Have you guys ever looked inside a Landgraff?

[EBK]

This is what should be written inside "boutique" pedals:

"Please update your
account to enable
3rd party hosting"

I'm totally using that graphic on the front a pedal

Great minds think alike.  I made a round decal for a stomp switch one day on a lark:

Was thinking of actually making a complete pedal with it, but probably won't.  I have too much stuff in my queue.

I hope you are seriously going to make a pedal on that theme.  A photobucket brigade delay, perhaps?

[matmosphere]

How about:

BUILT BY ABDUL ALHAZRED (NECRONOMICON 3:1666)
DYNAMIC OVERDRIVE
#666666666666666666666666666 6-6-66
ELDER GODS AMPS & PEDALS
WHERE CTHULHU IS LORD!
MADE FOR ARKHAM ASYLUM
CTHULHU IS COMING SOON!!!
PHTAGN☭
PYONGYANG, NK
SHUB-NIGGURATH BLESS BEST KOREA!

Thanks, I went crazy reading that. Now I'm crazy. Happy?

Anyone who's never read The Story, enjoy: http://www.boutiquegeartalk.com/pedals-effects-multi-effects/1486.htm

Had never read the story til you posted it Jon. Thanks it's a good read.

Apparently Brian Wampler's podcast this week is about this very story.  Wonder what his perspective will be, or if he'll have any other stories of the early days of the boutique industry.

[mremic01]

Just listened to the Wampler podcast. It was mostly just them rehashing Clay Jones's story, but they did mention Function f(x) transparency in putting the schematic on the box.

[matmosphere]

Yeah, they didn't really add anything to it. They just retold part of it. I was hoping for something a little beyond this is a story.

The Function F(x) namedrop was cool though.

[icecycle66]

This makes me feel really good about giving pedals away all the time.

[culturejam]

The Function F(x) namedrop was cool though.

I was not upset that they mentioned us. 

[287m]

my stupid logic
if they hire somebody like king of layout, etcher wizard, decal guru and solder wizard like Jack Deville, CJ, Brian, Pickdropper, M-kresol, Cody, Juansolo, etc
how much they charged then?

[movinginslomo]

Are the landgraffs being sold by BA music NOS or is someone else making them? Didn't his wife help him?

[reddesert]

Guys, this was the general state of the "boutique industry" in the late 1990s into mid-2000s. People saw that kind of build and knew it was not the same as Boss, and obviously "hand made". Throw that it in with some spurious claims of "haunting mids" and other really questionable marketing tactics, and people made a lot of money on what was essentially hobbyist work. And at the time, hobby builds were pretty sloppy by our current standards, I should mention. Today's DIY quality level is stellar.

And frankly, this kind of terrible quality at high prices is what motivated to get very involved at FreeStompBoxes, because at the time it was rife (although there were still very high-quality brands, of course). I will admit I probably went a little overboard in the zealousness of the witch-hunts I participated in, but the underlying "mission" of exposing high-priced garbage is something I'm still proud of.

Gradually, the level of quality of boutique pedals began to rise. Now I'm not saying it was in large part because of the ruthless and relentless exposure of the guys who were heavily involved at FSB, but... it was in large part because of the ruthless and relentless exposure of the guys who were heavily involved at FSB.    Just between Brian and I, we traced something like 30 pedals. And there were another 15-20 guys who put up similar numbers.

I should write a book. 

CJ, thanks for this interesting perspective.

I'm curious if some of this has to do with shifts in the background of people who got into musical electronics at the hobby (or professional) level. I built a pedal in college, about 1989, on perfboard, with parts I got mostly at Radio Shack. I'm not gonna say it was a masterpiece but the construction wasn't as outsider-art as this Landgraff. Back then, you had to get information from books or magazines and needed to be able to read a schematic. I had taken an electronics lab class. Looking at books like Anderton's "Electronic Projects for Musicians," they're intended to be read by musicians, but more from a EE perspective than a tone-boutique. 

I wonder if some increase in the available information via the internet meant that mojo-peddlers without that engineer tendency/training started to build and market pedals, with an "improvised" level of build quality. I'm not even sure when the concepts of mojo parts and boutique pedals arose - perhaps a transmutation of the vintage-guitar mojo into the effects world. Back then, I only built my own pedal because real pedals were expensive and I was cheap, and thought it would be neat. I couldn't figure out how to get a real stomp switch then.  (Or maybe I could have mail-ordered one from Digi-Key but it would have been like $20 with shipping.)

Sometime in the 90s, collections of MacPaint-drawn schematics started to be available on the web, and I collected a directory full of them, but I drifted away from thinking about it because frankly, I suck at playing guitar.  Suddenly it's 20 years later and the amount of information and sophistication available to the DIY-er is remarkable, but I missed the whole era of the Landgraff / Clay Jones story, which maybe is not such a loss.

[thesmokingman]

there's no doubt that the availability of information is pretty large compared to even 5 years ago. the uptick in the availability of prefab pcbs has done more to lessen the improvised level of build quality than just about anything else.

[Muadzin]

there's no doubt that the availability of information is pretty large compared to even 5 years ago. the uptick in the availability of prefab pcbs has done more to lessen the improvised level of build quality than just about anything else.

I reckon that more and more boutique builders are resorting to SMD also helps to improve build quality in that field.