A big knob on an ART Proverb 200, and who wouldn't want that? 😉

OK, we have shipping to the US up and running again via our site shop with 10% prepaid tariff charges added at the checkout. No updates for etsy or ebay yet as for some reason multi billion dollar companies don't seem that interested in adding what must be fairly simple functionality.

Another contender for the worlds most ludicrous packaging award. A zoom 1201 shipped here in a recycled rubbish sack, by an ebay seller that seems to have been absolutely baffled by the concept of how a bag operates.

There are few things more annoying than spending hours taking and editing pictures, putting together a load of 'fascinating' blurb, calculating worldwide postage costs, and assembling a Reverb listing, all so some bastard goes and buys it within 20 minutes! Cheers Chris! 😉 #firstworldproblems

We've got a modded Zoom 1201 up on our Reverb shop! Shipping to the US is available, but the US shipping charge is fairly high because it includes pre paid tariff charges. In theory US buyers shouldn't get charged extra fees on import.

Oscillator. Even typing it just then i watched as my fingers typed osciallator, and was powerless to stop it happening. I can spell it, but some kind of weird muscle memory means its impossible to type it without at least 2 or 3 attempts. Something of a drawback in this job as you can imagine.

You could own this fluorescent yellowy green Demon Seed pedal if you wanted to. If you don't want this ghastly colour then it'd probably be best to just buy a black or white one and we'll say no more about it. circuitbenders.etsy.com/listing/1698...

Spend a couple of hours repairing your label printer only to discover that you'd fixed the initial problem in the first 15 minutes, and the rest of the time was spent not noticing that the reason it won't print anymore is a safety feature that means it can't print without the rear casing screwed on.

Well... we tried to get a photo of this horrible fluorescent green Demon Seed pedal, but someone decided that wasn't going to happen.

How is the time stretching on Pioneer CDJ's so terrifyingly bad? If i'm spending £1000's i want the stretching to sound better than an Akai S1000! Admittedly its doing it in realtime as opposed to taking 5 minutes, but more than 10% down still sounds like someone twanging a rubber band in a bathroom

If you have ebay searches set up to mail you when something is listed, its quite bizarre to see the same thing over and over again from people apparently blind to the fact its not going to sell. Theres a Yamaha RY30 thats been repeatedly listed for £297 start on a 5 day auction for about 3 years now

There a very specific kind of fear involved in working on an EDP WASP. Just one sudden move or unexpected sneeze might smash the case to pieces. This kind of build quality makes you proud to be British! 🙄

Owning this yellow Hate Echo pedal will make you a minimum of 63% more attractive, 34% more eloquent, and 19% more likely to be bequeathed a lost Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece by a long forgotten uncle.* circuitbenders.etsy.com/listing/1173... *all statistics are approximate. Results may vary.

Before and after shots of using a Hydrogen Peroxide solution and some sunshine to restore the discoloured nicotine yellow case on a Roland CR8000. Couldn't of gone much better, although obviously its bleached out all the mojo. 🤔

Shipping insurance is surely just a protection racket, either that or couriers have very little faith in their own abilities. Name another area where you pay someone to do a job, then for some reason it's up to you to pay extra to insure against them being wilfully shit and fucking it up.

Who wants to play a game of spot the difference? Two MAM MB33 Retros. Both brand new and unused. The one on the left worked perfectly, but the one on the right had all kinds of problems with tuning and interference. Theres one difference, and bizarrely it clearly came out of the factory like that.

If nothing else, its definitely a lovely piece of furniture...

I just sat through 40 minutes of jazzy hold music trying to make an appointment at the doctor and it occurred to me that if they got one of those musicians to stop playing the hold music for a few minutes and help answer the phones, the who medical practice would run more smoothly.

TAMA Techstar TS305 - 6 channel analogue drum module with loads of new knobs and switches including a new LFO and the ability to cross modulate sounds. This photo does something weird to my eyes in a stereoscopic photo / magic eye picture kind of way. Info at www.circuitbenders.co.uk/newsarchive/...

Just repairing a couple of Pioneer CDJ's and i'm astonished to discover that they don't seem to have considered for a second that a circuit that generates what i can only describes as an unnecessary amount of heat, and thats used in very hot venues, might maybe suffer from heat related problems. 🤔

There's nothing inherently better about a hand made pedal. "Hand made" gives the impression of some artisan genius striving for perfection in each solder joint. It's really not. It's some guy on a Friday afternoon bored out of his mind on his 30th pedal of the day, knocking out any old shit!

The first step towards not repeatedly buying wifi enabled relay boards from aliexpress only to discover that you don't really have any use for them, is admitting that you have a problem...

Packaging tip #774: Do you want to ensure that your MB33 arrives here with 25% fewer working knobs than when you sent it? If so, why not 'package' it like this! Another one for the packaging disasters album...

What?

One from the archives. We don't do speak & spell machines anymore as it got to the point where I'd genuinely rather spend 4 hours being lectured on interior design by Donald Trump, than ever see the inside of another one. God knows how many we modded, but it was a lot!

