Tribute to "chuckbuick" aka Mark Green

[Leevibe]

I'm shocked and saddened. I didn't realize he had passed away. I'm really sorry for not having seen the 2017 thread about his passing. My sincere condolences and prayers to his family. His work was beyond impeccable and I know that each pedal he built will be considered priceless.

[somnif]

I wish I had been active when he was around. I've seen his work and it all looks amazing, but that is all I know about the fellow.

It seems a bit of a shame that only 1 of his boards ended up on OSHPark. I'd love to see his designs delighting DIYers for years to come. I'm tempted to get the board that is up, just because, seems like the right thing to do, ya know? https://oshpark.com/profiles/chuckbuick

[Willybomb]

I didn't know him, but his builds and boards were next level.  I was given a triple wreck board of his, but I didn't feel I could do it justice when I heard he passed on, so I PIF'd the board in his honour.

[tcpoint]

I proofread his osmium build docs.  I gave him a couple of suggestions which he took.  Beautiful layout and great sounding pedal.  My soldering on the board looks decent but Mark's was impeccable.

I, always, loved his layouts and positive comments.  We miss him here.

[wgc]

A friend of mine lost her brother "chuckbuick," aka Mark Green early in 2017. I have been asked to go to her house this weekend and play through all the beautiful pedals he created. As is evident on this site, he was a great contributor, helpful individual, and a master at SMD!

I'm reaching out to the forum to ask if any of you have some positive/personal things you could share about Mark. I have the great privilege of getting to sample and play through the almost 100 pedals he left behind this coming weekend. This will be very cathartic for his sister, who looks forward to hearing what sounds his creations were capable of.

I thought it could be very meaningful if I could share with her some positive things from individuals on this forum when I go to see her this weekend.

For any of you who knew him or interacted with him, I would be grateful for any positive things you might have to share. Thanks very much for your time and consideration.

All the best,

Jeff Reed

Hi Jeff-

it makes me super happy to hear that these are going to get played sometime soon!  Please give my best regards to Mark's sister, I got an email early on to hear that he passed, and I can only imagine how hard things have been for her. 

As for Mark, sometime I think in 2013, I wrote this crazy post about how to be an smd badass or something like that.  (I worked on military radios during the early 90s, and was a trainer in assy, rework and repair for a while.  Went to grad school and didn't do much with electronics until I discovered the whole diy stompbox thing in 2012 or so.)

I got spoiled with madbean's pcbs but much prefered smd work over thru hole.  (There were only a few people I knew of doing smd at all, one being pickdropper, alanp, and another was muddyfox.)  Anyway, Mark contacted me about that post I wrote in dec 2013, and offered to send me some of his pcbs and build docs for feedback.  I gladly accepted and was blown away with how elegant they were in terms of layout, and they were a joy to assemble. 

I hadn't posted a build report of anything yet, and he encouraged me to do so.  I think my first report here was for the osmium pcb.  It's still one of my favorite pedals, as well as the others I built using his pcbs. 

He also encouraged me to try doing my own layouts, since there still weren't many smd pcbs available.  I'm so glad I did, it enabled me to take my own approach to some old circuits and cram them into 1590a boxes.  I always offered some of my pcbs in return, but he always declined politely, with a comment that he "had so many of his own to do."  lol.

I had a bit of a rough time in late 2014 due to work issues and injuries that put me on pain meds.  The meds affected my mood in a really bad way, especially when I was also taking cold medicine, and I am grateful for the low key support he sent me.  (Also my wife for putting up with me.)

Amazing how generous and supportive he was, while remaining quite humble at the same time.  One thing that I think bears another mention is his dry sense of humor. Almost never failed to put something funny in a post, and I miss seeing that here. 

When I heard of Mark's passing, it came at a time when I lost a couple of other friends- it affected me deeply and he is missed.  I so wish there was something I could've done to help.

I haven't been around here much, been doing more playing than building, but something compelled me to check in and I'm glad I did.  I wish everyone here the very best in 2018, and look forward to seeing what Jeff's experience is with these pedals. 

- Billy aka wgc

[wgc]

oh yeah, just remembered a story he mentioned about convincing a co-worker that Alvin Lee was Jake e lee's dad.  lol

[Cyclops]

Thanks everyone for your kind and thoughtful posts. I will be heading off to Mark's sister's place today and look forward to sharing your thoughts with her, and to immersing myself in sound explorations of his pedal-making genius.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Cyclops]

We did have a thread for Mark last year with quite a lot of responses. Just mentioning that because it is worth a read-through since there are many wonderful replies/stories in it. We were lucky to have him here and his passing is a big loss for the DIY community.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=25511.0

Thank you Mad Bean, I had no idea about this thread!

Jeff

[Cyclops]

I hope you blocked off several hours for this event. Just playing a few pedals could take almost an hour. With all the wacky stuff he made, you could spend days and still not really get deep.

I have set aside a whole day. Frankly, with over 100 pedals that he made to plug in, I will only be scratching the surface. For me, it will be an absolute gear orgy! I will literally being trying pedals that he may only have made, or if made by others, were made differently by him. A true privilege!

[culturejam]

I have set aside a whole day. Frankly, with over 100 pedals that he made to plug in, I will only be scratching the surface. For me, it will be an absolute gear orgy! I will literally being trying pedals that he may only have made, or if made by others, were made differently by him. A true privilege!

Enjoy! And please give his family members our regards.

[Cyclops]

All,

I tried a post after I got back from the Mark Green "Try 84 self-made pedals in 1 day" weekend trip, but my phone crashed when I tried to post and I didn't feel like typing it all again. Today is a better day, and I'm putting my sausage fingers to work on my home computer. To play 84 pedals that one person made over the small span of 5 years was truly a once in a lifetime experience. With the exception of a few that didn't work, they all sounded amazing. I"m going to post three pictures. Two of the pictures are the two pedal boards that sum up all of the pedals he made, and the third picture shows the guts inside the "Unicorn pooping out cupcakes" pedal. I believe it was a Klon Centaur clone, because it had the Chimaera PC board inside. Check out one of the pedal board pics to see the killer graphics on this pedal. It had tons of gain! I've played an original Klon, but this one had two DPDT switches on it. The Cupcakes switch was tied to the Gain pot on the right, and the Unicorn Tears switch was tied to the Boost pot on the left. With both engaged, it was tons of creamy gain! I'm not sure if this is a mod someone on this forum came up with, or if it was Mark's own doing. Whatever he did, it was awesome.

He made pedals in probably every category: flangers, choruses, delays, other modulation pedals, tons of Fuzz pedals, overdrives, distortion, tube screamers, EQs, and other pedals beyond classification. I'm not the pedal maker that many of you are, I just solder my own cables. However, even with my untrained eye, it seems like he experimented with different parts and different designs from the clones he was making, which makes most of his pedals one of a kind in my estimation.

I also want to thank you all for the many positive comments you made about him. I shared them with Mark's sister, and she and her family and friends were very encouraged by the things you all had to say. Seeing all he did inspires me to make my own pedals, but my wife might kill me for yet another music-related hobby!

All the best,

Jeff