#diy pedal board

[technician-the]

this is the pcb I layed out for my totem bass fuzz. Its a hybrid germanium/silicon fuzz, with a 2 knob bass/treble tone control.

It must sound pretty good because Ive sold every one I've ever built.

[laidee-flegman]

30 cute date-night ideas that won't break the bank

Picnic in the Park: Grab a blanket, some snacks, and enjoy the great outdoors.

DIY Pizza Night: Make your own pizzas with all the toppings you love.

Netflix & Chill (Literally): Build a fort and binge-watch your favourite shows.

Board Game Battle: Dust off those old board games or grab a new one for some friendly competition.

Stargazing: Head to a spot away from city lights and get lost in the stars.

Food Truck Frenzy: Hit up some local food trucks for a mini taste adventure.

Artistic Adventure: Try your hand at painting or pottery together.

Hiking Excursion: Explore nature trails and enjoy each other's company.

Bike Ride: Pedal your way through the neighbourhood or a scenic trail.

Trivia Night: Find a local pub or join an online trivia game for some brainy fun.

Thrift Store Treasure Hunt: Seek out unique finds in a thrift store.

Ice Cream Sundae Bar: Get creative with toppings and make your own sundaes.

Movie Marathon: Pick a theme and binge-watch a series of movies.

Outdoor Movie Night: Set up a makeshift outdoor theatre in your backyard.

Cook-Off Challenge: Have a friendly competition to see who can cook the best dish.

Bookstore Browse: Explore a bookstore together and pick out books for each other.

Karaoke Night: Belt out your favourite tunes at a karaoke joint or in the living room.

Farmers Market Date: Discover fresh produce and unique goodies at a local farmers market.

Mini Golf: Putt your way through a mini-golf course for some light-hearted fun.

Home Spa Night: Pamper yourselves with DIY spa treatments.

Volunteer Together: Give back to the community by volunteering your time.

Fondue Feast: Dip your favourite foods into a gooey pot of melted goodness.

Coffee Shop Chat: Grab a cup of joe and have a cosy conversation.

Beach Day: Enjoy the sun, sand, and each other's company.

Photo Scavenger Hunt: Create a list of items to find and snap pics together.

Binge-Worthy Podcasts: Listen to interesting podcasts while chilling at home.

Outdoor Exercise Class: Join a free outdoor yoga or fitness class.

DIY Sushi Night: Roll your own sushi for a delicious and interactive dinner.

Visit a Free Museum Day: Check out local museums on free admission days.

Fishing Fun: If you're near water, try your luck with a fishing adventure.

[fuzzkaizer]

Dazatronyx - black russian

"Eliminate the tag strips, go pure PTP, will eliminate the ugly bolts on the enclosure face.

- that's exactly what I used to think (pure P2P over tagstrip). Even a turret board lets you at least have guided control over parts placement. Tagstrip also means you have generic antennas/nodes floating everywhere, whether you want them or not.

It's definitely not a build of sensibility. Especially with the big ugly Frakenstein bolts. I used to work on tagstrip in a tube amp factory and didn't like it. It's really grown on me over the years, though.

Some point-to-point work looks really pretty, but also is very much a downgrade in reliability to a PCB. You need to secure the parts mechanically. Otherwise, you get a lot more microphonics. I also like to imagine what happens when you drop a pedal, and there's lots of inertia and all the parts shift without mechanical support

Even gravity plays a part! All the parts are "hanging" but sometimes you flip the pedal in transport etc and parts over time lean a tiny, tiny one way. You can only bend a wire, say, a dozen times back and forth before it snaps. Little stresses over years of repetitions add up.

Yeah, the aesthetic is trying to look intentionally DIY. Like an old guy made it from the parts at the shop around the corner. Could have used something more dressy/discrete, which also wouldn't capture boot mud in that little well."

s.a. dazatronyx - biiig fuzz - A big muff circuit for the person who has everything

cred: facebook.com/Darron Thornbury; Darron Thornbury

[walks-the-ages]

Can you please imagine for me if the 2022 reboot was actually about telling a continued story from the original series instead of capitalizing on cheap nostalgia.

If the writers actually cared about telling a good story and telling it well.

