Riesgo LP Session

 In December 2021 I had the first session in a long time at Secret Chamber. Riesgo, whom I'd selfishly hoped would put out an LP for a long time, reached out to see if we could work together. We sorted out the protocols, and came up with a plan. Tracking all instruments and vocals took place on one day. As of this writing, the mixes are being finalized. Can't wait for this one to come out!

Ibanez Eco Shifter Oscillation Mod

 It's been a while since I posted anything here... COVID times were pretty fallow at the studio. Things are looking a little more lively again though, and I did make an additional modification to my Ibanez Echo Shifter pedal that I thought might be useful to someone.

I have already posted about this pedal and how I fixed the broken speed slider. I've recently been swapping things around on my pedal boards - I keep one for bass and another for guitar - and the echo shifter has been earning its keep lately on the guitar board. It certainly isn't the most full featured analog delay out there, and it's kind of big, but I really like how it sounds and it has stayed in rotation while other delays haven't. I've also noticed recently that Ibanez has come out with a new version of this pedal the ES-3 - which has this mod I am about to describe built in! Along with speed control for the modulation which is nice.

The mod I am going to describe is my attempt to make the oscillation circuit more useful during guitar performance. Stock, this is engaged with a small toggle switch and adds gain to the regeneration circuit, leading to runaway repeats and cool warped sounds that are what makes analog delay so sought after. I like to use this selectively, and not for entire songs or even parts. The toggle switch is kind of hard to manipulate with your foot. I wanted to be able to control it with a stomp switch. My first thought was to use a switching TRS jack and a momentary stomp switch in a remote enclosure, which would take a lot of work and parts. I am glad I sat on that idea for a while, because now having owned and used this pedal for several years I realize I never use the tap tempo feature, and in fact would prefer not to have that function on a footswitch at all, too easy to accidentally hit it in a live setting.

I realized that I could re-purpose the tap tempo switch to serve as a momentary stomp-friendly switch for the oscillation circuit. This involved cutting the traces to the switch, and adding some flying wires back to the original toggle switch. Due to how the toggle behaves, this has one limitation: the LED for the osc circuit will not light up when using the stomp switch to activate it, but will still light up if you use the toggle to turn on the osc.

Step 1: open up the pedal, and find the smaller circuit board (connected with the three wires) that holds the two foot switches. Cut the traces that lead to the tap tempo switch. I used a dremel tool with a cutoff wheel, but you could use a file, a knife, a handsaw, whatever.

Step 2: get two short pieces of wire, and solder them from the outermost two contacts of the oscillation toggle switch to the two solder pads of the tap tempo footswitch. There was some heat shrink insulation on my toggle switch that I had to remove first. It does not matter which of the two toggle contacts goes to which side of the tap switch - it's just a normally open SPST switch so whichever way will work.

That's all there is to it. When you're done you should have new wires that look something like this (the twisted blue ones):

Having used the pedal with this new modification, I really like it. It's so easy to add a little swell of delay feedback at the end of a lead part or whatever, I may risk over using the gimmick.

Someday I would like to try out the ES-3 to see if it sounds as good as the ES-2. I am a little skeptical about the multi-function tap/oscillation switch... other pedals that I have used with these sorts of controls have been difficult for me. But, if it's reliable, could be a great way to go especially since they have added speed control for the modulation. 

Tascam 246 - for COVID-19 relief

I have had his Tascam 246 for a long time- almost a decade - and only used it very occasionally. Being shut in for the foreseeable future, I thought I would take a look at this and see if I could use it to get some creative juices flowing while I am unable to do my usual band practices.

Last time I got it out, before we moved to our current house about 2 years ago, it would not play or fast forward properly. Specifically, when you pressed play, it would fast forward with the heads engaged (bad for speakers!) and when you pressed FF nothing would happen. Getting it back out yesterday, I confirmed that the same issue was present.

I did a little internet research and learned that if the heads and pinch roller do not fully engage, that the tape will fast wind. So at least I knew where to start looking. I pulled the back cover off, to inspect the transport mechanism. The smaller (control) belt looked a little suspicious, and I confirmed that if I helped the cam along as it engaged the heads and pinch roller, that it would play properly. So clearly a control belt issue.

I saw a youtube video where someone used regular rubber bands to test the mechanism of a 244 (which has the same transport as the 246) so I thought, why not? In our kitchen junk drawer I found a rubber band of approximate shape and size and slapped it in (the red one in the photo below). That did the trick! Play and FF now work as expected. I hope this rubber band fix will keep me going until I can order an official belt set and install it.

Yamaha SK-15 Cleanup

For EXEDO, Christine and I bought a Yamaha SK-15 string organ synth from 1981. It is a sturdy, well made instrument which worked pretty well out of the box for a well used (even dare we say vintage) instrument. Nonetheless, the knobs and sliders were very dirty and had a lot of dropouts. The master volume knob sent waves of deafening crackle through the amp when you turned it. One of the keys was intermittent. so I opened it up and gave everything a good cleaning. The top metal cover has a few screws holding it closed which, once removed along with the fader caps, allows the panel to hinge up and out of the way. The faders and knobs all got cleaned with isopropyl alcohol, the corner of a folded paper towel, and a little bit of deoxit fader lube. the faders were pretty easy to get into the fronts, once the felt dust cover (shown below) was removed.

 To clean the keybed, you have to remove a couple screws from the underside of the front edge, and the entire keys assembly tips upward. then you have to remove the white plastic things in this picture below to expose a conductive plastic strip with a rubber contact strip that lies under the keys themselves. The header connectors shown below need to be disconnected, as well as some grounding wires that connect the key assembly to the bottom of the case. In between the rubber strip and the conductive plastic (Sorry I didn't take any better pictures) I found a lot of dust and debris. After cleaning with IPA and re-assembling, no more key dropouts!

To hear this string/organ synth in action, you can listen to the EXEDO demo or else check out this youtube vid:

Permanent Residue Tape

Keeping up with recent releases coming out of Secret Chamber: As described in a previous post we got together to record last fall with these guys, and now the songs are seeing the light of day. Vince Miller, now also of EXEDO, plays drums.

New band EXEDO

My new band with Christine, carrying forward from where Daylight Robbery left off. With our friends Vince Miller on drums and Milo Mendoza on bass. All recorded and mixed here by yours truly at Secret Chamber! Mastering by Kris Poulin.

hashtag Warrior Tribes

Thanks to the band for the mentions. We recorded this 17-song LP several years ago together and I am glad that it will finally see the light of day in 2020. Mastered by Daniel Husayn.

https://idioteq.com/introducing-chicago-rowdy-punks-warrior-tribes/?fbclid=IwAR1v8CnYYn22Zv6pHteoRY6JCJ-mGHSqJnWV2SPo2M3_PiOb06wx5-tqeSM