There have been a lot of posts in the last year about creating photos with custom shaped “bokeh” or circle of confusion. For those unfamiliar, that’s basically the way a photo blurs in the background. Turns out you can control the shape of the blur, and it works nicely with lights in the background. I wanted to try the technique recently, and started to think about building one of the fittings described in various DIY articles, when I realized I had a much simpler and more elegant (to me) solution already at hand. The homemade versions I’ve seen online consist of making a fitting out of black paper that goes over the lens. They all work great, but anything like that would be crushed in my backpack… err, camera bag.
Over the years I’ve somehow acquired a few sets of inexpensive lens filters – they’re often thrown in with kit packages of various types that online retailers promote. I had two identical unused Zeikos filter sets from who knows where, so I opened them up to see if I could figure out a way to make use of them. Luckily, it’s super easy. Here’s what I used:
Two UV filters – one stays intact, the other gets disassembled
Heavy black paper or plastic to cut the shapes out of
A fairly strong pointy thing – a small screwdriver should work fine
Two filters and a pointy thing
These filters are made up of three parts: An outer ring, the glass, and an inner ring that holds the glass in place. The inner ring screws into the outer ring. If you look closely, you’ll see a notch in the inner ring. I used my pointy thing to turn the inner ring to unscrew it. The first filter wouldn’t budge, but the second one turned easily. You have to hold the filter gently as you unscrew the inner ring, because the rings are delicate. You could easily bend them out of shape once the glass loosens up.
Inner Ring Notch
You only need the complete filter and the outer ring from the disassembled filter. Next, I used the outer ring to trace circles onto my black plastic sheet (I used a report cover – the type sold at Staples or Walmart for a couple of dollars). I traced inside the widest part of the ring. The circle you cut out needs to fit inside the ring, but be large enough that it doesn’t fit through the ring, since the ring will hold it in place. Before cutting out the circles I drew a few shapes in the center of the circles and cut them out with an X-acto knife. These shapes will be the shape of the bokeh in the photos. Once I had the center shapes cut out, I cut the circles out with scissors.
Cutouts
The size of the shape is important. If it’s too big, the shape will not be clear in the photos. I’m not positive, but I suspect the ideal size depends on the lens you’re going to use it with. I made mine for a Canon 50mm f1.4, which gives you a nice wide opening to work with. The star shape in the picture above is about 8-9mm (a little over a half inch) at its widest point, and that seemed to work pretty well. I made an arrow shape that is about 13mm (almost 1 inch) at its widest point, and that blurs out too much.
Once you cut out your shapes, put one of your circles against the glass in the intact filter, and use the outer ring from the disassembled filter to lock it in place. The whole thing then gets attached to your lens like any other filter. It can be slightly tricky to get the cutout shape to point the direction you want. I’m thinking of adding a small duct tape handle to make it easy to rotate the shape once it’s on the camera. You just have to loosen the outer ring slightly so the shape can move freely. Here’s the assembled unit:
Waiting for the Ocean is a song I wrote a while back, during GW Bush’s first term. I heard him speak about global warming, and how it was unproven, even though the facts – actual measurements – were already pretty clear by then. I was disappointed that he blew off the whole issue, and knew it would be like a lot of important issues that are avoided or ignored for one reason or another. My mind wandered as it usually does, and I came to wonder how does one person deal with the climate change issue, assuming the worst of the worst possible predictions come to be? If the water is going to rise, the obvious answer is to mover to higher ground. Hence the song.
I’m working on a new site for a partnership that I’m working with to develop distributed learning projects. It’s decidedly not ready for prime time, but it’s alive at least. This will change significantly once we come up with a logical structure for the site and the content is completed.
Update 02/12:
I decided the look wasn’t bold enough color-wise, and I needed to make some structural changes to fit content and ideas other had, so I’ve updated the look.
There’s nothing more frightening than receiving an email from a friend with the subject “HELP! My Daughter has been Kidnapped!”