Can you imagine if Sam Leaped into a young Ben Song to save his life from some childhood disaster and Ben carried that memory of the Future and the Waiting Room with him through his entire life, knowing that a complete stranger saved his life, and dedicating his life towards mastering quantum physics and, with an entire message board and forum of similar past Leapees,

an entire team of former Leapees sneakily joins/ infiltrates various government agencies until they've managed to convince the relevant politicians that reopening Project Quantum Leap is super duper profitable, actually , and that they could *totally* send people into Leaps to gather top secret intelligence information from enemies of the state and find out who assassinated xyz and etc,

all while acting like they're complete professional strangers to each other ..... Up until the first unmonitored day at the New Project Quantum Leap 2 , where they all immediately break character to show that they're a bunch of people from all walks of life who have dedicated their lives to finding and bringing home the person who saved them and their loved ones so selflessly with no thought of reward except for the hope that the next Leap will be the Leap home.

And the team here is determined to make that hope a reality, each with their shared history with Sam, either directly being past Leapees themselves or closely connected to someone who was; perhaps a friend, or loved one, who was Leaped into to change history for the better, and team member found out and want to help Sam the way he helped them/their loved ones?

Like, just imagine how many people out there, how many lives Sam has touched. How many people there are in the world that were personally impacted by Sam's actions? Heck, there even be a lot of fun villains thrown into the mix because Sam Leaped into shitty people to save the people around them from the Leapee, like the guy with the gun, or the cheating sleazebag with a million wives and kids-- throw some vengeful Leapees into the interpersonal drama and you've got grade A concepts to work from right then and there, a team with dozens more in the background working to get Sam home and make some kind of contact with him, setting up their own DIY hologram chambers at home with tinfoil rooms and sci-fi projector so they can sit in there with a laptop and look at wiki pages and digital history libraries to get info to Sam to try to help him on the newest Leap, just.

Literally anything that actually has any proper, Heartfelt connection to the original show and it's characters.

A love letter to Quantum Leap and it's meaning, instead of just trying to profit off the IP.

Also it would keep the fun scifi 80s aesthetic because know how to have fun in this house. Not just generic 2022, give me flashing earrings and light up pronoun pins with matching gas pedals for your car.

[raitobie]

🎁 and 🎟️ for the ask game! — canon-can-fight-me :)

Thanks so much for the ask!! 💜

🎁 What present would you get your f/o? What do they get you?

I like to buy Light cool handy trinkets and gadgets, appliances and electronics. Anything that ends up being useful or convenient for him to carry around even to work or to keep in his desk, he likes those kinds of things a lot! I also head-canon that he likes model building kits, so I get whatever nice ones I see and we often assemble them together. We have a collection of kits that we keep in our bedroom. I also like to draw him and give them to him after, and I write him songs and play them for him. He gets much more quiet and shy when I do.

For me, a lot of stationary. I love pens, notebooks, crafting supplies. He goes to the arts and crafts store, souvenir shops and sees things he think I would love and gets them for me to surprise me. Light can also sew, so he makes me embroidery hoops and I go absolutely ballistic for them because ???? Imagining Light sewing flowers and ducks intensely at his desk in private is amazing, actually. He’s damn proud of himself for it, too. We hang them up in our home and I brag about them to guests lmao.

We also share guitar and gear as a hobby, so one of the best gifts he’s ever given me and one that becomes his own avid hobby later on is assembling effects pedals for me! He tried it and put together and painted me a DIY fuzz pedal kit with a doodle of a cat meowing on it his first attempt, and I’ve kept it on my board ever since and adore it.

🎟️ What would a movie date with your f/o look like?

We like to watch martial arts, action and thrillers together as well as more film buff/critically acclaimed movies. We go to the theatres sometimes, but often it’s nothing too special and is just us laying on the couch and watching something before bed. Light tries to get me to watch horror films like Saw because I’m a chicken and he likes to tease me for it, but he ends up feeling bad at how upset I get and respects and even finds it endearing that my heart is too weak for anything too gory 🥲 the irony is though that I LOVE the John Wick franchise and he wouldn’t quite understand that lol

[lordsintacks]

Been forgetting to share this here. Unfortunately, Shelter has now closed and this will be go down as the last event we got to throw there. Thanks for the memories. You’ll be remembered as one of the most badass venues in Nagoya for your true punk rock DIY spirit. Now, enjoy the read if you have time. It’s that time of year. The leaves have fallen and the spirits have risen. We all look forward to that special part of the year when the dead may walk, and this year a very special tradition of Nagoya live music has been reanimated… HallowFest!

