Madbean's "kits" are all stolen from Freestomboxes

[flanagan0718]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't care.

Love this

I'm a member of 4 or 5 pedal forums. Here, ILF, DIYSB, FSB, and another...I think. I'm most active here. One, because you guys are the best and most active group. Two, because Brian is the shit and surrounds himself with good people and companies (1776, parasite, JMK, GCFX, etc). And Three, the people here are nice and always willing to help, plus I can never get enough uncensored CJ...hehehe jk.

FSB, from what I can tell is nothing but stolen info and cheap rip offs. But that's my opinion. But I do value the site to some level or I would be a member there. It's nowhere near as bad as harmony central, or the gear page. But yeah, that guy need a better way to express himself.


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[madbean]

Man, I was tempted to set the record straight, but in the end, I don't think anyone over there really cares to hear it.

Jacob

I don't know how much of a record exists to set straight, honestly. The boards I currently sell on this site have very little cross-over with any information I got from FSB. That's been true for a few years. If there are members there that don't like me or MBP or my silly little band that's perfectly fine. It's a big internet.

[lars]

From the thread's admin:
"This wasn't without problems and actions from the IP police."
"So I his whole website is dancing around really indentifying the pedal kits he's selling. Trying to link them to the commercial pedal in one sense, but not referring to it objectively. The key to the cloned kit kingdom is that forum of course, that's where you can learn which pedal is which."
".....All the info is here, came from here, and we call a duck a duck if talk like, walks like, smells like and traces back to duck."

Does this "admin" also post fraudulent car ads on craigslist? The wording sounds just as bizarre.

[gordo]

gordo, the fact that you lurked around since 2010 on fsb and your first post there was to defend MBP and this forum warms my heart and pretty much says everything about the attitude around there.
Thanks!

Thanks bud, I check in on the place but never had anything to say till now. Guess that was my flashpoint.

[stringsthings]

What a maroon over on FSB.  Kudos to Brian for taking the high road.

I haven't frequented FSB in quite a while.  This forum is not only friendlier, but there's
more good and useful information to be found.  Even when I'm not building pedals,
I like to visit here and see what's going on. 

[CODymmoT]

I have to admit I've never looked at FSB  from what I'm reading in this thread I'm not about to start using it as a resource any time soon.

I will say that since joining this forum, I've only had positive, encouraging feedback. That alone is inspiring.

There are plenty of shitty thing in this world. I'm sure people (myself included) build pedals for enjoyment. Why people have to put a negative spin on something that is completely beyond me.

I will end with, Brian please keep up your great work. Absolutely no complaints from this Aussie.

TD


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[CODymmoT]

I have to admit I've never looked at FSB  from what I'm reading in this thread I'm not about to start using it as a resource any time soon.

I will say that since joining this forum, I've only had positive, encouraging feedback. That alone is inspiring.

There are plenty of shitty thing in this world. I'm sure people (myself included) build pedals for enjoyment. Why people have to put a negative spin on something that is completely beyond me.

I will end with, Brian please keep up your great work. Absolutely no complaints from this Aussie.

TD


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[Boba7]

Yep, totally agree, this forum and community are amazing. It blows my mind how resourceful, helpful and friendly it is here. I don't post that much, but I sure read everything.

I've posted a couple times on FSB or DIYSB, and often do research there, but I've never felt welcome there, or a sense of community.

Keep it up guys!

[Willybomb]

I'm a member on most of the other pedal forums, but pretty much only to source vero layouts from.  I come here for the real goods...

[jimilee]

With so much negativity in this world, why is it necessary to create more? I like this forum because we are the opposite of that, and we police ourselves really well.


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[culturejam]

FSB, from what I can tell is nothing but stolen info and cheap rip offs.

This is not an uncommon viewpoint, but I believe it is not accurate (but of course you are still free to have this as an opinion ).  And I further believe that this idea stems from misunderstandings about copyright law, which many pedal companies, in particular, seem to not understand very well. There is a thread stickied here about "ethics of selling pedals made from DIY hobby PCBs", which touches on some aspects of intellectual property, but it might not be a terrible idea to have one dealing with copyright and trademark as it relates to pedal circuits. I'd be happy to contribute, and I'm sure midwayfair would also be a good source of info.

At any rate, the original ideaology behind FSB was good. The core concepts were/are that it is both legal and ethical to reverse engineer pedals, that many boutique products are shameless rip-offs of competitor's products or merely some minimally tweaked classic circuit that this this should be proved publicly, and that the resulting schematics and layouts should not be commercialized by members (which would be hypocritical).

I think those are good things, which is why I contributed so much content there for a couple years (and served as a moderator). It eventually spiraled downward because, in my opinion, the owner is kind of a loon and is a classic "crusader in search of a crusade", and when he can't find one, he creates one (in his mind). He decided that Brian was taking content from FSB and selling it, and so that became his reality, and you can't convince him otherwise (I tried a couple times).