I should have posted about this earlier, but neglected to. A long-time friend from Boulder, Colorado has been going through an incredibly difficult time. Her adopted daughter was taken away and her ex-husband – who has a history of abuse against both the daughter and mother – was given full custody. The courts justified the action by claiming the mother was guilty of something called “parental alienation.” Up until that time I had never heard of parental alienation (PA), and I assumed that the courts would always do what is in the best interest of the child. I did a little research because I really didn’t understand the situation at all. There is a lot of information on both sides of the issue, and it took a while for me to sort it out and to understand how it was being applied in my friend’s case.
Essentially, PA is one parent trying to program or brainwash the child against the other parent. I am certain that parental alienation takes place – that would surprise nobody who has ever experienced, heard or read about terrible custody battles that often take place. The problem is that PA seems to have become a weapon in the custody lawyer’s arsenal, and has clearly been misused within the court system in order to help vilify one parent, and give the other parent the upper hand in child custody cases.
In the case of my friend there was real fear involved. She and her kids went through some terrifying times before the divorce was finalized and the ex-husband moved out of the house. I know that for certain because I heard about many of the episodes in near real time. Given the level of fear and real danger that was involved, is it possible that the mother told the child some things that are “against” the father? Of course! Should that be allowed as part of a charge of parental alienation against the mother? Obviously not.
As is often the case, the bottom line is money. The father has it, the mother does not. So despite support and documentation from child services and the daughter’s therapist, the mother lost the custody battle. She’s trying to mount an appeal, but can’t afford lawyers, so that’s where a group of her friends jumped in to try to help. For my part, I set up a web site and created a short video that tells an overview of the events.
Build Your Own Clone sells great kits for buiding your own pedals. I decided to give them a shot and was adventurous, so I bought three of the kits: The Large Beaver (Big Muff clone), Envelope Filter (DOD 440) and the Digital Delay (not necessarily a clone of any particular pedal).
Painting: I was nervous about finishing the enclosures, but I was impatient as well. A bad combination. I went with the Beavis Box Finish in a Day method. I went to the Home Depot, picked out my favorites of the Rustoleum colors they had on hand, got primer and clear coat. Since they didn’t have self-etching primer, I got a container of etch too. They sell a quart size that was less than $5 as I recall. I followed the directions for the etch, primed and painted. I used the toaster oven trick (use an old one – never to again to be used for food!!) and baked each coat. I found that I needed to keep the parts in the oven longer than Bevis recommends. It might have been due to the cold temps on the days I did it.
Labels: To save time I went with what I had in the house. I used clear stick on labels that can be printed on with any InkJet. I created a layout in Photoshop and came up with some names. Truth is that I was trying to think up names all along, but couldn’t come up with anything clever. When the painting was done I realized the green for the Large Beaver pedal could be used to play on the “Pi” variant of the Big Muff pedals, so I came up with “Key Lime Pi”. The other two weren’t so clever, but I decide to keep them all in the citrus family. For whatever reason. Oh, right, the labels…I printed the labels and cut them out as close as I dared, then stuck them on the pedals. I put two thin clear coats the pedals and let them dry without heat. I was afraid the labels would curl right up and I’d have to start over again. I did a couple of more clear coats with heat and they were fine. I sanded and clear coated two or three times to try to minimize the edge of the labels. I think it would take about two more rounds of sanding and clear coating to get the tops to be perfectly smooth. I thought they looked pretty good as-is.
Two things to watch for with these labels: First, keep them away from the edge. It’s hard to get the clear coat smooth if the label is right on the edge. Second, keep the stickers away from any place that you’ll be putting a washer or nut. If you look closely at the Lemon Drop Delay, you’ll see that there is a little bit of a bubble. When I tighened the nut for the footswitch the clear coat cracked a little (I suspect the sticker must have compressed a tiny bit) and the next day the bubble appeared.
Oh, and you’ll notice the sticker edges show up the worst on the orange pedal. I think that’s because it’s darker and the sticker definitely lightens the color a bit. That was also the first pedal I put the stickers on, so I didn’t have the technique down yet
Key Lime Pi – Large Beaver fuzz
This is a fairly typical fuzz pedal from what I can tell. I’m not much of a fuzz user, but there are some fun sounds in here. The tone control has a nice range. The Sustain control gives it all the long, creamy sounding buzz you need. More than I ever need at least.
