Why it rocks to be a pedal builder? (Boast of a pedal builder)

[musicelectronix]

Ok guys, I saw that my last rant discouraged some fellow TB’ers who are planning to get in the business or seeking the appropriate education. It wasn’t my intention at all, obviously.

Every story has 2 sides. Why it rocks to be a pedal builder?

1 – You can easily justify to yourself (and your wife) purchasing 14 fine instruments (8 of which are American made with 5 of them are made in various custom shops) even though you haven’t played in a band for more than a year.

- Hun, these musicians are one crazy bunch. I need to test my pedals with various instruments before I can confidently answer most of the questions.
- But you paid a lot of money for some of them, couldn’t you be able to get by with cheaper ones?
- My love, I do have cheaper ones, too. But majority of people using my pedals are real life musicians and they use really good instruments. I at least have to match them
- What about the one you have been waiting for 6 months and that you paid cash upfront.
- Yeah (clears throat), still waiting for that one But it has wenge neck and fretboard. Just like that, I need to have at least a strat type, a LP, a p90 one, an EMG one, a soap bar one, a jazz, a P, etc…

2 – You are allowed score some rare vintage pedals (i.e. original fuzz face, tube screamer) and rack units (i.e. ADA ampulator). Better yet you can get away with it just by saying “I am doing research”.

3- You can meet thousands of talented musicians and be flattered when they rave about your pedals.

4- You would be able to play your instrument all day long. Not really, that was the dream though. If you are smart (unlike me), I bet “you” can.

5- If one person asks if you have particular pedal, you can respond by saying: “if you loan yours to me for a couple of days, I will”

6- You don’t play with knobs, because you already designed it just the way you like.

7- When you meet someone, it will always be a better conversation starter if you are a pedal builder than being an accountant (no offense, my major is BA. So yeah, I can make that joke).

8- You can start your sentences like: “The other day I was working on a new pedal design” and end it like: “it turned out to be really good. I can’t wait to hear what people would think about it”

9- If you are an engineer working with LNG pipes or computers, mean people would think of you as a nerd. If you are an engineer working with guitar pedals, most people would think you are cool.

Here ya go! You see I am still working at 4 am, but I am happy enough to talk nonsense.

[René_Julien]

You encouraged me to study op on electronics again.

(I'm a mechanic, also trained in electricity, just I don't know anything about audio processing.)


I didn't respond in your other thread.
But glad to see that you can take it all more lightly now.


I have a business myself and I understand how sometimes experiences can be depressing.


Cheers.

[warwick.hoy]

HaHa Os. I like #9 the best.....

I think that being a part of talkbass and discovering the world of hand built pedals really opened myself to wanting to get an education in something that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. Electrical Engineering??? I thought I was destined to be a flippin line cook for the rest of my life. Whether or not I wind up building pedals is moot,...the fact that I'm now interested in educating myself and have a little direction is cool.

So in a way you and all the other pedal builders out there are an inspiration; at least to me, no matter how disenfranchised you guys may get with the business side of things.

[Nyarlathotep]

Nice

[john turner]

so does this mean maybe you'll go back to making pedals?

[B.C.]

Haha, I wonder if I can convince someone to give me a Sadowsky, ya know, for testing purposes

[UncleFluffy]

and all your instrument purchases are tax-deductible, as they're for "research" purposes

[musicelectronix]

Originally Posted by UncleFluffy

and all your instrument purchases are tax-deductible, as they're for "research" purposes

Oh, how did I forget this one?

[UncleFluffy]

I didn't read the other thread, but after posting in this one I did hop over to your site and read "All Operations are suspended Temporarily".

Speaking as someone who's been tinkering with electronics since he was five years old (and now works on CPUs and GPUs and the suchlike as a day job) - if you can find a way to keep doing what you love, without hurting yourself or the people you love, do it. Life's short and every second spent doing something that sucks is a second wasted. (I know sometimes you have to do the sucky stuff, but ...)

