Roger Mayer Page-1

I wrote to Roger Mayer, and asked him why the Page-1 pedals (which are really fantastic... that and my Way
Huge Red Llama are together on my board... with tons of BJFE pedals) are no longer in production... I mentioned
that I had heard online various rumors, including the 'lack of NOS parts to make them' and 'Jimmy Page doesn't
want his name used on the pedals'. Roger (on the far left in the photo above) wanted me to post this reply...
As usual the story is wrong.
We will be producing another run of the Page-1 soon.
It was only ever meant to be a limited edition anyway.
Please feel free to let people know this on the various blogs etc and to set the record straight.
There was never a problem with JP and we have plenty of NOS.

Custom BJFE Pedal

Bjorn at BJFE Pedals (also known as the Mad Professor) cooked me up this little number... it is pure Punkrock for my mind. Somber and yet satisfying... tons of crunch. My favorite setting is volume cranked (11), distortion cranked (11)... and the treble set around half way (5). Absolutely no pretensions... just like Sid or Johnny would have wanted. What the doctor (professor) ordered, and more! This is all not surprising of course, since it did come from the mind of the Mad Professor, who has lots of practice working in his lab with his soldering iron. This is seldom true when purchasing other pedals though... how many times have we all been on Ebay, and seen some amazing looking pedal... maybe it has some acid etched design, or possibly it is sandblasted or even done in some groovy paint scheme. Such pedals are always described with superlatives such as 'Amazing Jimi Vibe', or 'Stevie Ray in a box'... or possibly 'Amazing metal crunch meets Slash of Guns and Roses'. So we order it, and wait the long days for our EBay purchase to arrive. And you guessed... we plug it in and .... that standard generic distortion that so many pedals out there have. Not so with this little black box. It's a 'keeper'... and is going next to some of my other pedals that are irreplaceable to me... like BJFE's LGW, his BBO (Baby Blue Overdrive), and of course my Red Llama, by Way Huge.... oh, and too many other BJFE creations to mention... but I might be doing so in future posts. (Almost certainly for sure!).

Mad Professor/ BJFE Wah Wah Interview

FCSG: Wonderful to speak with you again Mad Professor. I heard the other day that you are modifying Rocket Ride Wah pedals for Custom Sounds in Finland. I have heard that having Tropical Fish Capacitors in Wah's is one of the ingredients to getting that Jimi Hendrix Wah sound right.

BJF: Tropical Fish... yes, those were known as 'Bon Bon' capacitors due to how they look (just like Candy). They were originally used in all types of consumer-grade electronics, including Wah pedals. If they are in your Wah it would indicate when it was made, judging from when this type of capacitor was an 'off the shelf' item. One thing to consider is that Tropical Fish capacitors are fragile at the ends where the legs join the body. Considering the way Wah's were generally used they could also lead to unnecessary noise, hum, radio interference and because of this they can also be troublesome.
Oh, I've just designed the modification for the Rocketride Wha aswell as other Rocketride Effects while I don't preform the modifications www.rocketride.com

FCSG: Wah's are discussed online, and apparently there is more than one way to build a Wah pedal... including a Vox Style Inductor-based Wah, a Twin-T Circuit, Multiple Feedback Opamp Active Filter Circuit and 'State Variable' Style Circuit like the Mutron 3.

BJF: Yes, there are many ways to make a Wah. We can get the Wah effect by a moving low pass filter with resonance (this means a filter that cuts frequencies above a corner frequency at a certain rate per octave, but at the corner frequency there is a peak... or a moving midnotch filter can also be used. The point of using a low pass filter would be to keep content below corner frequency relatively intact, or the sound can become thin. A similar sound can be achieved with a phase shifter since those operate by moving midnotches up and down and resonance can also be introduced. There are of course many Wah variants and circuits that don't use inductors. Avoiding the use of an inductor would of course be attractive since they are expensive, and are also a bulky component that is actually highly sensitive to magnetic fields.

