Brendan Ford

Photos from the Young Widows show at the Monkey House in Winooski.

My entire bass rig has undergone a serious overhaul in the last few months. I am pretty excited about it so I’m setting up this online “gear tour” to show it off a little.

I recently traded my old American made Fender Jazz Bass to a freidn for a USA made G&L L-2000 bass. The L-2000 is a Leo Fender designed bass but it has some of the most interesting and powerful electronics of any bass I have seen. It has two massive active humbucking pickups, one in the “sweet spot” and an other in the bridge. It was three toggle switches; the first is a three position switch for passive electronics, active electronics, or active with a top end boost which give the bass more treble bite, the second toggle control how the magnets in the pickups are arranged position 1 is series and 2 is parallel which gives you the option of sounding like the bass is loaded with single coil pickups or humbuckers, and the third toggle is a three-way position selector allowing you to chose bridge pickup, middle blend, or neck pickup.

The old GK 700RB is out and I have replaced it with a 1972 Ampeg V4b. The V4B is 100 watts of tube power. It’s very loud and very powerful and sounds very vintage. Great amplifier.

Below the V4B is a custom Emperor Cabinets super cab. Its loaded with Eminence bass speakers in a 2×12/4×10 configuration with slot ports on the bottom for some extra low-end punch. This bad boy can be used with the 2×12 and 4×10 together at 4ohms or can be used as two separate cabinets. It handles up to 1400 watts too.

For effects I am using a Boss digital chromatic tuner into a Boss Volume Pedal then through a Blackout Effectors Musket fuzz after which the signal splits, one half is dry (no effects) and the second half is run through a Boss GEB-7 EQ pedal and a vintage reissue ProCo Rat distortion. The two signal paths are brought back together and run through a EHX Worm Modulation Multieffect box set to phaser and a BBE Optostomp optical compressor pedal to even everything out and prevent unwanted peaks.

This is a very loud and very heavy rig and will hopefully be seeing the inside of a recording studio shortly.

I recently got a commission to create a new logo identity for Rittenhouse, an organization that works with both criminal offenders  and victims.

I also created the day one flier for Rock The Coliseum, a free music festival and craft fair in Mississauga Ontario, Canada.

Many more updates coming soon…. here is a hint.

I have been working on some artwork and design for a new client that runs an art exhibition in Mississauga Ontario called The Underground Garage sale.

Earlier options include:

as for the content of the flier, the art is in the early stages.

I will update more as this project comes together.

I built a Fuzz distortion stompbox this week.

Innocuous package

Bag of guts and a box.

This is what a fuzzbox is made of

The deal with this is that I bought an “almost complete” Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi kit with plans to modify the circuit to make it more like the Sovtek produced pedals of the late 80’s and 90’s. That fuzzed out Dinosaur Jr., NIN, Smashing Pumpkins tone.

They sent most of the extra parts I ordered. I was missing 2 capacitors and a resistor, just enough to halt my build until I could get to radioshack. Seeing as I worked on this late at night, it ruined my evening.

Pictures of the build:

Mostly Completed PCB and Semi-wired Knobs and Jacks.

Snakepit.

Actual build time on this was not more than a few hours, with the worst part being the last bit of wiring. Lots of soldering in tight spaces. However due to the missing parts and everything start to finish time was about a week. I finished it tonight around 7:00 EST.

The thing sounds absolutely gorgeous on a bass. Smooth fuzz distortion, all the low end intact, really good note clarity. On a guitar with humbuckers this thing rips. You can go to a sludgy stoner metal tone on the bass end of the tone knob, roll it up to about 11:00 and you have that fat Hendrixy tone, at 1:00 you start getting into some trebley buzz, think any Dinosaur Jr. solo on You’re Living All Over me, and when its maxed in the treble position you are into industrial tones similar to those found on NIN’s Downward Spiral.

Here it is chillin’ in its new home.

First effect in the chain after the tuner

I love my pedal-board

I plan to make a few of these for my friends in the coming weeks. Hopefully I can figure out some manufacturing techniques to make the next couple of builds a little faster.

I foresee myself building quite a few more stompboxes.

Third part in the series I’m working on.

Drawing #1: The Ocean

Second in a series of work

Drawing #2: Space

First in a series I am working on.

Drawing #3: Stars

Nothing special just some patterns I intend to use on some upcoming projects.

Drawing One

Drawing Two

Drawing Three

That’s it for now.

So for Halloween our boss let us dress up. So I went as Shooter, simple good ol’ boy from Georgia. basically i was rocking this hat, this awesome Adirondack moustache, a flannel shirt, and jorts (those are cut off jean shorts for those of you who don’t speak hipster). Good times. I need to shave this off quick, before i get attached to it’s redneck charm…