Knowing the little I do about your situation, here's my suggestion:

- take a break

- increase your prices by 25-50% - this will reduce volume (therefore work) but increase your net per-unit income by probably 2x the price increase

- fill in the drop in income by the dealership stuff you were talking about

- maybe offer some sort of customisation option as a value-add to the pedals you resell (change component values/quality to suit your taste and add a cool graphic / blue led / whatever to the pedal to show it's not a regular vanilla version)

[jufros]

And make a gated fuzz with 3 band eq, semi-parametric mids...

[Valerus]

Originally Posted by UncleFluffy

and all your instrument purchases are tax-deductible, as they're for "research" purposes

bingo

[groooooove]

Originally Posted by UncleFluffy

I didn't read the other thread, but after posting in this one I did hop over to your site and read "All Operations are suspended Temporarily".

Speaking as someone who's been tinkering with electronics since he was five years old (and now works on CPUs and GPUs and the suchlike as a day job) - if you can find a way to keep doing what you love, without hurting yourself or the people you love, do it. Life's short and every second spent doing something that sucks is a second wasted. (I know sometimes you have to do the sucky stuff, but ...)

Knowing the little I do about your situation, here's my suggestion:

- take a break

- increase your prices by 25-50% - this will reduce volume (therefore work) but increase your net per-unit income by probably 2x the price increase

- fill in the drop in income by the dealership stuff you were talking about

- maybe offer some sort of customisation option as a value-add to the pedals you resell (change component values/quality to suit your taste and add a cool graphic / blue led / whatever to the pedal to show it's not a regular vanilla version)

he seems to have a lot of good points..

i'd really hate to see electroniX go down for good. at the least, i'd need to get a gemini before its too late

[UncleFluffy]

Originally Posted by groooooove

i'd really hate to see electroniX go down for good.

Same.

@musicelectronix - I'm an electronics guy who's been doing it quite some time and have been self-employed for half of my career. If you want someone to talk ideas over with - business or tech - feel free to shoot me a PM.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by UncleFluffy

- increase your prices by 25-50% - this will reduce volume (therefore work) but increase your net per-unit income by probably 2x the price increase

This has been a double edged sword for some people...some folks get even more work when they raise their prices because of the perceived value of high prices. Will Lee said once that in the 70's, he was charging scale for sessions and decided he was working too hard so he raised his price to triple scale. Next thing you know, his phone is ringing off the hook and he's getting double the work he had, and he couldn't turn it down because it paid so well. He attributed it to the logic that if you pay triple scale for a session guy, people think he's automatically better than most, so they want him.

Doesn't always work that way, though...I raised my session price to triple scale last year, and the phone hasn't rung once. Then again, I live in Florida, where there is no session work to speak of

[anthowl]

considering the vast majority of people out there don't exactly know how a bass guitar is different from a 'normal guitar', i doubt a lot of the people you show this cool characteristic off to are even going to know what a guitar/effect pedal is

then you can have that fun discussion one often has that goes a little like this..
"okay, so you know in 'insert-jimi-hendrix-song-title-here', how the guitar is all sizzley and buzzy? well thats from a pedal called a fuzz box, it's a kind of effect that i make "

[UncleFluffy]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

This has been a double edged sword for some people...some folks get even more work when they raise their prices because of the perceived value of high prices.

Yeah, it can happen. When it's happened to me, I just sub out the extra work and take 10% commission. I'm still responsible to the customer, but an excess of well-paid work is not a bad problem to have

[B.C.]

You get to blind your customers with LED's.

Guess which one is the Messdrive Hybrid?


BTW, I love the LEDs!

[Wasted Bassist]

When you say things like that you make it harder to decide if I want to go for an EE or computer sciences degree. ARGH!

[mikeboth]

Originally Posted by Wasted Bassist

When you say things like that you make it harder to decide if I want to go for an EE or computer sciences degree. ARGH!

Do CS. Most modern EE courses have minimal analog content, and there is much, much, much more information on pedals / analog electronics already available on the internet, for free.

[B.C.]

Originally Posted by mikeboth

Do CS. Most modern EE courses have minimal analog content, and there is much, much, much more information on pedals / analog electronics already available on the internet, for free.

Do computer engineering. All the CS and EE. You can really do anything with an EE degree.

Actually, the programs I've seen are mostly analog, transistor theory and OP Amp signal processing(filter design etc.) Most digital stuff is reserved for the CEs.