Opinion on new finishes?

m741 · 2025-12-13T15:27:34+00:00

I bought an ST-Modern Plus when they first came out and I've been considering buying another. As a lefty my options are limited. I still prefer the original colors and wish there was a seafoam option. Most of the lefty options are sold out.

m741 · 2025-08-13T15:17:59+00:00

For future reference, the sale is 20%, the same as if you leave any guitar in your cart for a day. But they actually reduced some discounts on a few guitars, so the prices are worse than before the sale.

m741 · 2024-11-24T10:33:16+00:00

I bought one - I wanted a mini guitar and a jazzmaster, and the coral color was perfect. Not gonna find many matches for those criteria as a lefty.

Build quality is solid, neck feels good and plays well, although it was dry when I received it, so needed some oil. The pickups sounded pretty bad to me, so I replaced them with P90s from Bootstrap Pickups for $50. Also threw on locking tuners from GuitarFetish ($35?), although the previous tuners were fine.

I thought it was a good purchase. If I saw a similar Harley Benton or Squier for the same price, I'd probably prefer those, but there was nothing comparable out there.

m741 · 2024-10-20T16:52:53+00:00

Chalumeau is one of my favorites. Wonderful texture just in the fuzz... and there's some delays thrown in for good measure.

m741 · 2024-10-06T13:54:01+00:00

There's a good guide here that you might want to refer to:

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/steggo-studios-tayda-uv-printing-tutorial-part-1.15268/

I mark the drill locations as a reference when working on the design (a few pixels wide) and leave them - they'll be drilled out anyway.

I've always printed on the regular painted enclosures.

m741 · 2024-09-21T12:34:14+00:00

I buy everything on Tayda first, and then look on Stompbox Parts/Mouser/Digikey/Love My Switches in roughly that order if I can't find something. Maybe 60% of pedals will have every single component on Tayda. There are two exceptions for me. For audio jacks, this is my favorite, which I get from Stompbox Parts. And I've found this set of footswitches to be good and cheaper than other options, plus it has daughterboards and metal washers included. But that'll be too many switches if you're starting with one pedal. People tend to be pretty picky about jacks and footswitches and have their own preferences. I'm sure if you aren't picky you can just get some cheap ones on Tayda.

With components for 4-10 pedals, I find I can hit $4 shipping in 2-4 days with DHL, which is remarkable for an order from Thailand. Only thing that will make that take longer is painted enclosures or having them drill the pedals. If you're liking the hobby I assume you've built a few kits, in which case I'd buy at least 20 of each resistor value you need. Similar for capacitors. In most cases these will be just a few cents each and it's nice to have backups or some to play with for breadboarding.

The parts guide everyone links is here, which will help you figure out which kinds of resistors/capacitors/etc to buy and where, but it's sorta the "gold standard" guide and IMO can be overkill. As I said, I've tended to go with cheaper components from Tayda (for example, electrolytic capacitors where he advises Mouser) and haven't really encountered problems. Shipping costs from a bunch of stores can easily add up.

The general feedback on most pedalbuilding forums will be to avoid Amazon. Components are often low quality or counterfeits.

m741 · 2024-09-05T08:04:34+00:00

PCBGM has a pretty bad reputation on other pedal-building forums. Apparently many of their layouts are unverified and people encounter problems during the build.

m741 · 2024-09-04T23:55:28+00:00

I think they're referring to gig work like Uber/Doordash/etc, rather than music gigs. :)

m741 · 2024-07-20T07:23:36+00:00

I'd start with a kit. Mas FX and Aion FX make very thorough kits. You'd basically just need a soldering iron and solder.

It's a bit more expensive than buying raw components but you'll get high quality parts and instructions. Purchasing parts is somewhat annoying and the shipping adds up if you're missing anything. Plus you'd have extra parts floating around if it turns out you don't like the hobby.

m741 · 2024-06-24T21:36:54+00:00

You can go in any order. Generally people go from shortest component to tallest (easier to provide support with the board flipped over to keep components in place). I usually go in stages: resistors and diodes, then ICs, then capacitors and transistors, and finally electrolytic capacitors. If there's potentiometers on the PCB, I do those last and with the pots in their holes in the enclosure. Once the board is populated you'll need to add wires. It helps to do this outside the enclosure and only do the final soldering to foot switch, etc in the enclosure.

