Welcome to my custom work section. I've been building and modifying effects and other audio devices for quite some time now. I'm ready to do just about anything analog within reason, from an expression pedal jack to a completely made up custom box. Prices will alter depending on how much time it takes me to do and the price of parts. I'll try to keep this page updated with pictures, sounds, and words about the more interesting things I've created. To view other various side projects and random things (IE my synth, circuit bending, etc) I've done, click here. If you have any questions, comments, inquiries, or anything at all, don't hesitate to e-mail me at
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I am currently not accepting any orders.
A line of production units will be available soon, check back.
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The Parallel Universe
"Basically, this pedal rules. It is like the chaotic bastard brother of the blue box on acid. I will be keeping this around for a good long time!" -Derek, CA
The Parallel Universe is a very high gain distortion with self oscillating capabilites. Currently, there are 13 Experimentalists Anonymous-made Parallel Universes in the world, everywhere from Canada to Singapore. There is a complete page with soundclips, testimonials, and a history of these devices here. The most recent run of Parallel Universes is completely sold out. However, there is a possibility of a 6 PU or so run in the near future. Otherwise, I can make them by custom order, but the price is higher because more work per unit is required with fewer units. The second image to the side is an example of a custom job. This particular box has an LFO, a 3 band tone control, an input boost, and an expression pedal input among oher things. This is pretty much the most extreme example of a custom PU possible (and is also the most knobs I have ever put on a box in memory!) It also has a custom paint job-if you want me to fleck paint on your pedal like this, no problem! Please e-mail me at
if you want a custom job done. There is an early schematic of the Parallel Universe in the schematics section if you're up for building your own.
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The Sandwich Echo
"It's my favorite delay ever and I especially love the way it pitchshifts... Colin really exceeded my expectations for this pedal and it's become the centerpiece of my rig. I highly recommend this mod because it really sounds excellent." -Paul Belbusti, CT
The sandwich echo is what I call any rehoused Danelectro PB&J delay I do. After my first Sandwich echo, I got tons of requests for other ones, because the mods and rehouse turn this $20 pedal into a truly unique and useful delay. Click on either of the images to the side to see all of the sandwich echoes I've done thus far. Mods available are the "coarse" mod, which switches an extra delay time knob that expands the delay time to 4 or more low-fi seconds, self oscillation, expression pedal mods for any or all of the pedal's parameters, dry level, effects loop, hold, reverse, LFO modulation and a whole lot more. Take your imagination away with this one. All sandwich echos so far have been done on a custom, per-order basis, so let me know if you want me to do one for you. Currently in the works is a sandwich echo-like delay using improved circuitry and the most common and useful mods. Paul was kind enough to make this extensive soundclip of the first sandwich echo. To listen to a demonstration of modulation, "coarse" delay time on short delay mode, and mild self oscillation, click here.
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The Nintendo Muff
"The Nintendomuff gets more attention onstage then I do... People see me playing with an old NES joystick, making these insane outerworldy noises and just go crazy!" -John Biscutti, NY
This is the infamous Nintendo Muff. I got the original Big Muff in a deal as a trade for some circuit bends I did very early on, and circuit bent the muff itself a bit. I had the joystick sitting around, and to be honest I don't know what possessed me to put the big muff in it, but I adapted all of the circuit bends so that the joystick controls feedback loops and the knobs control the big muff's normal knobs... and all of the various switches have different weird sounds. I am willing to make another nintendomuff with any number of mods. If I were to do it again, it would make use of all of the buttons and probably be a bit more stable and less of a random circuit bent device. Unfortunately, it was hard enough as it was, and would not be cheap at all. Click here to listen to a very limited demo of what it can do.
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Digital Lo-fi Box
The Digital Lo-fi box is a bit crusher, sample rate reducer, and resonant lowpass filter. It has an obscenely large amount of sounds in it but is by no means particularly chaotic or unpredictable. The digital portion is an 8-bit ADC/DAC which you can reduce the bit depth of (making it WORSE than 8-bit, or below audio rate sample rate). The really intense thing about this circuit is that you can get literally any bit depth form 0 to 256 positions. What this means is that you get a lot more control over the bit crushing sound. I did this by using a whole separate ADC and 3 extra logic chips. The filter is raunchy, MS-20 style. There are expression and CV inputs for bit depth, sample rate, and LPF frequency, as well as an envelope control (with up/down switch and a depth knob) for the sample rate. It also has a switch that selects whether the LPF goes before or after the bit crusher/sample rate reducer, or after. There's an input gain knob (you can clip it for a raunchy analog fuzzerdrive), a mix knob, and an wet level knob. Click here to hear an old keyboard's organ sound being shaped by the digital lo-fi box. Click here for the box destroying a simple drum loop. Click here for a demonstration of the envelope and expression control (of LPF frequency) capabilities using a guitar.
