Projects & Build Logs

This is the workbench side of Mess O' Pedals - notes, process photos, and write-ups from the gear I build and circuit-bend. Some entries are finished builds, some are half-broken experiments, and a few become pieces you'll find in the Store.

Circuit-Bent Oddities

Electronics that have been cracked open, torn apart, neatly rewired, and churched up: objects making audio they were never meant to make. These show up in the Store on occasion.

Starjammer - pink and purple star-covered toy guitar, circuit-bent with added knobs and switches and candy decorations — **Starjammer** A bent Toys "R" Us Dream Dazzlers guitar - real touch-responsive strings that play the riffs, note-playing buttons, and a whammy bar, with added voltage-starve and echo (depth + feedback) bends, a line out in place of the speaker, and custom pink LEDs. Read the build log »

Bent Brooks - a decorated skull with a crystalline white finish, long black ringlet curls, and an iridescent purple-and-green cap, housing a lo-fi ISD1820 sampler module — **Bent Brooks** A lo-fi ISD1820 sampler in a decorated skull - an ode to Brooks, the singing skeleton from One Piece. Preloaded with his enchanting singsongy laugh, a play button, a pitch-bend knob that drags his *yo-ho-ho* from the depths of the East Blue to the heights of Skypiea. Read the build log »

Loopy Louie - a repurposed Gooey Louie game head with a big nose on a green base, its white googly eyes glowing green from installed LEDs, housing a lo-fi ISD1820 looper — **Loopy Louie** A lo-fi sample-and-loop box with an onboard amp, stuffed into a gutted Gooey Louie game head. With a pitch knob that warps the sample from a gluey groan to a snotty squeal, and two bright green LEDs drilled straight into those big ol googly eyeballs. Read the build log »

Synths & Noise Boxes

Sound circuits built from scratch - hand-wired point-to-point, no PCB. Where the circuit-bent stuff starts as something else, these start as a pile of parts and a schematic.

An Atari Punk Console built dead-bug style inside a translucent Carat playing-card box - an NE556 chip soldered legs-up in the center, four panel-mounted pots and a toggle, a salvaged toy speaker, a 9-volt battery, and hand-run wiring with no circuit board — **Dead-Bug Screamer** The classic NE556 stepped-tone generator, wired dead-bug / point-to-point - no breadboard, no PCB - in a repurposed clear card box. Pitch, Shape, and Volume knobs, a salvaged toy speaker, and a battery pack made from dead vapes. My first dead-bug build, and it worked first try. Read the build log »

Pedals & Glitch Boxes

Circuit-bent toys and hand-wired pedals - fuzz, crunch, and assorted misbehavior. Prototypes land in the Store as they come off the bench, a flat $60 each while they last.

The Cereal Killer prototype pedal - red enclosure with four white knobs and tarot-card skull-in-a-cereal-bowl artwork — **The Cereal Killer** A lo-fi PT2399 delay - warm, gritty echoes into runaway self-oscillation, wrapped in a tarot skull.

Pop Rocks prototype pedal - orange-fizz fixed-wah with Peak, Zone, and Volume knobs — **Pop Rocks** A fixed (parked) wah - dial in one quacky sweet spot with Peak, Zone, and Volume.

The Cat's Pajamas prototype pedal with tarot-card cat artwork — **The Cat's Pajamas** One Volume knob and a tarot cat in charge of the rest.

Solo Fuzz prototype pedal with a single purple knob — **Solo Fuzz** A basic, no-frills fuzz - one chunky purple knob, splatter finish.

Electric Cosmonaut prototype pedal with cartoon cosmonaut artwork — **Electric Cosmonaut** An envelope filter in starfield orange - Attack, Decay, and a Blend toggle, cosmonaut riding shotgun.