[nocentelli]

Ok, I visit many different diy pedal forums and post at most of them. They all have a different reason for existing, and therefore a different vibe.

I want to make clear I am in no way defending modman's accusations about the provenance of the schematics used for Brian's kits, but I wanted to provide some context to the perceived "icy atmosphere" of the place and attitude towards Brian personally, and commercial/"kit" sites and forums generally:

1. FSB was set up in 2007 by two individuals with the mission simply to document the schematic of EVERY pedal ever released. This was in response to Zvex, Teese and some other pedal builders having a personal guarantee from Aron at DIYSB that their schematics would never be posted at DIYSB.

2. Because of this remit, FSB has been the target of many attempts to shut it down on spurious grounds of "IP abuses", which on one occasion was successful for a few months as the provider got scared of a spurious DMCA violation accusation, and modman had to secure a different provider who would never cave in.

3. The pedal threads at FSB are meant to document each pedal, not be a "how to clone" guide, so posts that do not provide gutshots, partial traces, or discussion pertaining directly to the circuit itself are generally viewed in a dim light.

4. Whilst the vast amount of information hosted at FSB is provided on the understanding that it is for educational/diy personal use only, the number of amateurish "clones" available for barely more than the cost of parts on eBay, the number of "pedal companies" springing up knocking out nearly-clones, and the number of pcb fab companies using info gleaned from FSB must grate with modman, particularly since it seems to support the case against FSB made by pedal builders accusing FSB as enabling "pedal piracy".

5. There is some bad blood between [Brian and culturejam] and modman relating to an offer to trace a very expensive pedal purchased by the "FSB tracers fund" contributed to by ordinary FSB members.

6. Brian left FSB and deleted all his contributions there.

7. culturejam was a very active member there, and contributed a tonne of information, and always maintained the FSB ethic that every schematic for every commercial pedal should be available to all for educational etc purposes. He even claimed that if he ever set up a pedal company, he would provide a schematic inside each pedal. Now he has set up a commercial company, it seems that this might not be the case.

I understand that CJ did not design this pedal on his own, so it would be perfectly fair for him to claim that he alone could not provide permission to supply the schematic.

However, this "poacher turned gamekeeper" state of affairs is probably the main source of friction between modman at FSB and every other commercial pedal "diy" websites.

Let me re-iterate: I have no dog in this fight - I regularly visit madbean AND FSB, I value all the contributions both madbean and CJ have made to FSB and all other DIY pedals over the years, and I totally get the perception that FSB's owner can come across as an unnecessarily confrontational individual. I also want people to realise that it is by far the greatest resource for information about what is inside effects on the web, and this exists ONLY because there is literally zero commercial intent to it.

[madbean]

7. culturejam was a very active member there, and contributed a tonne of information, and always maintained the FSB ethic that every schematic for every commercial pedal should be available to all for educational etc purposes. He even claimed that if he ever set up a pedal company, he would provide a schematic inside each pedal. Now he has set up a commercial company, it seems that this might not be the case.

I have no issue with FFX releasing its schematics, and neither does CJ (we've talked about it several times). But he and I are not the owners of the company...we're two of five partners (as you alluded to later in your post). Shoot, the Clusterfuzz could be traced in a hour if someone wanted to. It's a single sided board and a pretty simple circuit. If someone did trace it I'd be happy to confirm the correctness, even. The Third Rail is just an expansion and modification of the GreaseGun circuit we did for the FFX fundraiser. There is nothing hidden in either pedal.

As far as your mention of the Tracer's Fund (of which I was also a contributing member) there is a lot that went on behind that which I don't care to discuss ever again. But, I will say the TF was re-imbursed in full plus extra without any hesitation or delay on my part and the job got done with help; just not on a reasonable time scale (which was entirely my fault). I alone am to blame for that...but it's not the reason I exited the forum. I hope that's at least a little clarification since this seems to come up every few years.

[thesmokingman]

I'd go so far as to say that fsb as a community despises other people's success. that said, such particular themes are held in other "free the information" groups and it is par for the course. hackers hate it when people grow up and get jobs in IT Security for example.

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and someone say something about function(fx) ... when I saw that shade thrown over there I pretty much quit going to fsb. it was childish, typical internet forum troll behavior I've seen a million different places.

my feeling on the matter is that fsb as a community doesn't want to pay for the information by buying and tracing as they have in the past and would prefer to bully said information out of the members of function(fx) and ideally other pedal makers.

when you're down to that kind of behavior is it really about information freedom or piracy? because it feels less high idealed than freedom and a little more dirty like piracy. I'd also remind fsb that they are A source of information, not the only source and ultimately people don't owe them anything for giving away information.  the old chestnut about teaching as a thankless job seems appropriate ... the reward is the result. maybe enjoy it when your membership goes off on its own and enjoys individual success.

[EBRAddict]

There's a faction there who think that selling any product or service for money is evil. It's the same faction who think that there's big bucks in designing/manufacturing/selling pedals. The simple fact is that for someone with the skill set to do that properly there are far easier ways to make much more money.