FCSG: Of course I love Inductors. I personally would prefer a Wah to have a good inductor, and... of course... FISH!

BJFE: Yes, in fact... inductors of suitable sizes are rarely used these days in any electronic equipment anymore... as a sidenote, Aleksander Neimand of Tubewonder amplifiers told me they used tape recorder heads for inductors in Wah's many years ago in Poland since there was one head that had about the correct properties, and inductors were hard to find. These days though, if you want an inductor you can order a suitable one as there are specialty suppliers for this.
If you are looking at a Wah cicuit, and are wondering what parts to make an effort to put in, I'd recommend looking at the gain of the first transistor, and this can be adjusted via the emitter load, if necessary. Also look at the components around the feedback network of the first transistor.

FCSG: I was looking at Teese Wahs... but read somewhere that they can develop dead spots at either end of their travel... what can you say about this please?

BJFE: Dead spots along the travel of the pot indicate something could be wrong with the pot and this is also the part that wears out in the Wah first. Replacing the pot properly requires placing the cogwheel and the tooth bit so that there is a tiny/ minimal gap so there is no pressure to the rotor from the side, or the pot will soon break again. One can also place a small amount of grease in the gap to make the Wah run smoothly.
I think Teese would be most helpful in assisting anyone with such a problem. There are about ten Teese Wah's here in the shop, and none of them here have any signs of the dead spots you mentioned... with the internet, this type of thing can become overblown.

FCSG: My dream Wah would have been a brand new Clyde McCoy-like Wah... with tropical fish, and NOS inductor for instance... but now I might be inclined to consider making some changes (after all you have said...).

BJFE: Have you ever played a McCoy Wah?

FCSG: Yes, a friend of mine who spent his life playing the Blues with a Les Paul swore by them ... and I think he got one of the 'good ones' (I know it was hit and miss)... he let me try it out... I was a kid at the time, and thought one Wah sounded like another...

BJFE: Once more thing about the tropical fish... some 25 years ago or so, I'd walk down the street and buy some from the local radio repairman... I thought they were pretty...but if I built a Wah today, I would certainly use some other type of plastic caps/ films. They can do all Fish can do, and more. Fish were meant to be easy to read due to their color coding, although the last band sometimes got hidden. And as I said, the leg joint to the body is a bit fragile and some of those Bon Bon's therefore have expander bends on the legs, to absorb vibrations. Phillips made another capacitor that was orange but built in a similar way... but I haven't seen those in many years. The legs can come of these capacitors near the body due to vibrations in transportation.
The most common problem with Wahs though is worn down pots and switches. Of course, these are mechanical parts that see heavy use/ stress.

Most old effects for guitar use Pertinex circuit boards... which can also crack with time, and due to vibrations.
In the 1970's, glass fiber boards were twice as expensive, and only used in expensive equipment in those days... meanwhile, you hardly ever see anything anymore with Pertinax boards anymore unless it is something with very low life expectancy.

FCSG: Yes, when I was a kid in the 70's I had some Walkie Talkies, that had the glass boards in them. Is there anything else that breaks down in Wah's that you come across?

BJFE: I think, other than what I mentioned, maybe some jacks and battery clips, and sometimes electrolytic capacitors... and there is one specific one that if it dries out it turns a Wah into a swell pedal (!).
to build a Wah to someone's order is a very personal thing. It can be a very personal effect. There are many way it can be done... of course Aleksander lived near a factory that made the tape recorder heads, and there are none of those left anymore!
I can see that would work very well, due to shielding and also that the inductance was right spot on too.
I was at a guitar show a few years ago, and was asked to Demo some Wahs. I had to take a second to recall when I had last played a Wah publicly... and maybe it had been 15 years! Often I'd use a Bud Wah with a Strat due to the fact it is 'middy', but this particular day, I was sitting with my Les Paul*, and found the Wah's at my disposal were the Mollon Wah... which was more pleasing because of the tone... more Vintage, and thinner... as you can see, what guitar you are playing with the Wah can have a big effect.