Tape Loops

Hand-spliced cassette loops in salvaged shells, photographed on the bench under UV and RGB. Every shell is a recycled commercial tape - gospel, polka, a Christmas comp - so the label only tells you what it used to be, never what's on it now. What's on it now is a random length of tape I picked, spliced to repeat forever: warble, hiss, and all. They turn up in the Store at $12 apiece, and the recipient can always tape right over them.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 014 on a blue strip, recycled from a 1987 Reno and Smiley gospel cassette with the original track titles still printed underneath — **Loop 014** Started life as a 1987 Reno & Smiley gospel tape. What's looping on it now is not gospel. Random splice, tape over it if the spirit moves you.

White cassette shell labeled Loop 018 on a blue strip, originally a tape of Italian favorites with the printed tracklist showing through — **Loop 018** A white shell that used to be Italian standards - Toselli's Serenade, Santa Lucia, the works. The tape inside owes them nothing now.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 020 on a blue strip, recycled from a 1994 Songs The Angels Sing cassette — **Loop 020** Was “Songs The Angels Sing” in a past life. The angels have left the building; what loops now is anyone's guess.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 035 on a blue strip, recycled from a Liberty Records country compilation — **Loop 035** A Liberty Records country comp, stripped for parts. New tape, new splice, zero twang guaranteed.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 037 on a blue strip, recycled from Reba McEntire's It's Your Call cassette — **Loop 037** Reba's “It's Your Call” donated the shell. What's on the loop is, fittingly, your call - record over it whenever.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 044 on a blue strip, recycled from Reba McEntire's Read My Mind cassette — **Loop 044** The shell still says Reba's “Read My Mind.” Don't - there's no reading this one. Just a random loop that repeats until you stop it.

White cassette shell with a pink hand-lettered Drowning Pikmin label and a blue Loop 056 strip — **Drowning Pikmin · Loop 056** Named. Explained via name. A white Canadian shell relabeled by hand - “Drowning Pikmin” is the mood *and* the tracklist. Loops forever; tape over it if you dare.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 059 on a blue strip, recycled from a 1992 Integrity Music scripture cassette — **Loop 059** Used to be a scripture-memory tape from 1992. It has since lost the plot entirely. Random loop, hiss included.

White cassette shell labeled Loop 063 on a blue strip, recycled from a 1986 Wee Sing Bible Songs cassette — **Loop 063** A “Wee Sing Bible Songs” shell from 1986, repurposed with zero reverence. Whatever's on it now is not for the kids.

White cassette shell labeled Loop 071 on a blue strip, recycled from a Polka Polka Polka Vol. II cassette made in Canada — **Loop 071** Three polkas' worth of shell, none of the polka. New tape spliced into a Canadian party-favorites reject.

Clear cassette shell labeled Loop 72 on a blue strip, recycled from a Little Drummer Boy Christmas compilation — **Loop 072** A Christmas comp shell - Little Drummer Boy, Silver Bells, the lot. Out of season and off-script now, and it loops year-round.

Black cassette shell with two pink hand-lettered labels reading An Echo and From Before, recycled from an old concert cassette — **An Echo From Before** Black shell, pink tape, no number - just a name. Salvaged from an old concert cassette and re-spliced into something that only sounds like a memory.

On the Bench

What's in progress and what's coming next.

In Progress Prototype testing & repairs. The first batch of five prototype pedals just went up in the Store - the rest of the pile is getting tested and repaired one at a time.
Planned More drops. As pedals pass the bench test they'll join the Store in small batches, alongside fresh circuit-bent builds and new tape loops.

The Workspace

Where the soldering, splicing, and the occasional small fire happen.

No workspace photos here yet. Drop a few bench / soldering-station shots in and they'll slot into a gallery right here.

Build Videos

The quickest look at what I'm making is on YouTube, where I post build footage and demos.

Watch build videos on YouTube →

Get Build Notes

Want a heads-up when new logs and one-off pedals drop? Email onionmadder@gmail.com with the subject "Mess O' Pedals Drop List."