Due to the global pandemic, HallowFest has been dormant since it last took place in 2019. That particular edition featured the likes of TROYL, Ghost of Matsubara, Bend’s, Sugar Riser, and Mosaic. Originally intended as a fun Halloween-themed local show, it became dedicated to the headliner TROYL’s beloved bassist, Isamu, who had recently passed away. It remains one of the most packed and festive nights that Shelter Rock Bar has ever seen.

With COVID restrictions easing in 2022, Small World and Shelter felt it was time to bring the event back along with the original co-organizer Tom Fallon’s blessing. Joshidai is a notorious nexus of Nagoya’s nightlife where Shelter stands as one of very few rock bars. Though in a rock setting, HallowFest aims to showcase a variety of Nagoya’s finest local acts.

On this evening, the schedule was divided into two sections: three solo artists and three bands. With the solo artists playing first, the acts of this night showed us a range of heart-felt, comedic, and experimental tunes that Nagoya has to offer. Opening the show was Hiroki who welcomed the crowd with original acoustic songs draped over by his unique song-writing and signature voice.

Next was May Chu Chu, a comedy legend whose Small World debut was long overdue. Known by some as “Aimee Clark” or “that British lady who’s always on stage somewhere”, she had the house dying of laughter with her staple parody songs that cleverly present observations anyone living in Japan can relate to. May Chu Chu always delivers, not just in terms of funny songwriting, but she also proves her worth as a strong vocalist.

Rounding out the solo acts was S. Shah. Many might know Steven Shah as the guitarist and singer of the local psychedelic stoner rock band, Blasting Rod. Though he wasn’t with his full band tonight, he was armed with a special pedal board and Orange amp that filled the house with a wall of sound that took us on an abstract journey into our next section of the night.

To start off our chapter of live bands was Lostnote. Lostnote are a group of Filipino rock guys living in Aichi who have found a home at bars like Shelter doing what they love most, playing music. These pinoys had everyone smiling and grooving to reggae tunes for the first half of their set, until they kicked it up into sixth gear with some 90s rock covers. A moshpit even erupted as the crowd couldn’t hold back for “Enter Sandman”.

Following Lostnote was the sensational pop/R&B/soul group Cheapwine Squad who surprised everyone by showing up dressed as six different versions of Spider-Man. If you can recognize the different Spider suits, kudos to you. You’re a true nerd. They blew the roof off with a wide range of recognizable, fun covers as well as their new original tracks like “Do You Want a Good Time”.

Of course Shelter was most packed with the headliner Crocodile Bambie. Their sound can be described as progressive doom metal with dirty stoner rock riffs. They are one of the most legendary bands of the local Nagoya metal scene and they don’t play often. Singer and bassist Yoshi Yasui was just portrayed by actor Yuma Kato in a film across theaters called “鋼音色の空の彼方へ“, centered around the history of his other band Outrage. Some fans came as far as Yokohama and the band did not disappoint. Even though they played one man short of their usual four-piece, they delivered with their groovy licks, their classic fuzzy guitar tone, and their ever-precise musicianship. They proved this night as they do every other night why they are kings of the city.

The real winners of the night, though, were the audience who got to drink loads while meeting and mingling with one another and enjoying Shelter’s signature Brazilian cuisine. There were Japanese fans of live music along with an equal number of foreigners from all around the world there for a good time. Who do you want to see at HallowFest next year?

[teardownit]

Pi Extension board "PiEBridge"

"PiEBridge" is an extension board for microcomputers similar to the Raspberry Pi (Pi), which is designed to be a helper for the DIY-maker in all his activities - Pi, together with PiEBridge, can perform a variety of functions:

universal programmer

software and hardware debugger for target systems

PCB fusion furnace controller

smart-home controller

as well as do many other useful things

You might say Pi already knows how to do these useful things, so why does it need more extension boards? Here is the answer to that question:

PiEBridge transforms the Pi's 40-pin I/O subsystem into more practical 6/10-pin lines for many applications and provides signal integrity for these lines

adds the simplest controls and indications (button, pedal, and LEDs)

has a programmable 2.5...5V power supply for external devices

"Naked" Pi is usable in two extreme configurations - either just a box controlled externally via SSH or a desktop computer with a monitor, keyboard, and often even a mouse. In addition to these typical use cases, PiEBridge allows you to use the Pi as a standalone software automaton to perform random repeating tasks with minor interactive operator participation.