Sorry! No samples of the Key Lime Pi yet. It’s pretty typical Big Muff sound though. I had a problem with the original volume pot and had to replace it with a different one. A bit of a pain, but it worked out fine.
Lemon Drop Delay
This is a digital delay that is patterned after the older analog delay pedals. I used an Ibanez AD9 for many years and that is one of my favorties. It would be nice to have it here to compare. I think this pedal has a “digital sound” to it, but it sounds pretty good. Definitely usable, that’s for sure. I couldn’t quite get it to do the Pink Floyd “Run Like Hell” thing, but that’s probably asking a lot. Maybe I’ll try again when I’m playing better. I love the self oscillation silliness that it can get into. That was always one of my favorite things about the AD9.
The Lemon Drop gave up the ghost after a few weeks of playing with it. I was 99% sure it was the delay chip that went bad (don’t ask me why I thought that). I ordered 5 more of the chips for $5 off of ebay, and so far so good.
Funky Orange – Envelope Filter
I didn’t really know what to expect with this pedal. At first I wasn’t sure it was working properly. It’s controls are pretty interactive (changing one affects the other considerably) and it’s quite sensitive to the guitar settings and the pick attack. I found on my guitar that the bridge-middle pickup combination seemed to make the filter effect more pronounced. I’m really liking this pedal right now. Fun to play with.
For reference sounds (straight guitar, same guitar, same amp, no effects) see the Walnut Strat page.
Building: – The BYOC kits arrive in a plastic bag packed in a box. All the parts are there and not much else. The instructions for each pedal are on their website. Luckily, the instructions are really straight-forward. Just as backgound, I have some experience building homebrew pedals, but I’m really not all that good at it. I’ve done a couple from Craig Anderton’s book, and I’ve done a number of things like A/B switches. Simple things. Things that don’t require too much close-quarter soldering. I’ve replaced plenty of electronics on my guitars, but that’s a different sort of soldering.
I just tried to be as careful and methodical as possible. I verified that all the parts were there, laid them out, double and triple checked before I placed a component on the PCB. Checked all the solder joints before I moved on to the next. I started with what I thought would be the easiest kit (based on the density of the PCB), and saved the hardest (Digital Delay) for last. All three kits were nearly identical to put together except for the number and type of components. The boards are very clear and well laid out. A few parts on the Digital Delay made me nervous because of how close they are, but it all worked out.
I only came across a couple of little things. First, when it came time to connect the populated PCB to the hardware I had mounted in the enclosure, I wasn’t sure if I should put the wires in from the top or from the bottom. I ended up trying different ways from each pedal.
For the Envelope Filter I soldered all of the wires to the parts in the enclosure and then looped the wires from the pots over the top of the PCB. It worked fine, although there seems to be a fine balance between trying to keep the wires short and having enough to maneuver the PCB around. Here’s the inside of the Envelope Filter:
Notice how the white wires go down into the PCB.
For the Large Beaver, I did the opposite. I connected all the wires to the PCB, then connected them to the pots, switch and jacks. Although I think this might allow for shorter wires (if done properly by someone other than myself), I didn’t like this method for two reasons: First, you have to move the PCB around a lot in order to get the wires in position to solder them. I was always worried a wire or a solder joint would break. Neither happened, luckily. The second problem is that once I had everything done I had a much harder time positioning the PCB in the case. I didn’t get any of the three pedals perfect, but this one is the most off. Here’s a pic of the inside of the Envelope Filter:
It’s a little hard to see, but the wires are inserted in the PCB from underneath.
On the Digital Delay I did a mix. I decided to install the wires from the top of the PCB, but I did a mix. I soldered the wires to the pots first, and did others however seemed comfortable. I had a little trouble with the footswitch. It’s awfully tight in there. I think I was lucky with the first two, but the third took several tries to get the wires in there relatively cleanly. Here’s the inside of the Digital Delay:
The PCB is cockeyed, but it works!
