Monthly Archives: July 2012

My own private weirdness.

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Let’s get deep and personal. Why not?  Ill talk about myself for a bit.  For *my* band Cave Bros my setup is dead simple.  I play a telecaster into clone of a 50W Marshall model 1987 that I built (many would refer to this as a “plexi”).  What you may not know about these amps is that they are absolutely divine sonic lightning bolts that just kick ass all day and all night.  They sound great and for my pursuits with this band I dont need a whole lot on top of that, so Ive just used an occasional wah, and a more-than-occasional Ballsmaster to drive it into saturated molten goo territory.  I loaned that very Ballsmaster out to my dude Kelly Doyle for some sound clips, figuring i’ll just make another one for myself.  Thats what this is.

So I know my settings on my Ballsmaster:  boost cranked and the range set heeeaaaavvvyy.  I know that I dont need to play with it, so no knobs are needed.  Just a Ballsmaster hard set for loud and heavy.  I put it in a nice big box with a rare Balls meatball decal from the lovely Dann Miller.  For grins I used an old OC139 transistor that I had around.  Simple, effective, and awesome!

Balls Garage Sale!

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I have not a garage, nor a car to put into one, but regardless i am having a garage sale.  Just offloading a couple of pedals that i’ve made that are particularly cool and I dont mind letting go of…

Italian-ish One-Knob Fuzz ($100)- silicon transistors.  compare to: Vox Tonebender. https://ballseffects.com/baldow-son/

 

Dark One-Knob Fuzz ($100)- silicon transistors.  compare to: DAM Dark Meathead. https://ballseffects.com/baldow-son/

 

Big Muff J. Mascis Style ($130)- silicon transistors.  built to in the style of what is purported to be J’s favorite muff. compare to: V3 Big Muff, Ram’s Head Big Muff.

 

Super Rat ($130)- Standard Rat with clipping options. No clipping/turbo rat/vintage rat/ultra clipping.  compare to: Proco Rat, Turbo Rat.  https://ballseffects.com/oye-como-brah/

 

Foxx Tone Machine ($140)- Standard Foxx Tone Machine circuit.  Built in the layout of the original with knobs on the side and a large flat box.  https://ballseffects.com/category/foxx-tone-machine/

 

Shipping is $10 for one pedal and $5 each additional pedal.  Hit me up if interested! thedoctor@ballseffects.com

Baldow, son.

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Man.  MAN!  It has been waaay too long since I had a good post.  I’m gonna try to start posting more stuff here, but its currently summer and way too hot to build anything so I may run thin on stuff to gab about.  I guess I can just start telling jokes then.

First order of note is that there are now some incredible sound clips for the production Balls units on their respective pages.  These were all recorded by Kelly Doyle (hired-gun shred beast) in Houston Texas and I couldn’t be happier with how rad they sound.  Give em a listen!

Now for some FUZZZZ.  The O.G. fuzz face was an incredible pedal but even more incredible is the circuit.  It is seemingly INFINITELY screw-with-able.  You can tweak that thing for days and get new sounds out of it.  People started doing it in the mid-sixties and still do it to this day.  With that spirit in mind I made up this trio of one-knob-fuzzes built around that circuit and dammit if they don’t sound killer.

The first one (blue) was tuned a bit brighter than the standard fuzz face with some added filtering to smooth out the roughness in the fuzz.  Super awesome bright, ringy, sustain chopper!  The second (grey) is flavored after the Italy-produced Vox Tone Benders of the mid sixties.  Its similar to the blue one but more saturated and just JUICIER.  Ugh…it makes me sick even thinking about how good that one sounds.  I think that one is gonna be a production unit soon.  The third (green) drank some weird booze and things got dark.  It has been tuned down to the thick and bassy side and sounds downright evil.  Perfect tool for the sludgehead that lives in all of us.  Each one of these uses a silicon BC108/BC109 transistor pair and has been topped off which a nice little chicken-head knob.