PiEBridge is plugged into the Pi extension connector (compatible with family models with a 40-pin connector) and installed vertically. For this purpose, the Pi case (if available) must have a corresponding cutout on top.

When used as a programmer, PiEBridge can work with most known 6-pin and 10-pin connectors, and GND and Vcc can be randomly connected to their pins to ensure compatibility.

The programmable power supply for external devices is programmable on/off and programmable in the range of 2.5 - 5V with an accuracy of about 2%.

Deb-packages for PiEBridge have been created and compiled into a repository:

general-purpose, providing configs and libraries for working with controls and indications, as well as with the power supply

special purpose, e.g., applications for MCU and FPGA programming and debugging

auxiliary purpose, for example, for repeating operations automation (like mass-production function for firmware flashing). In this case, the user can use settings that provide autonomous launching of the necessary software when the Pi is turned on, and then (after finishing its work) its simple parking and shutdown by pressing and holding the button for a long time.

metapackages, which cause installation of necessary software and configs for the selected role and allow to simplify preparation for work

[foldback]

I wrapped up a little project tonight. I built a version of this DIY Ikea pedal board that a friend sent me a while back. I made a couple of alterations and included a velcro strap underneath to keep the cables tidy (because messy cables are the bane of my existence).

Anyway, I'd say this is a marked improvement over the cardboard box they've been sitting on for the past couple of weeks. And much more visually pleasing on the floor next to the guitars. Very pleased.

[lifeswhatimlivin]

I am reminded of a story I recently read on Facebook. This is from Aaron Paluzzi.

“I’m going to blow your mind here because I used nextdoor to completely f#ck over Charter Spectrum.

6 years ago everyone in my city was pissed with charters poor service and complaining we couldn't get better service. So I posted "Hey, if no one will do it for us, why not DIY a fiber network"

I got literal universal support. The city council created a committee for municipal broadband and because I started the brushfire I was made chair. 2020 we turned in our report and thanks to covid showing our more conservative board members exactly how shit charter was they voted to move forward with municipal broadband. We're currently contracted with sifi networks to become a open network fiber city.

A side bonus At&t stomped on the go pedal and installed a fiber network, 123 dot net (a local provider) is doing the same. So at the end of all this we will have 3 independent fiber networks and 6-10 isps all competing for our business. Charter wound up crying in their Cheerios.

If not for nextdoor I don't think I could have pulled this off.

Hey to anyone who's interested in my committee's work product to use it for your city here's the URL!!!! I volunteered my time for all this and get paid in the tears of Comcast/charter/at&t/time Warner execs.

https://www.fhgov.com/government-business/current-programs-initiatives/municipal-broadband-committee ”

Amazing. Inspiring. Go forth and be the annoyance you wish to see for predatory companies.

How cable monopolists tricked conservatives into shooting themselves in the face

No matter how hard conservative culture-war cannon-fodder love big business, it will never love them back. Take network policy, where rural turkeys in Red State America keep on voting for Christmas, then profess outrage when Old Farmer Comcast gets to sharpening his ax.

For two years, the FCC has been hamstrung because MAGA Senators refuse to confirm Gigi Sohn, leaving the Commission with only four commissioners. What do the GOP have against Sohn? Well, to hear them tell of it, she’s some kind of radical Marxist who will undermine free enterprise and replace the internet with tin cans and string.

The reality is that Sohn favors policies that will specifically and substantially benefit the rural Americans whose senators who refuse to confirm her. For example, Sohn favors municipal fiber provision, which low-information conservatives have been trained to reflexively reject: “Get your government out of my internet!”

Boy, are they ever wrong. The private sector sucks at providing network connectivity, especially in rural places. The cable companies and phone companies have divided up the USA like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” setting out exclusive, non-competing territories that get worse service than anyone else in the wealthy world. Americans pay some of the highest prices for the lowest speeds of any OECD nation.

For ISPs, bad service is a feature, not a bug. When Frontier went bankrupt in 2020, we got to look at its books, which is how we discovered that the company booked the one rural customers with no alternative as “assets” because they could be charged more for slower, less reliable service:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

We also learned that Frontier had calculated that it could make an extra billion in profit by bringing fiber to three million households, but chose not to, because it would take a decade to realize those profits, and during that time, executives’ stock options would decline in value as analysts punished them for making long-term bets.