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Buffered death loop
The buffered death loop was custom job for a feedback loop gone right. The passive feedback loops that everyone is making nowadays have a few inherent problems: You can't change the level of it unless you want to damp the feedback, many pedals that don't have enough gain won't work and it's not a very nice thing to plop in the middle if your signal path. The buffered death loop fixes all of these problems. What it is is two boosters with a feedback loop in between. With just about anything in the loop, you can easily get controlled feedback with easily adjustable level, as well as ridiculous distortions of all sorts with any device.
Click here to listen to a sampler being fed into a self oscillating ring mod or click here to listen to a guitar being fed into an oscillating distortion.
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Modified MM4 with Joystick & LFO box
This Line 6 MM4 Modulation Modeler has a huge amount of tweaks and modifications. First, I added my standard crash switch (the large red pushbutton), which causes the pedal to oscillate, generate white noise, and distort in a somewhat random fashion. I also added 6 glitch switches that create a variety of other distortions and noisy oscillations. Because the glitches can make the pedal very loud, there is a switchable volume control on one side. On the other side, there is a reset switch for when the pedal crashes. To top things off, I added a very flexible expression box. The expression box allows the user to control any number of knobs on the pedal with a joystick or an LFO, just as you are normally able to do with an expression pedal. The joystick allows the user to jump between 6 expression settings (4 directions and 2 buttons), and the LFO cycles through the expression settings, with a controllable rate, shape, and depth. There is also a jack for normal expression pedal control. The entire unit is painted in a matte black and all of the knobs and LEDs have been replaced to match. The final product can create a infinite number of distortions and strange tones by combining the MM4's presets with the various glitches and incredibly flexible expression control. Click here to hear two different drum loops (changing at 2:45) being put through the MM4, and click here to hear the MM4 effecting a guitar, and then oscillating by itself at 2:20.
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The "Frankenbox"
"I coaxed all kinds of insanity out of it just by tweaking. Amazing! It will be my favorite noise box in this lifetime, to be sure." - Jeff, CA
The Frankenbox is essentially an all-in-one synthesizer built for making distorted screeches, growls, and other awful noises. It includes two oscillators, a built in microphone, two audio inputs, a voltage controlled amplifier with ringmod capabilities, a voltage controlled lowpass filter, an LFO, and a sequencer. One oscillator includes a photocell and the other can be modulated by the LFO and the sequencer. There is a joystick that allows for frequency modulation of the oscillators. Each component was specifically designed with the intention of creating loud, rumbling sounds with crackling distortion over the top. The entire box, down the knobs, case, and LED color, was created exactly as requested. With 41 knobs and hundreds of ways to make the device interact with itself, an almost infinite number of sounds is possible. Click here for a 6 minute mp3 of various sounds this box is capable of spliced together. Click here to watch an instructional video I made for it. Click here for an image of the frankenbox with the controls labeled.
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Modified BOSS RPS-10
I love the RPS-10. It's the not-well-known supercousin of the BOSS PS-2,3,5 series of effects. The main thing I always thought the RPS-10 was missing is self-oscillation, so when I got my first one, I opened it up and was able to mod it for self oscillation in all settings. I also was able to dramatically increase the delay time, allowing for delay times of up to 40 seconds. Though it starts to get really bitcrushed after 4 or 5 seconds, you can still use it as a basic looper-and in low-delay time settings, you can set it for a large amount of time, giving a bit-crushed sound at reasonable delay times (which many underclocked delays are unable to provide). The RPS-10 has a built in feature of footswitch jacks for hold and effect on/off, making it a bit more viable in a stompbox situation. The hold option actually introduces a gigantic amount of possibilty-from simple SOS looping to pitch-hold sounds (take a listen to the soundclip). To activate this, I built a little box with footswitches for hold and effect on/off. Click here for a soundclip, demonstrating the various capabilities.