*Oh and if we are going to be exact it wasn't my own Les Paul but one supplied by the distributor I was representing ;)
as a sidenote
I used the same guitar to demonstrate the LouderandMore amplifier at the same show, while that's neither orderable through Custom-Sounds. Harri has one though.
I mention it only because I do see it would seem that anything I design or make would be orderable through Custom-Sounds but that is not necessarily the case.

JM Rolph Pickups

So what are the best pickups that I have found to date? I just put a JM Rolph humbucker into my Charvel guitar (yes, the EVH style single humbucking version). It (as Gearmanndude might say)....'Rocks my socks off'. The tone difference between those standard pickups that come with every middle of-the-road Les Paul is truly earth shattering. Why? I spent over an hour having a wonderful conversation with Mr Rolph, who gives his knowledge and his time freely, to those sincerely interested in what he does. He sources his own magnets (yes, the ones that go between the two single coils in a humbucker). He sources his own wire (he chooses a specific gage, which he has coated a specific way), and then winds them the way 'they used to', many years ago. A "way's back" there used to be magnet makers near where he lives, and that is just one of the secrets to why the old PAF's sounded so great... Mom and Pop companies making magnets (I guess in smaller batches than big companies do now). Well, JM still has a company to do that. Apparently, winding a humbucker takes planning, proper sourcing of materials, and then some hands-on attention to details. This means how the coils on those pickups are wound, the tension put on the wire during the winding process, and how you stack the coil with the wire. I am certainly sold on his pickups, and I know I am not alone. For me, they are the only ones for me... unless I find some old PAF's lying around in my attic somewhere...

Not the Same Bl**dy Piece of Wood...

I was just reading a fantastic interview in 'Analog Man's Guide to Vintage Effects' By Tom Hughes. If you don't have this book, you should get it. Roger Mayer (Creator of Roger Mayer Analogue Guitar Effects) is discussing the problem with pedals and guitars, and how hard it is to achieve 'that' sound someone else (usually, famous) has. Have you ever purchased a pedal that was described as being 'Pure Jimi'… got home, plugged it in and… you guessed it… no goosebump effect. It might even be a mildly entertaining pedal, but almost certainly will be headed for EBay soon. Well, Mr Mayer (on page 235) says it all better than almost anyone you will ever come across. Mr Mayer used to play in bands and came to know people like Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. He also ended up 'setting up' Jimi Hendrix; tweaking his pedals, guitars and amps to achieve that Jimi sound (but he says you still needed Jimi too, or no sound). He also did Bob Marley's guitars and bass. He makes some fantastic points… (to quote): "One of the things you might stress to your people is that when they hear a sound on a CD, that's a recording; it's got nothing at all to do with the live sound…not to mention that the sound you're actually hearing and trying to emulate is being heard on hi-fi loudspeakers. So someone hears a record and says 'I want to sound like Jimi'. No, what you are saying is you want to sound like the record'. This guy is great, because he mentions (amongst other things) that a reissue 'Jimi Hendrix' guitar might be aged to 'look' like Jimi's guitar… but it is a different piece of wood (he says 'It is not the same bloody piece of wood'), and the player will never play exactly like Jimi. He also mentions that a pedal that sounds great with your amp, with a mike in front the amp, which is going to a PA system, is going to be a totally different setup to getting that sound out of an amp alone… or the amp at a lower volume (for instance). He points out that making sound and effects is a lot more than just buying a box…it's a total package of Guitar, Amp, Pedal(s)… etc.. and the whole set up, and anyone who thinks otherwise is lost. Also, anyone who thinks one guitar can sound exactly like another guitar is also lost… the second guitar might sound fantastic, but… as Mr Mayer says…'it's not the same bloody piece of wood!" Anyway, buy the book, read the interview.. and learn a lot more.