We can bring fiber to rural America, and when we do, amazing things happen. McKee, Kentucky — one of the poorest places in America — used federal grants and its New Deal era rural electrification co-op to bring fiber to every household, using a mule called Ole Bub to run it over difficult mountain passes, and the result was an economic miracle:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

The only Americans who consistently say they like their ISPs are people who live in the 700+ small towns that have run their own fiber, mostly in Red States:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

Small wonder that rural Americans prefer muni fiber to commercial ISPs’ offerings. When Trump’s FCC Chair Ajit Pai gave them billions in subsidies to improve rural connectivity, the monopolists spent it pulling new copper lines, not fiber — which would have been thousands of times faster.

Given all that, it takes a lot to convince rural Americans that municipal fiber is bad for them. Specifically, it takes disinformation. More specifically, it takes the lie that municipal fiber would result in “government interference” in users’ communications.

Boy, is this ever wrong. Private companies are free to set their own content moderation policies, and can discriminate against any viewpoint they wish. They can and do remove “lawful but awful” speech like racist diatribes, vaccine denial, election denial, and other conservative fever-dreams.

Contrast that with local governments, who are bound by the First Amendment, and prohibited from practicing “viewpoint discrimination.” This means that if a local government allows one viewpoint on a subject, they are generally required to allow all other viewpoints on that subject. This is how we get the Satanic Temple’s excellent stunts, like demanding that towns that display Christian icons on public lands also display statues of Baphomet right next to them.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639726472/satanic-temple-protests-ten-commandments-monument-with-goat-headed-statue

When your town government runs 100gb fiber into your basement or garage, it will have a much harder time blocking you from, say, running a Mastodon instance devoted to election denial or GhostGun production than your commercial ISP will. Convincing American conservatives to hate municipal broadband was a gigantic self-own:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/17/turner-diaries-fanfic/#1a-fiber

Even worse is what rural America has been sold instead of municipal fiber: Starlink, the My Pillow of broadband. Starlink sells itself as blazing-fast satellite broadband, but conspicuously fails to talk up the fact that every Starlink user in your neighborhood competes for the same wireless spectrum as you, so the service can only get slower and more expensive over time:

https://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/starlink-nov-2022-data-caps.html

There’s been a concerted smear campaign against Sohn, and one of the major talking points is that Sohn is anti-cop because she sits on EFF’s board, and EFF wants to place limits on police access to commercial surveillance data. Which is wild, because one of EFF’s demands is limits on geofenced reverse warrants, where cops ask Google to reveal the identity of everyone who was in a specific place at a specific time. If you’ve heard about geofenced warrants lately, it was probably in the context of conservative outrage at their use in rounding up the January 6 insurrectionists.

Now, the primary use of these is to target Black Lives Matter demonstrators and other protestors, and EFF advocates for the normal Fourth Amendment rights that everyone is guaranteed in the Constitution. Conservative pundits didn’t give a damn about geofenced warrants until the J6 affair, and now they do — but they still insist that Sohn should be disqualified from sitting on the FCC because she shares their outrage at the abuse of private surveillance data by law enforcement.

All this raises the question: why have all these Red State senators made it their mission in life to block the appointment of an FCC commissioner who would deliver so many benefits to their constituents? It’s hard to say, of course, but Luke Goldstein has a suggestion in today’s American Prospect:

https://prospect.org/politics/democratic-majority-at-the-fcc-still-blocked/

“A torrent of lobbying money from the telecom industry has flooded Washington to block Sohn’s arrival at the FCC. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and T-Mobile doled out over $23 million lobbying Washington this year.”

And why would these companies spend millions to block Sohn from sitting on the Commission? Because she would help the Democratic majority pass policies that make broadband cheaper and faster for America, especially rural America where costs are highest and service is worst, and this will limit the telco monopolists’ profits.

There’s a new Democratic senate majority that’ll sit in 2023, so perhaps Sohn will finally be seated and start delivering relief to all Americans, even the turkeys who can’t stop voting for Christmas.

[Image ID: A hunter in camo firing a rifle whose barrel has been bent back to point at his own face. A muzzle flash emerges from the barrel. The hunter wears a MAGA hat. Behind the hunter is a telephone pole with many radiating lines. In the bottom left corner of the image is a 1950s-style illustration of a broadly smiling salesman, pointing at a box that is emblazoned with the logo for ALEC.]

[holdtruecustom]

This was a fun one! My buddy Heince had this kickass vintage suitcase, and he wanted to use it to hold a custom pedalboard.

