Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Lots of new vintage effects listings in the FMO Gear Shop

It didn't occur to me to actually blog about it until Sara suggested it, but we've been listing a ton of really cool vintage effects pedals in the FMO Gear Shop lately. If you haven't stopped in for a while, you should definitely check it out. Among some of the noteworthy listings have been a Ludwig Phase II Synthesizer, WEM Rush Pep Box, John Hornby-Skewes Zonk II, Audio Matrix Mini Boogee, Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, Mu-Tron Flanger, Systech Overdrive, Ibanez AD-80 Analog Delay, Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal, Electro-Harmonix Queen Triggered Wah, Lemon Studio Sound Stretcher A, Maestro Filter Sample/Hold, Keio Singing Geisha Synthesizer Traveler, with several more items yet to be listed.

After a rather lengthy lull during most of the recession, the FMO Gear Shop has seen a surge of activity over the past couple of months with all these new listings. We've had a few vintage pieces that came in and got sold so fast, we hardly had time to play with them. Alas, payroll and overhead are great motivators for moving things along, so away they go... I've also decided to scale down my collection of vintage keyboards and analog synthesizers. So we'll be selling a Fender Rhodes Stage 73 Mark II electric piano, RMI 368x Electra Piano and Harpsichord, Univox Mini Korg analog mono synth, and a Multivox MX-440 String & Brass (a string ensemble identical to the Roland RS-202).

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Valentine's Bee Buzz from Black Cat

Check out this limited edition Valentine's Bee Buzz from Black Cat Pedals! A manufacturing mishap left us with five red Bee Buzz pedals with a PINK silkscreen. There's a story behind this one that's sure to leaving you feeling warm and fuzzy.

When we got our last batch of Bee Buzz powdercoated and silkscreened, the red ones had a bit of a problem - the white paint on the silkscreen turned out pink! So we had a bunch of red and pink enclosures. Greg jokingly said that they looked like they could be Valentine's pedals. I thought that was actually a good idea, so we saved five of them and had the rest rescreened.

It seems I didn't learn my lesson after my attempt to do the graphics for the Black Cat Halloween pedals. So what you see here is yet another of my forays into stompbox arts and crafts. Sure, it's not for everyone, but I think it turned out rather well.

So the five red and pink enclosures were transformed into Valentine's Bee Buzz pedals, complete with heart-shaped rhinestones, and were offered to our mailing list subscribers. Each of the Valentine's Bee Buzz pedals came with a box of Russell Stover chocolates. I thought I may have gone a little overboard with the bling, but all five pedals sold within three hours.