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Modified Electro Harmonix Frequency Analyzer
"I wanted to tell you how much I dig it - you did some really fun mods and if I ever get rid of it remind me to kick myself!" - Nate Paradis
This is a very heavily modified Electro Harmonix Frequency Analyzer. It's currently owned by Nate Paradis in Idaho. Most of the mods are labeled on the picture. I made it True Bypass, added a photocell to control either the shift or fine knob (that's what 2 of the switches on the side are for), a filter knob to replace the switch, a CV in jack for putting whatever you want as the carrier frequency, a square/sine switch, and an envelope control (big switch on the side) with selectable fine/shift switch. The CV in basically turns this pedal into whatever you want-you can modulate your guitar with your voice, a keyboard, or even your own guitar for green ringer-like effects. I'm very proud of this guy, EHX really underdid themselves with this box. The second picture was taken before I sold it, it's my friend Ryan playing in his band, fuDWiz, twiddling with the knobs. Click here to listen to a very long demo.
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Modified ModFX Philtre
Of the various ill-fated Alesis ModFX units, perhaps the most popular was the Philtre, which was a multimode filter with various waveforms of modulation. The main reason that the ModFX's flopped is that most DJ's, tabletop musicians, and turntablists (the ModFX target audience) aren't looking for single effects units to put into their systems. However, the Philtre sounds excellent on guitars. Since they're targetted for DJs and tabletop musicians, there are no stomp switches and are fairly guitarist-unfriendly. My goal here was to make the very interesting sounding Philtre into a real stompbox, and to do so, I added a seperate and permanently attached breakout box. This provided footswitches, an expression pedal control, an output level knobs to tone down the line level output, as well as a feedback loop for incredible synth sounds. Click here for a soundclip of the feedback mode.
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Analog Sample Rate Reducer
One interesting effect that very few stompboxes do is sample rate reduction. This effect is common in computer music and VST plugins because it is easy to do on a computer. Sample rate reduction sounds something like ring modulation, but a little more crunchy and much more musical. It is the result of estimating the amplitude of a signal at audible rates. The analog sample rate reducer is the realization of this effect in a completely analog form. The operation is very simple-a true bypass stomp switch turns the effect on and off, and a knob controls the sample rate. If you have always enjoyed the sound of sample rate reduction or are looking for interesting ways to alter your signal, this pedal is the perfect solution. Click here to hear a drum loop sent through the sample rate reducer or click here for guitar.
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All-in-one Analog Multieffect
"All in all everything sounds fantastic and you more than exceeded my expecations." -Chris Loeffler, OR
This Analog Multieffect is basically a bunch of various circuits rehoused in one large box. All of them are analog except the delay, and some of them have various modifications on them. I can do large-scale rehousing like this to any combination of effects and can include mods, too. This box was a gift for a friend of Chris Loeffler's.
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Small Clone Chorus Tremolo
"It can go from subtle chorus to whacked-out
tremolo/freakout... It actually
replaced my Nobels tremolo because the sound was just more inspiring
to me; now it has a permanent
spot on my board!" - Dave Warren
"There's a lot of options on this thing. It's quite the beastly box, more complex than the standard small clone by light years." - Christopher Davies
The Small Clone is a beautiful sounding chorus, but when paired with a little amplitude modulation, the sound is even more gorgeous. There are a variety of untapped sounds in the small clone, whether it be strange ring mod-esque freakouts or interesting vibrato-trem. My intent with the chorus tremolo is to put all of these sounds at the user's fingertips-the small clone simply doesn't have quite enough controls over the sound. The mods I have done to various include a tremolo depth knob, a chorus/vibrato knob, a chorus depth knob, rate increase switch, depth increase switch, and more. It's also quite easy to true bypass one or change the inconvenient 1/8" power jack to a more standard boss type jack. The mods can be done with a rehousing, or they can all fit OK in the small clone's box. Feel free to ask me to change the sound/LFO/features in just about any way imaginable. I'm always up for making things more flexible! Click here to listen to just the chorus tremolo or click here to listen to the chorus tremolo with vibrato.
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For other misc. projects, click here.
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