I picked up some poplar wood to keep it light weight, rounded the ends of the side walls to fit in the suitcase layout, chamfered the edges of the slats to give a cool design, and finished it with some Early American stain, along with 4 coats of polyurethane topcoat.

Now he just has to add some Velcro straps, hook up some pedals, and shred some sweet solos.

[technician-the]

This is the PCB of a little octave pedal I designed based on a green ringer.

Those of you who familiar with that pedal will notice that my version has 4 switches, and then green ringer has only bypass.

In my design the switches are boost (3 positions), input and output tone (hi boost and lo cut, 3 positions each), and a germanium/silicon switch. (the bypass is optional, and mounted off board)

there are 54 total control positions, but because the switches are very independent it is quick to find the one that is most suitable.

the tone control is a unique design the uses variable resonance to get a aggressive high end boost without the hiss that is typically associated.

this has about 3 times as much circuitry as the historical green ringer, but I was able to save space by integrating the input and output buffers into the tone controls, so the design is actually very efficient for the number of features it offers.

I like this little thing, but its been too weird for other people I showed it too, so I'm looking at integrating it as part of a more conventional looking octave fuzz.

[s3rtx]

Almost there!! Here you are the S3RTX Amp Emulation Pedalboard fully functioning. It has been a long way to get here... It contains:

- Asus EEEPc running Guitar Rig Player 5 - 7″ Touch screen + numpad for Guitar Rig control - AKAI LDP8 USB Midi interface that controls 8 Guitar Rig effects, including analog 8 knobs - 3 USB pedals for Reverb, Delay and Boost - Zoom G1Xon - 006 Mooer amp emulator - Mooer Groove Looper with 1) looper and 2) drum emulator

[amuletsmusic]

really liking this setup of my pedalboard lately, might swap out a few pedals, but for the most part I feel like I have finally found a good order and flow.

[fishboytech]

Hello! I recently bought the Ibanez echo shifter es3 & I am really happy with it! ~ however there is still no option for completely killing the dry signal. Upon research I came across your mod from a couple of years ago that achieves exactly that on the es2, so now I wanted to ask you if you have any experience with the newer version or how you figured out the circuit board & how you ‘read’ from which resistor exactly the dry signal gets mixed into the main output? I don’t have much experience with reading smd & I don’t want to damage my pedal :/ I would appreciate any advice, thanks in advance :))

Hey, thanks for the question. First, I’ll say I don’t have any experience with the newer ES3 pedal. To find where the dry signal is, I would start by looking near the output jack. There will probably be a TL072 chip (as you can see in one of the pics in my post about the mod, which I’ll paste below), or maybe another dual opamp chip, which is acting as an output summing amp (summing the wet and dry signals to create the output of the pedal). Look for a pair of SMD resistors of the same value near there, one that carries the wet signal to the summing pin of the opamp, and the other that carries the dry signal to the summing pin of the opamp. https://fishboytech.tumblr.com/post/82239949806/ibanez-es2-100-wet-mod To “read” which signal is appearing at a given circuit board node, you want an audio probe with a high impedance input. For example, I use this Audio Sniffer I built from a kit (which is unfortunately not available): http://www.openmusiclabs.com/store1/audio-sniffer-store/index.html If you search for "Audio Probe Tester” you’ll find some DIY projects to build something similar. It will let you listen to what’s happening at each node of the circuit. It’ll take some exploration, but with patience you should be able to find the pre-summing dry signal node that you want. TIP: Make sure, when you’re grounding one end of the summing resistor, that you ground the end that’s AWAY from the summing opamp... otherwise, you’ll be grounding out the wet signal too!

[beautiful-and-terrible]

dazed ‘n’ confused (part 1)

A/N: Literally this is just a combination of frustration and gender envy I have for rodrick heffley. both characters are 18 :)

Ship: rodrick heffley x OFC

Warnings: none in this part, probably NSFW in later chapters

---

Nicole had never had a more boring summer.

She and her family, (Mom, Dad, and two younger sisters) had moved to this rinky-dink town in April, and Nicole squeezed in two months of school without making any friends before summer hit in a disgusting, sweltering mess of dry lawns and humid nights.

She managed to get a job life-guarding, and that was the highlight of her days through July and August. Her initial blistering sunburn on the tops of her feet and legs turned into a nice tan, and she usually walked the two miles from her house to the pool, so she stayed in good shape (minus the five or six ice-pops she would eat during her shifts).

