Harmonic Percolator Double Take - Albini Mod!

Steggo's new Harmonic Peolorosaurus board will not only build the "standard" version of the Harmonic Percolator, but the Albini modified version as well. I went ahead and built both versions of the circuit. This build report is therefore essentially and addendum to the previous one as there are only a few component changes.

Steggo's Take on the Harmonic Percolator!

One of the first pedals I built was AionFX's Particle - a modified version of the vintage Interfax Harmonic Percolator. It was a really neat Fuzz pedal, and AionFX provided recipes for both the normal unit and a version modified by Steve Albini. When I first started to learn to lay out my own boards, I wanted to get as much practice as possible. So I went ahead and laid out my own version of this circuit.

A Vintage Style Dimetrodon!

The Steggo Dimetrodon Distortion is based on the vintage Distortion+ circuit, but up to this point I'd only used all modern components in my Dimetrodon builds. Given the original Distortion+ dates from the 70's I thought it would be fun to look for old gut shots of the pedal to see what sort of components were used on the early iterations of that pedal and test out the Dimetrodon with something similar. I had also recently built a couple of Dimetrodon Distortion pedals with the Sovtek tone stack, but I didn't have one for personal use, so this build let me sort of kill two birds with one stone!

Old School MXR Distortion + PCB - Image from Premier Guitar

Steggo Studios End of Q1 and Secret Lab Update!

It's been roughly three months since my last Studio status (and Steggo's Secret Lab) update, so I figured it was time for a quarterly check-in. The first three months of 2023 have been busy, with a heavier than normal focus on modulation pedals - largely because I'd had several friends request them. Modulation pedals tend to be more complex than overdrive, distortion, or fuzz pedals (in general - anything that's a Boss clone is complex by its very nature!), so several of the builds have taken a bit longer than normal cutting my overall output, but I've been really pleased with how several of the pedals have come out!

Steggo's Year in Review and Secret Lab Update!

Honestly, it's been an amazing year here at Steggo Studios, so before we go into the Christmas season, I wanted to write-up a year in review and 2023 preview! First, 2022 was the first year that Steggo Studios actually tried to sell pedals (at the urging of a friend), and on that front, things have succeeded better than I could have dreamed. The goal was to sell some pedals and basically support my hobby of building them, and with over 60 sold this year, I'm just amazed and grateful that so many people are enjoying the tone and the fun dinosaur themes! So without further ado, let's look forward to 2023 and see what's on tap!

Upcoming Projects - Steggo's Secret Lab Edition!

The blog has been a bit more quiet than I'd like lately, but Steggo has been hard at work building several pedals - some for the shop, some for personal use, and some (read a lot of) prototype testing as well. Several of the major board manufacturers have had sales recently, and Steggo has been stocking up... as in I think I'm going to have to expand PCB storage! In fact, there are so many in line now, the art department has been working overtime just to get enclosures designed. Production has been churning right along, and Steggo has several more surprises on the way in the next set of enclosures due to arrive next week. So in this installment, Steggo takes us into the secret lab and shows us what's on the horizon for the Studio!

Teaser Time! Upcoming Pedals from Steggo!

One of my goals for this year was to get to the point to where I could sell pedals with all original and/or licensed art. A few of these, like the Steggo-san Overdrive, the various Thagomizers, and the Browncoat are already out there, but I really wanted to get some of my favorite pedals out there in unique dino form. Now that all of the dinos are back from vacation, there has been a lot of prototyping and art layout going on in the background, so I figured it was time for some teasers!!!

Steggo himself somewhere in the skunk works!

Independence Day Sale - EXTENDED!

Steggo's 4th of July sale was such a success, he's decided to extend it through the end of the week! There are still some great pedals available, or you can commission your own pedal and get 20% off!

Steggo's 4th of July Sale!!!!

The industrious dinos of Steggo Studios are back from their travels and are ready to get some awesome pedals in your hands! From now through July 4th, take 20% all Steggo Studios pedals here or on the reverb store! That also goes if you have a custom pedal request - just Contact Steggo! in the side bar. Buy early, buy often!

Steggo Studios Reverb Shop is Now LIVE

I've decided to try and sell some of my pedals through Reverb. I'm not sure how well it is going to work, but I guess we'll see! My personal shop on Reverb is now under the Steggo Studios banner, and I'll slowly add a few pedals to the page as I get them built. 

Site and Pedal Sales Updates

So the (very) small scale manufacturing is now in full swing at Steggo. I'm not intending to go into a stand-alone business here, just small-scale sales of a few pedals to share the good tone and basically support the hobby. To that end, I've added a pedals for sale gadget on the right hand column. Those of you reading this on a mobile device will likely need to change to web emulation to actually see it - I remain convinced that mobile devices by and large provide absolute crap emulation of just about everything. I've also added links to the Steggo Facebook page as well as my Instagram account which is mostly Steggo related at this point. I've also added a "Contact Steggo!" gadget so you can email me with questions, orders, anything.

Welcome to Steggo Studio Productions!

Welcome to my new blog covering one of my more recent interests - all things guitar. I've played music in one form or another for as long as I can remember, but guitar was never an instrument I'd picked up - well until COVID hit. With a lot of extra time at the house, I decided to take the plunge and pick up the electric guitar, and with the electric guitar suddenly comes "The Quest for Tone"! The dizzying array of tone and effects pedals available, and the prohibitive cost of many of the more unique ones, has led me down another rabbit hole - building my own effects pedals!