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May Ordering Open, the End of 6N21B, and More!

Alright, first things first, if you haven’t already noticed ordering is now open for May build slots. It took me a but longer than usual to get it as I was making some big changes, most notably that effective May 2021 I am discontinuing the 6N21B mini-tube builds. Availability of tubes, serviceability for customers, and total power consumption were among the biggest reasons, not to mention speeding up my workflow by reducing the number of designs available. X Series builds have outsold mini tube builds every month since they were made available, and the margin was growing every month, so I decided this was finally the right time to make the change. I know one of the big draws to the mini tube builds was the lower price than X Series, so I am also dropping the price of X series pedals that were previously available as mini tube builds (Particle Accelerator, Slampegg Bee Pre, London Underground, Dr. Wattson, Sunnday Drive, Black Eye, and Lab Rat).

March is the first month Westinghouse Space Heater, and Sunnday Drive X have been available so I’m excited to get them out to their new owners.

In case you missed it on social media, Vampire Slayer (Effectrode Glass A buffer), Black Eye X (Soldano Supercharger GTO), and King Nothing (Kingsley Harlot) will be available for all new orders and for order changes starting with the April batch.

I’m still waiting on the last of my parts orders for the month, but when it arrives I will be able to put together my prototypes for SBVT (Ampeg SVT preamp), Ambassador (Matchless Chieftain preamp), JC Emerald (Marshall JCM800 preamp), and Gondwana Phase III (tube-driven IR loader). Stay tuned for more information on those!

-Nathan

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March Order Delay

For those of you that have an order in the March batch you may be wondering why you haven’t received a shipping notification yet (especially if you aren’t on Talkbass). I spent two weeks in March working on finishing my basement so I can better organize my workshop space, which will be a huge benefit in the future, but as a result I fell a little behind on the March builds. I will still be able to finish before the April 10 date posted on the website without a problem, but I wanted to let everyone know the reason for taking more time than usual.

Currently I have about 80% of the builds finished and after some final testing will start shipping out the ones that are ready to go tonight. The remaining 20% are either complicated builds (Sunnday Drive, Sunnday Drive X, and Deep Dish) or there was an issue during testing that needs to be fixed and retested, but either way my goal is still to finish everything tonight so I can get them all shipped out and start preparing for April builds, as I don’t want April to fall behind as a result of March delays.

Thank you all for your patience and ongoing support, and I look forward to getting some more tubes out there into the world soon.

-Nathan

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June Ordering and More Changes

So I’ll start with changes, since there aren’t a lot but I want to mention them before I forget.

KNOBS:

Ever since I started doing 40 builds per month I started running into issues with suppliers for components and parts, being able to get enough of what I need when I need it. I’ve been able to deal with this on a lot of issues by going straight to the manufacturer and making bulk orders to bypass distributors. I’ve decided I need to do that now for knobs. It has been a constant struggle getting enough of the colors of knobs I need, and this month I may even have to reach out to people and ask them to either change knob colors or wait an extra week or so until I can get the color they ordered. So to prevent this from happening in the future I’ve contacted the knob manufacturer and I can get them direct if I buy in bulk, but I have to order a minimum quantity (500 knobs) of each color, so to make things less complicated starting in June I will only be carrying Silver and Black knobs. If you had your heart set on a different color you can find the U.S.-based supplier I went to in the FAQ section and order knobs yourself (if they are in stock).

BUILD QUANTITY:

I like being busy, and I’m very good at keeping myself busy, but sometimes I’m too good at keeping myself busy and wind up with a huge to-do list and I stop sleeping. In order to catch up on things and take a little break, I will only be doing 20 builds in June, and I will be taking July off completely and not doing any July builds. I plan to be back in August for the usual 40 builds.

JUNE ORDERING

On that note, June ordering is now open. I’ve added two new pedals to the lineup: JC Emerald X – Marshall JCM800 preamp; I made this once with 6N21B and it had some issues so I never really released it, but I came back to it with 12AX7 and it is excellent. Wrecking Ball X – Mesa Dual Rectifier Solo (red channel) preamp; this is a slightly different circuit than the previous 6N21B version of the Wrecking Ball. The 6N21B version was “based on” the Dual Rec preamp, while the 12AX7 version is a direct copy of the preamp from the amplifier.

That’s pretty much it for this month, I’m continuing work on Gondwana, that is still a ways out, and I’m still debugging SBVT, I’m hoping to have that in the next few days if I can actually set aside time dedicated to it.

Thanks, Nathan

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March 2021 Westinghouse Mishap

Well I messed up. On my original prototype for the Westinghouse I mistakenly printed “12V” at the top instead of 9V, as the pedal is supposed to run on 9V. I was behind on orders and was rushing to get everything done as quickly as I could that I didn’t even notice until most of them were finished and ready to go out the door. The good news is running the pedal at 12V instead of 9V will not damage it, as the regulator has built-in thermal shutdown, so it will turn itself off before it could ever get too hot for damage to occur.

So for those of you (there are 13) that ordered a Westinghouse in the March 2021 batch, I apologize for the mistake, please let me know how I can make it up to you, and I will do everything I can to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again in the future.

-Nathan