Mainly, the reason she enjoyed life-guarding so much was because her neighbor, Rodrick Heffley, would come to the pool almost every day and stay until closing time (which also happened to be the end of Nicole’s shift). She tried not to think too much into it.

Nicole wouldn’t usually be attracted to boys like Rodrick. He was loud, and generally harassed the other kids in the pool, and splashed the old ladies when he cannon-balled off the diving board. He and his friends were always goofing off and violating pool rules. Nicole blew her whistle more times for him than she did for anyone else. Every time she did, she would point at him silently, and slowly give him a thumbs down.

And every time, he would give her a salute back and a shit-eating grin. It made her heart flutter funnily, and she would glower at him from behind her sunglasses.

Still, Nicole only worked at the pool four days a week - that meant her Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays were all abysmally, utterly free. Nicole tried to do things that made her happy - she practiced bass, and even a little guitar, and learned a few songs by heart. She redecorated her room, twice. 

From her window, she could occasionally see Rodrick pass by in his attic room - never anything indecent of course, but it always made her tummy feel funny to think of him, in his room, doing Rodrick things. She knew he was in a band, and played the drums - the whole block could hear their band practice on Friday nights. It was a little cringe, she knew, but she moved her bed under the window so she could glimpse his shadow when he walked by, coltish and gangly as it was.

She wanted to know more about him though - his favorite song, what he put on his burgers, even what his sheets looked like (which she blushed to think about. Get a grip.)

One blisteringly hot Thursday in August, Nicole decided to bike to work instead of walking. It would take less time, and would hopefully generate a little breeze to cool her off instead of trudging along on the soft asphalt. And, of course, right as she was about to turn off her street, her tire blew.

“Are you shitting me?” Nicole said under her breath, moving her long hair out of her eyes to look at what could’ve possibly punctured her tire. 

As she knelt down, a voice called “Need some help?” from behind her.

She turned to see Rodrick on his own bike, standing on the pedals and arms braced in front of him on the handle bars. He was wearing cargo shorts and a DIY tank top, obviously an old t-shirt with the arms cut off. Nicole’s eyes were drawn to his toned brown arms and the slip of torso she could see. She swallowed heavily before replying.

“Yeah, stupid tire blew out. Do you have a spare?” she asked, not really thinking about it. She didn’t know why she felt so comfortable asking Rodrick for help. They had never really talked before - only passing on the street, raising a hand to each other in greeting. The only other consistent interaction they had was Nicole reprimanding Rodrick for pouring cherry slushies in the kiddie pool.

“For sure - follow me. I'm Rodrick, by the way,” he said. "I know who you are - everyone at school told me to stay the hell away from you," Nicole teased, and began to follow Rodrick back toward his house, Nicole carrying her gimp bike over her shoulders and Rodrick walking his bike beside her.

"And all my friends said to avoid Nicole Tagliaferi like the plague,"

"It's Tagliani, dipshit. It's Italian."

"Sure, sure, whatever," Rodrick said teasingly, before turning to look at her, “You like lifeguarding?”. She could tell he was trying to make conversation, and it made a small secret smile appear on her lips.

“It’s alright - when you aren’t making trouble for me,” she replied, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. She saw his signature devilish grin appear, white teeth flashing.

“But otherwise, you’d just be sitting in the hot sun all day, watching old ladies do aqua-cize or whatever they call it.”

“Do you mean water aerobics?” Nicole laughed, trying not to let her mirth get away from her and let out a snort of amusement.

“Exactly. At least I bring something good-looking to the table,” Rodrick preened, jumping on his bike and riding it up the last leg of his drive way. Nicole followed him into the open garage - it smelled as most garages do, of rubber and dust and wood projects that the men of the family have yet to finish.

Nicole watched as Rodrick moved some boxes aside and reached up to grab a spare bike tire off the wall - her gaze slipped down to see his shirt ride up over his hip bones, revealing a flat stomach and a dark happy trail. Her mouth went dry, and she became increasingly aware of how hot the back of her neck felt, even in the dim shade of the garage.

“Let me grab a wrench and I can get started. You want anything to drink? Coke, lemonade?”

“Coke sounds good - thanks,” Nicole replied after a moment, still recovering from her earlier lapse of concentration.

