Vacation day one. by James @ 10:11 pm

It’s funny how quickly I lose interest in the things I commit to. Not just a blog that no one will read, but a massive recording project that no one will listen to, relationships that fall from the clouds, exercise, smoking cessation…

This was the first day of my vacation. I took this week off to try and wrap up the Christmas thing, do some recording, and hit the road to see family. Today, I woke up at the normal time, watched the season finale of Dexter, did some laundry, recorded a cover of You Were Right by Built To Spill (that’s still in progress), got a replacement driver’s license, went to the grocery store, stumbled, and just finished watching Breach.

Not nearly as productive of a day as I would have hoped for. Between a normal pre-work morning, lunch break, and evening I could have gotten all of those things done. I have a hard time initiating motion.

I got a lot done over the weekend, though. I received a couple of packages in the mail on Saturday, my DIY Keeley All Seeing Eye DS-1 mod kit arrived. I went out and bought a new soldering iron and everything. I spent most of Saturday evening working on it, then went out Sunday morning and bought stuff from Radio Shack to replace what I broke in the process… ahem.

None of your business.

I also made a new pedal. I think I invented it. I doubt that’s true. Even though it is not something that anyone else would possibly want, I invented it for myself. As an experiment. It really makes no sense. I had a two-button, hard-wired foot switch that came with an amp I bought second hand (the Crate VC5115). I pulled the switches and cable out of it and mounted the volume and tone pot from my Strat. It’s wired the same as inside a guitar. Since good pedal effects are sensitive to the guitar output, I wondered what effect having the volume and tone controls after the effects chain would have. It’s interesting to say the least. I went through the trouble of mounting a DPDT switch to bypass the V&T controls, not knowing what their affect would be and needing an easy way to compare. Unfortunately, bypassing the setup is exactly the same as having both knobs up 100%.

Anyway, I realized after the fact that my acoustic (Applause by Ovation with a Seymour Duncan Woody sound hole pickup) doesn’t have a volume or tone control and REALLY needs one. Especially tone. Problem solved!

So yeah. The $30 DIY non-Keeley Keeley mod for the Boss DS-1 pedal works really well. There are no negative side effects. I can say with certainty it was a success. I’m sure I would have been better off having them do the mod, better solder and more skillful hands, but hey. Less than half the price of them modding it for me ($75) so, I can’t complain. Plus I got a sweet new soldering gun. That added another $30 to the cost, though… ummm… and a drill bit… and a new switch…

I wish I was smarter.