About Me

Like most people who work on effect pedals, I have a bachelor's degree in history (The Ohio State University, 1995). My bill-paying career is as an editor; I have worked in that capacity on products focused on social studies, adult basic education, career training, reading skills, mathematics, and more. In addition, I enjoy writing on various topics when there's time.

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, I have called Columbus, Ohio home for over twenty years. It's a great place to live, make music, and eat very-thin-crust pizza. I have played in several punk and then rock bands in both cities since I was a teenager.

Areas of continued/purposeless personal research and writing include civil rights (specifically public-school desegregation and busing in Nashville), the 1980s punk scene of Nashville and elsewhere, the John Tyler presidency (1841-1845), the racial and social angles of The Amos 'n' Andy Show, the Great Depression, and twentieth-century American foreign policy.

Why I Began Doing This

My entire pedal-alteration focus began as a result of a mistake. In 1995, a friend gave me a used Boss VB-2 Vibrato pedal. I used it for a while with my old band, then traded it in for $25 store credit at a music store. Around 1999 or so, I decided that I wanted that pedal again, and learned to my horror that they were rare and regularly sold for over $400. As a side effect of my looking for any other more-affordable pitch vibrato pedal (the old “big box” Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory came closest), I began to understand the technical side of modulation pedals and how the vibrato effect could be coaxed out of analog chorus pedals with modification. 

All of that led to my mangling dozens of DOD choruses, flangers, delays, and phasers. For that, then, I thank the music store that got the better end of that VB-2 trade.