While she waited, Nicole decided it wouldn’t be the worst thing to look for some music - she found an old radio in the corner and found her favorite classic rock channel. Luckily, they happened to be playing Led Zeppelin, and one of Nicole’s favorites, too. The slow, wailing guitar guided her hips as she started to dance a little around the garage. Being the nosy busy-body she was, Nicole had no qualms about letting herself get comfortable in other peoples houses. She was always looking in boxes and admiring little trinkets, imagining what it would be like to live there. Not that there was anything particularly interesting in the garage besides Rodrick’s drum set.

She swayed over to the shiny instruments and picked up the sticks, sliding around the back to the seat and beginning to try and replicate the beat from the song. 

“Sorry, neighbor, there's only room for one hot drummer in this band,” Rodrick said as he came back in the garage. Nicole stopped playing immediately, feeling flustered at being caught and simultaneously being called “hot”.

“Is that the noise I hear coming from this garage? You call that music?” 

Rodrick rolled his eyes, handing her the ice-cold coke. “You sound like my Dad. Let me guess - you listen to Taylor Swift?”

Nicole shrugged, taking a sip of her coke. “Taylor Swift is fine. So is classic rock, and nu-metal, and Mozart. I’m not picky.”

Rodrick gave her a funny look, wandering over to her bike and beginning to unscrew the washers from the flat tire.

“So what's your favorite classic rock band, then?”

“The same as many others, I suppose. Zeppelin, AC/DC, the occasional Metallica. My dad raised me on Rob Zombie and Bob Marley, and my mom learned more toward The Beatles and Carly Simon.”

Rodrick stopped what he was doing to look back at her, his mouth slightly agape. Nicole felt a swell of smugness at flooring this over-confident boy with her knowledge of music he obviously thought was “superior”. 

“Loded Diper was originally a Motley Crue cover band, did you know?”

Nicole hid a laugh behind another sip of coke. “No, I didn’t know that. I’m assuming now you write your own songs?”

Rodrick blushed, turning his gaze back to the task of fitting the new tire onto the frame of the bike. “Yeah, I dabble in song writing. Mostly the chords, I’m shit with lyrics.”

“That’s a good skill. It takes practice to learn how music sounds good together. You can’t just throw random chords together and expect it to sound good.”

“You talk like you know music,” Rodrick said, looking over his shoulder at Nicole. 

“Yeah, I dabble.” Nicole replied, throwing his own words back at him. Rodrick tightened the last screw on the tire and reattached the chain.

“There. Good as new,” he said, swinging the bike back around toward Nicole. She reached for the seat and the handlebars at the same time, and without thinking about where she placed her hands, ended up putting them right over Rodrick’s. It only lasted for a moment, but she swore she could feel all the air leave the room. Her eyes met his liquid dark ones. 

“Thanks,” she said breathlessly, and hopped on her bike without another word, coasting down the driveway and pedaling as nonchalantly and quickly as she could toward the pool. 

Rodrick didn’t follow her. She wished that he had.

[eddie-gluskin-and-i]

Picture this: you’ve got me strapped to the ceremony table. You’re getting ready to cock and ball torture me with some good foreplay, rambling about our children and our marriage (even though you know no one ever listens and you just sound like a particularly down bad lunatic) I wish I could be romantic and say that I was paying attention, but I probably wasn’t because I don’t really care.

You move to analyze my chest, to size up the flesh and murmur about the operation. Your expression is full with focus, as if you’d done this very thing so many times, you could see the cuts in my skin before you’d even made them. You notice, with a quick glance to my face, that I seem indifferent to my soon to happen diy sex change. You allow none of your irritation to show, instead grinning wider and leaning in, to see if you could intimidate me by tearing away my personal space. I lick your cheek, a thick trail of spit and blood dripping from the bottom of your jaw to just under your eye when my tongue pulls away and back behind filthy teeth.

Your move.

“Filthy crazed lunatic,” Eddie growls in a dangerously low voice. You can see his anger flashing in his eyes. “We’ll make this quick and painful then.”

He pulls back, wipes off the trail of filth running along his cheek, and stomps on the pedal underneath the table. The buzz saw comes roaring to life. There’s a slit in the wooden planking from where the saw has already cut. He’s done this before.

“Normally I’d do this with a knife. Much more precise and easier to control.”

He grunts as he starts pulling the board, dragging you inch by inch to the vicious rotating teeth of the saw.

“I’ve only ever used this setup once before, for a very special darling.” He pauses to haul the board forward again. Only a few more rest between blade and skin.

“But you, my dear, are quite the special one too. Tell me, would you prefer it on three or after?”