A few questions for Mr Bjorn Juhl....
FCS: I just bought a Little Green Wonder, and noticed that the circuit board is not
'Gooped' like some of your other pedals circuitboards.
BJ: Little Green Wonder never came with a gooped pcb for the very simple reason that I didn't think it much of a tradesecret and besides I wanted it to be possible for the user to change the chip and further more as a fun note at the time LGW was launched, there was another manufacturer that was known for making a gooped tubecreamer;)
FCS: I also notice that my LGW (Little Green Wonder) has no serial number written inside.
BJ: There is at least one LGW that did not get a serial number and I can still track down approximately when was made, even so I believe I once did one for a guy who collected 8 LGW's outof which one did not have a serialnumber. I have that somewhere......
FCS: I love the early MGMV (Mint Green Mini Vibes) you made.
BJ: Well, only the first two MGMV's were made in that shape of that box and using that type of knob.
Those boxes had to be manually sawed down and new holes drilled and new threads made for new type screws and the knobs were surplus from a factory that was closed and the widow of the late owner might possibly open the doors but only if there were orders for something like 100,000 knobs of one type or there would be no point in starting the machines again......
I believe I mixed the shade of green from tints and just as an experiment........
I believe both of those are in Finland... one bieng Harri's (Custom Sounds)and the other belongs to a guitarist of Finland's biggest band ever, Eppu Normali, which by an odd coincidence means something like Abby Normal or Abnormal and that is also is an inputchoice on the MP amplifier model CS-40.
Anyway, a perhaps fun note about the MGMV is that the demoguitarist for Dr Z amplifiers asked on what was the PRS forums and what is now TGP about MGMV and I sent him then a pm that there were no members that could answer his questions and there were too few units made but he ordered one and wrote the first review and then all MGMV's made up unitil 2003 were made in the same mintgreen as LGW and then later changed to become Mighty Green with gold letters and then various custom colours and also DLX versions.
Someone once ordered a mintgreen MGMV DLX which is possible to make.
FCS: I see you are also modifying Wah Pedals for sale. From my own studies I see that
some of the older McCoy Wahs are inconsistant, and it's not all about one or two parts in those pedals, but many things. In addition, those pedals are older now, and some are in need of repairs.
BJ: Yes it's a sum of many parts but it's a function of gain. Some of the old ones may use electrlytics that may have dried out so they have become volume pedals- I played one such once - a very boring experience- I got it on loan for a rehearsal and while it was the oldest Wah I have ever played it was also the weakest.
In my years as a servicetechnician I have come to see that Wah's are very personal to musicians and next to my workshop there's a store that carries all kinds of gear and the owner brught down all whas at one point since a customer had brought in a particurlarly good late 60's wha to compare and so I asked the owner how he played the Wah and he told me he'd grab the edge and prefer a rapid change towards the last 173 of range and a rather vocal response so I asked if he had a cheap Wah in his range and I'd do an experiment with that and see how he'd like that.
FCSG: Why do you prefer Wah prior to Fuzz (when stacking pedals)?
BJ: Regarding this question I personally prefer Wah prior to fuzz -I know those who definately prefer Wah after fuzz and there is no hard rule.
The reason I prefer Wah before fuzz/ distortion/overdrive is that then I still have a full range of sound while changing the resonance in the midrange and then in a mix the guitar takes about the same space.
I know many prefer Wah after say fuzz and mainly then because these two effects may not play well together dependeing on the makes of either and that can dictate Wah after fuzz while this is never the case with distortion pedals while then the distortion effect in itself can be so dense that the Wah effect drowns it if place ahead of the distortion.......
Again I'd tend not to use that amount of distortion though.
A trick to cut down noise when using Wah with heavy gain is to use an overdrive or compressor ahead of Wah and then a little less distortion after the Wah and thusly level through the Wah is higher above its noise level and amplification of noise after it is lower - this can be of importance at live high level settings and also with recordings and it wil reduce microphonics in the Wah as in sound coming from the shoe touching the rocker.
FCS: Why did Hendrix put his Wah somewhere in the middle of his pedal stack?
BJ: If we'd look at Hendrix' system then he'd have a fuzz that would with in conjunction with his guitar form a filter that would cut high frequencies this due to the low impedance of the fuzz and the high impedance of the guitar.....if he would have put his wha here then the fuzz would have loaded the wha which would have made the wha travel faster and the sound brighter and also the volume lwer when the wha was engaged..........likely this was not desireable-unless amplifier was allready distorting and making up for this loss.......