Electronics tip #371: The only thing worse than a smell of burning electronics, is an unidentifiable smell of burning electronics. If you actually see something blow up in your face, then count yourself lucky. At least you've identified the problem!

This should definitely be posted on one of those absolutely humourless Facebook guitar groups. Within minutes they'd be sincerely explaining at great length that actually it doesn't work like that, and furiously arguing the relative merits of twin neck guitars...

On the advice of a young person we mght get on the old tik toks and.... actually fuck knows what they do over there. It's all about vaping and tamagotchis isn't it? Isn't that's what the kids are into these days? The perfect demographic for old men making stupid noises with 90s music kit!

Just stumbled across a flashlight forum where people (men) were discussing the various merits and completely futile or imperceptible differences between LED bulbs and batteries, with all the baffling obsessiveness of a guitarist banging on about pedal opamps or a TB303 fanatic on transistor choices.

Why are people STILL weirdly excited by blue LED's and blue backlit LCD screens as if they're something from the future? I'm as guilty of it as anyone else, but maybe its time to accept that they make things look like they're from 2005, and not like they're from Star Trek!

Its 2025, and shipping something to America is accompanied by exactly the same sense of doubt and trepidation as shipping something to Russia, or some obscure third world country. Electronic component kits seem to be tariff free, but we have no idea if thats correct or someones fucked up somewhere.

Now, that's what I call a spectrum analyser! A hell of a lot of nixie bar graph tubes. Presumably either IN9 or IN13 tubes, although they look a big big for either...

Installing reclocking and midi into a Yamaha VSS30 sampling keyboard.

Out of morbid curiosity i just had a look at the profile of one of those people that replies "never happened" to Fesshole / Anon Opin posts, and now i'm wondering just how much dedication it must take to carry on being so comprehensively wrong about everything to so little response for years on end.

Linux users... Do try and remember that everyone else is normal. 😉

Things everyone who works in audio electronics doesn't believe for a second #149: "I've got this broken XXXX. If you can spend hours troubleshooting it over email with me so i can fix it myself, then i'll definitely be getting your mods later on"... Is that really whats going to happen... Really? 🤔

Boots up this ludicrous 2 x Xeon 10 core @ 3ghz, 192GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 2 x 4TB HDD workstation we just got cheap... "We're sorry but this computer doesn't meet the minimum requirements for Windows 11. Windows 10 support will be discontinued in october 2025"

Think i might spend a large proportion of today convincing myself i need some new bit of kit, spending an hour or two researching it and deciding which one i'm going to buy, and then just getting bored and deciding i can't be bothered as i don't actually need it anyway. The savings are real.

Has there ever been a study into the exact point at which the average user IQ of a social media platform becomes so low that it becomes swamped with right wing neanderthal fucknuckles, and anyone with any intelligence or creative spirit leaves for a new platform to begin the same tragic cycle again?

10 x DG412DY 'brand new' SMD switch IC's sealed in their packaging strip, except 9 of them are supposedly made by Siliconix, but with 5 different versions of the Siliconix logo from what looks like 6 different production runs, and bizarrely one of them is made by Harris Semiconductors. Dubious...🤔

The total lack of planning for the removal of the US de minimis exemption is going to force postal companies to offer shipping with prepaid custom fees included in the price. To the general US population it'll look like its other countries imposing the fees and not the US. What a stroke of luck! 🤔

The classic Mix Me DJ toy was clearly far too heroically masculine for the ladies so they bought out this justifiably rare pink "Girls Born To Shop" edition, later renamed the Groovy Chick DJ MIxer This one was sent to us in a box with no packaging other than a sheet of bubble wrap and two monkeys 🤔

You can't even begin to imagine how exhausting it is to keep up this white hot tsunami of marketing excellence every day. For a strictly limited period we would suggest that you come up with your own good reason to buy something from us, and then act on it before you can convince yourself otherwise

Thought i'd message this ebay seller and suggest that it might be a good idea to use an actual box to ship things. Pressed send and instantly got an AI response saying that because it was shipped via ebay simple delivery i wasn't allowed to message him, and would have to contact ebay instead. WTF?!

Another shipping masterpiece. Thats a Korg KP1 in there, as you can clearly see through the gaping holes in the inside out birthday present wrapping paper! One layer of completely popped bubble wrap cleverly providing absolutely no shipping protection at all completes this packaging shitshow!

Might spend today annoying ebay sellers by casually enquiring exactly what are the benefits of the gold plating on their absurdly expensive optical cable connectors.

Assistant #1 was going to show you this great new sticker he found somewhere, but sadly got bored and fell asleep before i could find a camera.

Genesis 4:1 - And the Lord came unto the sons of man and spake thus, "Everyone who owns a bit of kit made by Ensoniq will sooner or later need the feckin' service manual" and those listening did rejoice, for the Lord's words were true.

Which idiot let me start looking at knobs on Aliexpress? An hour and £30 later theres a very slightly higher chance that next time we might actually have the right knob for the job. Thats what i'm telling myself, but really i just have a tragic love of random knobbage.