Lullabies to Paralyze - Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age was formed in 1997 by former members of Kyuss, including Josh Homme, the de facto leader and sole member who has been around since the founding. It continues Kyuss' riff-oriented, heavy music, but adds more delicacies than its stripped down predecessor; Josh Homme often describes QotSA's style as robot rock. Queens of the Stone Age also employs another guitarist, Troy Van Leeuwen, who also plays lap steel and keyboards in certain songs.

Josh continued to use his trusty Ovation GP guitar as his main ax, but can also be seen playing a Telecaster, an Epiphone Dot, a Gibson Marauder, and Gibson ES-225 among others. Of course, most of the times they are still tuned down at least a full step, but a C-standard tuning is not rare. QotSA is using various kinds of amps, but the most recognizable ones are the Ampeg Vt-22 combos and Ampeg VT-40's with 2x12 cabs, the Ampeg V, and the Vox AC30.

As you can see from the picture Homme is using a huge arsenal of pedals while playing; some of them might be just there to mislead people, he is famous for trying to hide the secret to his sound. Although he does a good job at masking his stuff, we'll try to pinpoint the cornerstones of his heavy sound. The two main overdrive/distortion pedals he uses are the Boss SD-1 and the Fulltone Ultimate Octave, the latter is a fuzz and an octave pedal in one. He also uses EHX POG Octave Generators and you can also see a Boss octaver on the picture. He uses multiple volume and wah pedals; you can't go wrong with a simple Dunlop CryBaby. Also, you can see some phasers on the board, an MXR Phase 90 and an EHX Small Stone. Since his rig is quite huge, if you want to dig deeper, you can look up the complete list at http://www.uberproaudio.com/who-plays-what/217-queens-of-the-stone-age-josh-homme-guitar-gear-rig-and-equipment.

Build Your Own Stompboxes

Is it easy? For most of us, no. Is it cheaper than buying one in local music shop? No, not really. Will it be as good as one made by professionals at least? Most of the times no. Then why do it, you might ask. Well, the most simple answer is that it's incredibly fun; designing the effect, gathering materials, assembling the parts, then finally seeing it actually work. Of course, some pedals are discontinued, and the only way to get one is to spend hundreds of dollars on it on Ebay, so in these cases, you might consider creating one yourself. In this post we'll look at the most basic things you'll need if you decide to build your own effect pedal.

Most of the pedals only need a few tools to be built - you'll need a Solder Station, Solder, a Multimeter, Desolder Braid, Cutters, Pliers, and Wire Strippers. Many homes already have these stuff, but if not, you can order a whole kit at http://www.buildyourownclone.com/tools.html. You should also get a good drill if you want to create custom casings (and it can come handy any time).

First of all, you'll need to take care of the schematics, but you can find these premade at quite a lot of sites, I'll include the links at the end of the post. Then comes the fun part, assembling the circuit, which you'll have to test before moving on to the next part. The most painful (or fun, for some) part is fitting the whole thing into the casing, this can be tricky. You should try to be as careful as you can, the best is to plan the installment beforehand. Throughout the whole process, it is essential to test the pedal every once in a while, so you recognize a faulty wiring for example before you've put it in the casing.

Ordering the parts is much easier nowadays than it was a few years ago, you can order most of these stuff from Ebay or specific DIY effects sites. The reason why this will actually cost you a bit more than buying the complete thing in a store is that it is much cheaper to buy these parts in big numbers, than buying only one or two. Also, because of this, pedal manufacturers can afford top quality parts, while it may not be possible for an average tinkerer. The links below will take you to these shops.

Links:
http://www.diyguitarist.com/
http://www.diystompboxes.com/wpress/
http://www.buildyourownclone.com/
http://www.tonepad.com/projects.asp?projectType=fx
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/