It is highly possibly that many times Jimi may have run his Fuzz Face first for the above reasons- however he was not a technician but a musician and as such believed in magic and to some extent it is good to believe in magic because magic may also be the spirit that carries the notes and guides what sounds we actually like to hear.
FCS: I went to see the Black Crowes the other night at the Nokia in Los Angeles, and certainly was watching Rich Robinson's foot on his Wah... and noticed the range he used. This was after reading about how Jimi (Hendrix) liked his Wah's set up. On another note... have you ever thought of building pickups?
BJ: At ayoung age I made pick ups too but I could not afford to get a winding machine. I had as a friend a girl who's father made an invention of constant load on coilwinding that could be used for this and he sold it- You know at that age I wouldn't ask if I possibly could have a coil or two wound but I wound them by hand instead myself. Yes, winding is very time consuming and nothing I'd ever consider doing ever again but I was young once.
As a service technician though I have repaiered more guitar pickups than I care to remember. One day I decided I wasn't going to do anymore guitar repairs but only electronics so I sold all guitar parts. I think I may have a couple of spare pick ups but that's all- still come to think of it I have several guitars I have not finished setting up- thank you for reminding me of that.
FCS: I recently went on EBay looking at MXR pedals. The very early ones have become collectible and expensive.. and the circuit boards were silkscreened and prepared in fish tanks in small batches. Some of the originals are having problems with rotting foam inside too. I read in my Pedal Book (by Analog Man) though that someone picked up a lot of old MXR pedal parts, and has been selling assembled pedals on EBay, that may not even function properly. The book warns that if the pedals don't have proper pots you can date, then don't buy the pedal. Any comments?
BJ:
A Phase 90 would have a 500K Reverse Log pot. Yes well I remember MXR they were in many ways tanks in terms of guitar pedals when they came and many fine details like you could stand on the knobs- but the damned foam. The Ebay problem, well that's maybe because after MXR folded and a just a few years ago unused pcbs and boxes and what not was sold on e-bay and some people may have put those together.
One guy wanted an MXR envelope Folllower and had bought a pcb and it was damaged and therefore not used but you know I had not heard one of those in 20 years..I put that in an ecloser that looked nothing like an MXR and with no markings and it does not exist other than to the joy of the owner but there are those that make fakes from rejected parts like this and they may not even know how to get the circuits working correctly but they concentrate on getting it to look correct and like an original so they can get the most money for it .As far as the padding inside, I use neoprane as it makes a no tension no friction mounting. I don't know how well it will hold over 30 years but I'd think better than foam anyway that is what studies of the inner structure of the material shows. Neoprane is the same material as used in divingsuits btw.
Ah you'd laugh I eatch my boards in tupperware.. it's something I asked someone who went to such a party to get me but the tank has held since 1991.
I think MXR in some ways was an inspiration in terms of being indestructable- something they abandoned later in the Command series.
But BOSS took on that I felt though that sound was........well the more fun sounds came from things that were more on the edge of breaking down....
FCS: Yes, the Analog Man book mentions one of the Doobie Brother's MXR pedals was run over by a car, and still survived intact.
You also make MP (Mad Professor) Amps, that are played by some very well known artists. I love the idea of also one day owning a Dumble Amp. He is apparently still alive, and very picky about who he talks to.
BJ:
Right, well the only Dumble amp I ever worked on I serviced just one part or rather I rewired a reverb but promised I would not look at no other part in the am which I also didn't. Somebody asked me if I wanted to have a look but I told I would fix it if it was broken otherwie I was not interested and never heard back.
As a fun note I can tell you that two Dumble owners I have spoken with here each keep their amps one in his kitchensofa and the other in a wardrobe noneof them using them only having them for investment these days
It does seem a waste of equipment.
On another note the other day a guy came by and told he had the sound of his life but it was to heavy so he had to let it go.......
And so he asked me if I'd make him a pedal with this sound.
Considering a sound being so heavy that you would have to let it go when you have it I'd call that a challange......
What he had was a Riviera head one of the early multi channel types that weigh half a ton but he had read on records with artists he liked that played songs he liked with sounds he liked that those were recorded with Dumble amps so he got himself a Twin Reverb and searched for pedals...
This guy is a fun guy with a broad a quick smile and roaring laughter and maybe it is also much for fun a search but the sequence I just told above shows just how myths complicates things where sound would instead easily lead- like get the speaker that fits and the try blasting that with a poweramp and then add preamp- this specifically for this sound that was so heavy that one would have to let it go....
You know I thought maybe at one point I'd like to speak with Dumble and then I'd like to be able to say I never peaked into his amps nor copied him.
FCS: Well, thank you so much Bjorn...