Results: All three pedals worked right after completion, but the Large Beaver had an intermittent problem with the volume control. I poked around and eventually narrowed down the problem – a bad volume pot. Once I replaced that everything was fine. The other two pedals seem to be functioning 100% – listen to the samples. All-in-all, great kits and I’m hoping I get the chance to put together a few more before too long.
Another project guitar – my third (I sold the first). I got the body from ebay – a nice two-piece walnut body.
It was built by somebody “known”, but I can’t recall who. It’s signed in the neck pocket, but I can’t read it.
The first neck I used I got from someone locally. It was solid rosewood with stainless steel frets – a real beauty. I could never get used to the 1 5/8″ nut width though.
I got a used Mighty Mite neck off of ebay and that neck has made all the difference. I know it’s a lower quality neck, but it is really comfortable. I love playing that guitar now. So much so, that I took the Kinman pickups out of my Fender American Strat and put them in this guitar. I also put in a ’59 Jr. in the bridge instead of the Hot Rails. Originally I put a hot wound set of GFS pickups, which actually sounded really good.
When I got the body it had a pretty thick, gloppy finish on it. I’m not sure what type. I was going to strip it off. When I began sanding it, the body started looking real nice. Not factory gloss nice, but very natural nice. I ended up sanding just enough to thin out the finish and get the drips and such out and I think it looks great. I thought putting a “relic” pickguard and controls on this guy would look good, so I tried to figure out how to do that.
I took the pickguard (a new inexpensive one), pickup covers and knobs and follow some directions I found on the internet. I soaked them in super-strong coffee for two or three days. Don’t try that. It’s a waste of time. As soon as I wiped the parts the brown patina came right off. I used a 3M pad (or is it Scotch??) to scuff the parts up a bit and tried again. Not much better. I tried tea next. Slightly better, but still not what I wanted. I tried coffee grounds directly on the parts. Nope. Finally, I got an old basin from the garage that had who knows what in it. I poured in a little Minwax wood stain and I let it sit for a day or two. The basin had dirt in it and remnants of many other projects that hadn’t been cleaned out. The parts were kind of sticky when I took them out, but the color was great. I let them dry out and then wiped them down and this time it kept looking pretty good. I used the 3M pad to put some “wear” into the parts and to my eye it looked every bit as authentic as most relics I’ve seen. Let me just say – the idea of paying extra for a fake relic is insane to me. Just my opinion.
Notice the color difference between the white paper towel and the pickguard. When I started the pickguard was just as white as the paper towel.
Ultimately, I swapped out the “relic’d” parts when I swapped pickups. The main reason is that I was not about to relic a set of Kinman Pickups. They are way too expensive. I could have swapped the pickup covers, but the ’59 Jr would still have been bright white and would have looked weird. By then I also had an old MOTS pickguard that had been naturally aged by smokey bars, so I used that.
I put the same switching system in that I had in my American Strat – a Mega Switch from Stew-Mac wired so the middle position is neck-bridge instead of the usual middle pickup only. I love the neck-bridge combination, and most strats don’t have it. The Mega switch lets you do that without changing how the guitar works or looks – no extra switches and no push-pull pots, which I’ve never been too keen on. Here are some sound samples:
The Dysfunctional Tele was my second home built project guitar. I bought the body and neck from a guy in Texas who builds his own parts. The neck is wider than normal – about 1 3/4″ at the nut. That makes it really nice for fingerstyle things. The body is real nice two-piece ash, and the neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard.
I decided to do something kind of wacky with the finish. I used a piece of material that has a “Dysfunctional Family” comic pattern designed by Michael Miller. Here’s how I finished the body:
After sanding and sealing the body I finished it in white primer
I used a Pearl finish spray from Michael’s Art store. That gave the body a slight sheen, and it turned the color into a cream sort of color
I washed the material, ironed it and then used 3M Adhesive Spray to attach the material to the top of the body
Once it was completely dry I trimmed around the edge of the body with an exacto knife
I sprayed the entire body with a glitter spray, also from Michael’s
I sealed the body with several coats of Minwax Water-based Polyurethane, with the usual sanding in between
The pickups are from GFS and sound pretty good. Here are some pics:
