
Underside of circuit board, showing wiring connections – very 70s!
PCB is held in place via its connection to the 1M ‘pot’, which is soldered directly to the PCB.
Wiring is soldered onto large pads on the PCB.
I could make stuff like this” Mr Hoozammer mused. He then set about learning all he could about guitar effect pedals. What they do, how they work, what they sound like, who makes them, which products sound better, why some are analogue and others are digital?
Mr Hoozammer decided to become a fully-fledged-guitar-pedal-nerd.
An electric guitar (US made Telecaster) and a guitar amp (90s vintage Marshall combo) were acquired and Mr Hoozammer set about a doing few things:
A. Learn how to play the guitar again
Mr Hoozammer had not picked up a guitar for quite a few years. And one could not properly investigate guitar pedals if one was not able to make at least a few reasonable sounds on a guitar!
B. Get some guitar pedals:
Mr Hoozammer discovered he could buy pedals from hundreds (seemingly thousands) of manufacturers, from small boutique business through to major global brands:
1. Mr Hoozammer could also buy used pedals – with a choice of a vast range of types, and models.
2. Mr Hoozammer could build his own pedals – via DIY sites, or from thousands of circuits that people had either reverse-engineered from commercial pedal products or created themselves and then shared for others to use.
3. Mr Hoozammer could also, perhaps, create his own pedal designs!
And this, he then did.
* Pinball Machine: Videos of some of this band’s work are available on YouTube:
Unreachable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBQe59IXhk
Little Things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a10VnPqIgD0
Everything: