Killstring

Everybody's Problem, by Manifest Zone 1 track album

hi i still exist mostly

social media is bad for the killstring-brain

so i hide

anyway, my fictional D&D nu-metal band has a song

listen or don't, you hold the power

Zingerman's made my baby girl* a BREAD EFFIGY

*pure coincidence, but look what cool things they do with bread!

Kitty is fren.

My new jr. Dev is cute, and at least they didn't break anything!

This one is gonna be fun...

For sure! A surprise, but a welcome one.

A very cute tegu lizard is inside her enclosure, trying to slide a glass door open. It looks a little like she's striking a pose a la 90's rappers.

Dragon-Chan getting ready to drop the hottest mixtape of 2025

Some days, you wake up and just *know* it's gonna be a good day.

Some days you drop your toothbrush down the drain, and discover you have neither clean pants, nor underwear.

Should probably go with a darker chimkin, or a different color enclosure. I like how it's a subtle white-on-white, but maybe subtle is not the way to go with cartoon chimkin.

But I like it. Is Fren.

I mean, I was into chickens before.

But I am right now, too.

DS|FX Hentuar

If you know Pedals, then you already know what this is. If you don't? Well, there's a pedal called the Klon Centuar. You can't buy new ones, the originals go for thousands, and it's a really nice circuit!

Also, I'm super into chickens right now

Because Chimkin

Big Fluff

Like so many before it, this BMPi derivative is starting its life as a clone, and I already have revision notes.

Specifically, since Fran Blanche is relaunching Frantone again, I want to leave her Peach Fuzz design out of my circuit.

But I will keep this for meeeeeeeeee

I don't know *what* it costs yet. But the answer is not $500

Haute Contour

It's essentially that collaboration pedal made by Ibanez & Vemuram that's halfway between a Tube Screamer and a Jan Ray.

Except it doesn't cost $500

New batch of designs.

I, of course, forgot to add in my drilling files (after agonizing over millimeters) so I'll be hand-drilling these three.

But I *really* like the look of these.

Question for players of pianos, synthesizers, and piano-adjacent keyboard instruments: do you find that weighted keys, or the stiffness of keys in general, matters with carpal tunnel or other kinds of wrist soreness?

Is it a matter of playing angle and height instead?

Asking for a me.

Indeed! In other news, malls still exist.

I ran into some Mall Goths yesterday.

Nature is starting to heal.

I kid, she's been sweet as a button. But that look on her face is Prime Mischief.

I'll fukkin' do it again, too

Dragon-Chan: I'm hungry
Me, An Understanding Caretaker: Okay, here's some food

Dragon-Chan: cool but what if I scattered it everywhere?

I realize, much to my dismay, that I have not taken any photos of Dragon-Chan this year.

She is recovering from surgery nicely, thank you much.

Anyway, here's her from a couple years ago, surprising me.

I hope that regardless of the circumstances leading up to it, that the travel is genuinely lovely in its own right.

2025: Still alive motherfuckers

I should release it in some stupid large box and call it "This Fuckin' Noise Gate

Maybe I'll build another one now that I've kinda cut my teeth. The old Gibson/Norlin/Bob Moog-designed L5 amp, as enjoyed by BB King, Ty Tabor of King's X, and presumably people without King in their name.

Bob Moog was a frickin' genius, and the preamp circuit is a lot of fun. Solid State FTW

And the Groove Machine, which was a hell of a learning project.

Guess what died to over-tweaking? It was this chonker.

The classic Killstring move of "start with something hard when you don't know what you're doing" went as it often does.

I learned so much, but I miss having it working.

This Fuckin' Noise Gate

overengineered but in a dumb way

I've got these stupid huge capacitors which sound pretty nice and are pretty quiet actually - but I built this in kind of a dumb way as you can see. Doesn't really fit in a small enclosure, and ain't nobody got time big noise gates

And the Wave should have been an easy project, but I can apparently never do anything the easy way.

Reverb and trem, how hard is this?

5 dead prototypes later, (well, the last one mostly works), and the answer is kinda hard?

Trem is supposed to be easy but what do I know