The Burlingames

June 23, 2008

New Electro-Harmonix Bass Pedals

by Dave

I’m quite excited about a bunch of new bass pedals that Electro-Harmonix will soon be releasing. Interestingly enough, three of the four are distortion pedals.

First, and foremost, the Bass Big Muff Pi. After owning a NYC reissue, I settled on the newer Little Big Muff for my bass distortion. The new Bass Muff is the same size as the LBM and has the standard three knobs, but also includes what appears to be a 3-position toggle switch with the settings NORMAL, BASS BOOST, and DRY. I’m very interested to see what kind of difference the toggle switch makes.

The Bass Blogger is supposed to be a more subtle distortion. The toggle switch allows the user to choose between DRIVE and FUZZ.

The Steel Leather is a bass expander. Here’s what EHX has to say about the pedal:

A controllable percussive/attack effect designed specifically for bass guitar. Includes controls for response and effect level.

Lastly, the Bass Metaphors combines distortion, compression, and EQ. The EHX site doesn’t include much of a description for this one, but the foot switches lead me to believe that the EQ and/or compression are controlled by the BYPASS switch and the distortion can be switched on independent of the others. It also appears to have some interesting output routing options. Hopefully I don’t have to wait too long to give them all a try.

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June 20, 2008

Week 17.5

by Dave

Here is week 17.5. My mom took the picture out on their deck – beautiful!! I am now into week 18 and I still need to take a picture. On Monday, June 16th, I felt the baby move for the very first time. I have felt ‘things’ before but was never for sure that it was the baby. Monday, I was absolutely sure it was the baby. I felt a lot of tumbling and turning as well as a thump or two. It was such an awesome feeling!!! All day Tuesday, during my class, I was distracted every time I felt the baby move. Now the classic feeling is a thump or better described as popcorn popping in my belly. Dave keeps touching my belly hoping he can feel the baby move, but not yet though. We have scheduled the ultrasound for July 7th, hopefully the baby will cooperate and be spread eagle for us to figure out what we are having. We also just found out that in October we are going to have a niece, Nate and Sarah, are going to have a little girl. Yay!!!!

June 17, 2008

Nice Fish!

by Dave

Megan’s gone this week; she’s taking a class (working toward her master’s degree) in Wisconsin and is staying with a friend to save on driving and gas costs. I’m trying to fill my evenings while she’s gone to help pass the time. I went fishing with my brother and his wife after softball Sunday night. It was pretty sweet as Nat caught the biggest fish I’ve seen in person (and the biggest he’s ever caught). The mighty walleye came in at six pounds even and measured 26 inches long. Pretty sweet.

June 9, 2008

Week 16.5

by Dave

Here I am at 16.5 weeks. We were a little slow on taking the picture. I’m starting to wonder if I can feel the baby move or if I am just feeling gas bubbles moving around. I’m looking forward to feeling that first little kick. I’m still feeling really good. Last week was my last week of school and there are still several teachers who firmly believe I’m having twins. I can’t wait to have my ultrasound and get pictures of only ONE baby. :

Well, in other news, I’ve started my first week teaching science camps at the University of Minnesota Bell Museum of Natural History. Today was a good day. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing yet but give me a few more weeks and I’ll have it figured out – more or less.

June 8, 2008

The New Loop Pedal – Part 2

by Dave

The last post left off after having completed the drilling of the new enclosure. Next I installed all the parts into the enclosure. Thankfully my poor drilling didn’t screw things up and they all still fit.

After that came the wiring. I was able to install all the wires by wrapping the wire ends to the posts so they stayed in place. I then soldered all the joints at once. It worked pretty well. I ended up using a bit of electrical tape to make sure the LEDs don’t push through. I wasn’t too excited by the quality of the LED bezels and probably won’t buy them again.

Finally, after a quick test of the pedal, I give you the completed two loop pedal with a separate tuner output.

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