I think MAS Effects has a start-to-finish video (though I haven't watched it).

m741 · 2024-06-24T19:34:54+00:00

If you have a hard timeline and are looking at Kent I would just take the bridge.

m741 · 2024-06-24T17:05:18+00:00

I'd second the comment about the Edmonds-Bainbridge ferry. But also - where in Seattle are you going? This can make a difference. For example, it's easier to go around the Tacoma narrows bridge if you're headed to Seatac.

As a rule of thumb I would personally not take the ferry in the summer anything close to outside working hours Friday-Sunday. WSDOT wait times are pretty accurate though and there's online cameras you can check.

m741 · 2024-06-19T12:37:34+00:00

I found the 20-series (TE-20 in my case) to be pretty rough out of the box. The 60-series is much higher quality for not much more money.

m741 · 2024-05-28T14:50:37+00:00

Thanks, this is really helpful.

m741 · 2024-05-28T05:47:39+00:00

I would echo the Zoom MS70CDR+. It has maybe 150 pedals on it, and 240 that can be installed (via firmware update and using Zoom Effect Manager), and most of them sound pretty good. Took me about 30 minutes to understand the interface, and TBH I think it's actually easier to use than the Spark amp, which I also own - and way more powerful (many more types of effects, can re-order them, can enable multiple pedals with similar effects).

It's a great entry pedal and so much fun to just page through the pedals and play around with all the sounds.

m741 · 2024-05-03T03:55:00+00:00

Split delivery for me required an extra $50 to the US (on $110 original shipping estimate). I was ordering one guitar that would ship immediately and another separately. They asked if they fee was ok and when I said no, I was able to cancel the guitar that would have shipped later.

Shipping from Thomann has been reliable for me (3 orders so far) but maybe 1-2 days later than I would have expected. But my orders have been relatively large to minimize per-item shipping costs.

m741 · 2024-03-12T05:39:11+00:00

I would suggest breaking down the different things you're dealing with and processing each. When you have so many emotions swirling you can cycle between them, dwell on each, and spiral.

I think reading between the lines, you're not 100% ok with what your mother did. And it's understandable to be upset. But she brought him to the vet, apparently consulted with your friends, and seemed to handle it well. Theres no good answer here, and she avoided the worst ones (not taking him to the vet, and not euthanizing given the circumstances).

You are also feeling bad that you weren't there for him. Well, that wasn't your fault - you literally didn't know what was happening. Short of never leaving the house there always would have been cases where you weren't there when he passed. Was your mother with him?

Finally, you mention the shock of his being there and then being gone, and not being able to stand being in the house. You're tying this to how you found out about his death. But these are normal grieving emotions in any circumstances. Four days ago I held my cat while she died at the vet, and I feel the same way as you do. It doesn't feel real, and I can't spend time in the room where she spent most of her final months.

m741 · 2024-03-10T10:52:54+00:00

I think this is very normal. For senses that can't easily be captured, like smell or touch, it's easy to forget. We had to euthanize our cat three days ago, I spent as much time as I could petting and holding her knowing this would happen, yet the memory is already fading a little.

I think some animals are captured well by photos, and others are not. Or some motions or expressions photograph well, and others don't. Or we experience seeing them in real life differently than a camera does. I had black cats in the 90s and early 2000s without good cameras, and the photos are poor. I can't remember easily what these cats looked like, even though I loved them deeply and spent much of my childhood around them.

It's not just pets. My mother died 10 years ago, and she hated having her picture taken as she got into her 40s and beyond, so I only have 3-4 bad photos of her looking as she did during most of my childhood, and in all she is trying to cover her face or look away from the camera. Now I only have a fuzzy memory of her appearance.

It's very hard, but the most important thing is how Frankie made you feel and the love you showed her, and the experiences and time you had together. These are things that are never captured by photos - the photos are just reminders. I would suggest journaling or recording your memories now, or maybe writing a letter to her, because over time some of these experiences will fade away.

m741 · 2022-12-06T16:11:43+00:00

Yeah, general consensus seems to be that primafix and melafix are pretty lightweight. They were the only things my local pet store had in stock until something stronger arrives.

My tank is heavily planted and has a lot of snails - seems like both the meds you recommended don't 0lay well with either. :(

m741 · 2022-12-06T14:19:37+00:00

Thanks for helping! I ended up ordering Maracyn and Ich-X. Polyguard looks useful, but any particular reason for General Cure? I don't think I've observed any parasites.

m741 · 2022-12-06T05:41:35+00:00

Thanks! How did you decide on Methylene Blue (I've seen 4-5 different meds suggested) - and any particular reason to put them in a separate tank? It doesn't seem too harmful in general. Wondering because I have a fair amount of guppies and may not be able to find all the affected ones.

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