Jazzmaster in Warmoth Guitar of the Month Competition

I made it in just under the wire and got my Noventa-style Jazzmaster entered in the Unofficial Warmoth Forum guitar of the month contest. This month is the "Warmoth or Professionally Finished" category, and since Warmoth finished mine it works. Voting is now open (HERE) and goes through July 19th. A lot of really awesome entries this time around!

Noventa Jazzmaster - Steggo Style - Finaly Done!

I made it by the Five Star Guitars to pick up my freshly set up Noventa Jazzmaster clone. A couple of months ago I'd gone through the full construction article of how I built this beauty, but I also related that I'd unfortunately gone as far as my tools and skillset would allow. I'd purchased a new neck directly from Fender, and the nut wasn't set up yet - it just had pilot grooves for the strings. I lacked the proper file set to finish the work, so I (wisely I think) decided to hand it off to the professionals...

Noventa Jazzmaster Project!

Last year Fender came out with their Noventa series of guitars - a Statocaster, Telecaster, and Jazzmaster. Each was armed with single coil (P-90) pickups. The Telecaster made do with one (bridge), the Stratocaster had two (bridge and neck), while the Jazzmaster had three (bridge, neck, and mid). I really loved the idea of a triple P-90 guitar, and played one of the Jazzmasters at my favorite local guitar store - Five Star Guitars. The feel and sound of the guitar was absolutely amazing, but there was only one major problem. The Noventa series guitars by and large harkened back to the 50s and 60s Fender paint schemes - when the current hip auto body paints were frequently used - for at least one or two of the three available colors. The Telecaster was available in Fiesta Red (too orange for my taste), Vintage Blonde (meh), and a pretty nice 2-Color Sunburst. The Stratocaster was available in Daphne Blue (nope!), Surf Green (double nope!), and a Crimson Red Transparent that was actually absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, all of the Noventa Jazzmaster colors fell firmly into my "nope" category with the Fiesta Red shared with the Telecaster (below) being the least objectionable. There was also the Surf Green shared with the Stratocaster, and something they called "Walnut." I've worked in actual walnut. This color wasn't walnut. It was brown - plain, boring brown.

The Original Big Muff - The Venerable V1 Perf

I know, I know, it's been only around three weeks since I posted a Big Muff Pi build, but I do enjoy the circuit and seem to have very good luck with them, regardless of the source of PCB. For this particular build I wanted to try and go as old school as possible, with the earliest V1 model - a "triangle" BMP built on perf board. Once again I'm using the AionFX Halo PCB for this build, and I'd already had an enclosure worked up in my most recent batch from Tayda. 

Even More Pi? A Violet Ram's Head 2 Build!

So, for those few of you who actually follow the blog, have you gotten the idea that I love the Big Muff Pi circuit, yet? If you're a fan as well, I definitely recommend Kit Rae's page covering all of the different variants of this iconic effects pedal. It has been an absolutely indispensable reference as I've tried to go through and build many of the different versions of this stomp box! As I mentioned in my announcement a few days ago, I'll likely have a few pedals for sale in the not so distant future, and the initial ones are likely to be BMP clones - so continue to watch this space.

That being said, this particular pedal was all for me! For this build I've gone back to AionFX's Halo board. It is a great board, and there is a spreadsheet that lets you build literally any version of the pedal you'd like - it even cross references the component codes on the board to the component codes on the circuit diagrams on the Kit Rae page. I'd already built a couple of versions of the '73 Gilmour Ram's Head (one of my two original Halo builds and the home etched PCB), a Russian Civil War / Red Army variant (also on a Halo board), and a Triangle (on a Tayda board). I'd heard great things about the Violet Ram's Head versions, especially the 2nd version, so I decided to go that route for this build. 

Updated Pi - Repainting a Friend's Pedal!

Back in September I posted a couple of versions of the Big Muff Pi I'd build using Aion FX's Halo board. One was done in silver with a Pink Floyd inspired font and recreated the circuit of the '73 Gilmour Ram's Head version of the pedal. The other one was done in Russian 4BO green and recreated the Red Army / Civil War circuit. A friend asked me to make up a second Russian style enclosure, so I did and sent it to him. Unfortunately there appears to have been an issue with my primer, as the paint started to flake on arrival which sort of ruined the effect. So he sent it back to me for a redo, and as long as we were doing it again, he wanted a bit of a variation on the theme...

Pi All Around - Two Unique Versions of an Ubiquitous Pedal!

The Big Muff Pi, originally designed by Mike Matthews and released by his company Electro-Harmonix in 1969, is one of the most ubiquitous pedals ever produced. Combining elements of both distortion and fuzz with variable sustain, the Big Muff has been produced in a dizzying array of varieties over the years. Many of the variants were a result of EHX simply changing the value of the components willy-nilly during the production run. When Electro-Harmonix went out of business in 1982, clones and copies exploded on the scene, and Mike Matthews would re-open shop in the USSR under the Sovtek brand name and begin re-issuing his designs in the early 1990s. Matthews would bring production back to the US in 2000, and numerous new editions of the pedal have been released since then. If you're interested in the history of this great pedal, there are several great references, but one of the best is Kit Rae's page. 

Aion FX offers the Halo, which is their trace of the Big Muff. The only change is a mid-range switch that provides three mid-tone options: stock, flat, and boosted. Otherwise the circuit is a completely faithful tracing of the original. A spreadsheet of 18 different versions is included so you can target any variant with your build - or play around and develop your own recipe. At this point I've built two versions which are included in this entry, a Ram's Head '73 Gilmour and a Civil War / Red Army version. Depending on what transistors I'm able to find, I may go back and build other variants as well, as these are a lot of fun!