Hello! I am here because I’m very interested in the Ribbons pedal. It seems like the exact “lo-fi” pedal I’ve been searching for. Most are filters but this one sounds very inspiring.
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Hi from Switzerland! I’m into noise- and soundscapes and when Sparks was launched, boy I didn’t even think twice 
It’s going to sit in what is fast becoming a hyper crazy experimental suite of assorted noisemaker (Glou Glou Loupè + Flancher 5D, CXM 1978 reverb, Empress ZOIA, Mood II, Meris Enzo, Cooper FX Outward V2 just to name the wilder ones).
Now, what is sorely missed is a Ribbons 
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Hello,
My intro is kinda long, but that’s because I am OLD… like, “End of The Boomers” OLD,
I’ve had two careers : one in the high-tech world of the late 70’s thru the mid-90s,
then took a left turn and became a dentist, fulltime faculty at the med/dent school, then finally moving to private practice.
Grew up as the son of a 50’s/60’s Botany Prof in the mid-Willamette Valley, OR.
Parents split 'round '70, and I followed my mother (Emergency Intake Caseworker for State Childrens Services) to a very lumber-oriented southern Oregon town for my high school years. Played in the Jazz Lab there (guitar) and my first pedal was a Mutron III (well, I MADE my first pedal… a raspy 1-transistor distortion/fuzz). Also played in a band covering ZZ Top, Kiss, Sabbath and early 70’s metalish tunes.
At 17 I entered engineering school at Portland State, and ended up working nights at Tektronix while doing 12-14 day-time credits at PSU. Exhausting. Never finished my degree, but in the crazy booming world of Electronics in PDX in the late 70’s, it was “if you can prove you can do it, you got the job” regardless of degree-status.
I have worked at :
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Rodgers Organ Co (electronic voices> 150 stops, massively parallel circuitry, plus actual pipes, air-box controls and vibrato) 81-82
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Cardiac Resuscitator - we created the first AED and got it thru FDA approval, '82- 84
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Mentor Graphics - 11+ years. First in the Hardware design group, doing radiated/conducted emissions design/test, interface to the mech and manufacturing side, plus design of the Hardware Modeling Library’s hands-on user interface (ability to plug in 1st-silicon in package sizes up to 64, 128 and 400 pins (256 active) and throw sim-vectors at the Chip under test and read back it’s response in real time (TTL high/low AND high-Z state-sensing, 5 nsec accuracy for edge-placement claimed… actual was 2 -nsec, measured, across all active 256 pin-drivers/receivers) … and up to 16 devices-under-test per HML, network sharable… a fair accomplishment for 1984-7 tech.
(my avatar picture is of my IC Interface PCB for 2 devices, up to 128 active pins.
12 layers total, 4 planes and 8 controlled impedance signal layers.
Oh yeah… it also had 4 power rails available.)
I also did a large amount of PCB ‘architecture design’ (this enabled the implementation of these massively parallel PCBs) and LIVED the life of a PCB designer for a year, often at an offsight design house during the HML project.
After Mentor closed the Hardware Group, I did Software QA for the design of Full Custom IC tools (including parametric extraction from layout geometry and edge-case/fault analysis) and finally PCB Design tools division working on a product for ‘high speed artifact analysis/parameter extraction tools’ that were integrated into the interactive tools, so the user got feedback about crosstalk, length-constraints, net-to-net-type parallelism violations, AS they routed up the critical nets on the PCB. (this is the group where I was given a Chairman’s Achievement Award for doing all this testing inline AND as a high-end user, automating it, and helped in creating a large, product/platform-independent test-automation environment that was adopted by many groups/product-lines at Mentor.
We had approx 3 major-enhancement releases per year in the groups I worked in.
I wasn’t a death-march pace… it was a death-sprint.
I left Mentor because they wanted me to go back to school for an advanced degree just to “keep my same old job”.
Ahem… boss?
No one was teaching this stuff in the late 80’s/early 90’s… At least, no one on the west coast.
So instead I took a couple years of Mgmt-related classes (they had me on a mgmt track at Mentor) then quit and dove full-tilt into finishing a Biology-related degree w/target of getting into med, dental, or PharmD school (target on simulation of meds/receptors, metabolic processes, etc).
Dental school won out (can be my own boss, custom design for every patient, tons of fun biology)
Got accepted into OHSU and did their DMD program, and showed an interest in Pathology.
But I didn’t want a microscope/white-coat job (watched my dad do that at OSU) so I got a Faculty position doing clinical work with medically compromised people, complex med cases from the Indigent Populations projects, and taught students on rotation how to work with those folks (in hopes that the students wouldn’t refer every damn dental-hangnail to OHSU) Did that for 3 years. But the over-arching mgmt there kept putting my clinic on the chopping block as ‘bait’ to get the public and pols riled up and increase funding for the kind of outreach we were doing…but they got me all stressed out doing it.
So I found a small rural practice in the mid-Willamette Valley about 30 miles from where my 80+ yo mother lived (still had the old family house in Corvallis), so I could help her out.
Been here 20 years, just doing general dental stuff, plus things like Emergency Treatment Coordinator for 2 counties (via the ADA/ODA) during the pandemic, and I still get involved in interesting medical cases, pre-CA Tx triage and treatment, etc.
As hobbies, Jan and I have 7 acres and a herd of Shetland Sheep (raised for wool), I get to feed them daily, do vet services, and do the barn cleaning/property mgmt stuff.
To keep my volto-side happy, I do mental design of effects pedals… I have some software to do the design capture/sim/pcb layout, but never seem to have the hours.
I have done a little informal consulting with a couple pedal designers on noise issues.
I also give frequent, informal soliloquies on aspects of design and noise issues over at thegearpage under the moniker ‘lefort_1’
I promise to be nicer here than I am over there.
This is a nice, narrowcast atmosphere and that will be a breath of fresh air.
BTW: I type a lot.
Sorry.
They say my SATs for English were higher than my science scores… maybe I shoulda been a writer?
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hello folks! hope all is well with you. looking forward to sharing an appreciation for these exceptionally nifty effects pedals and the sonic creations they inspire with everyone.
currently am working on developing a couple projects to the point of having finished music to share. pretty sure the name for my solo downtempo and ambient project is going to be Slow Dog. am also in a post rock/shogaze style band that is collectively hemming and hawing over what name to pick… will add links to check out some sounds on my profile sooner than later!
when i’m not in the home studio with a cat in the lap working on music, you might find me riding my bike in the Bosque, working with kiddos at a community garden, at the park reading a book in my hammock, camping in the mountians, or on either end of a music lesson.
have been playing guitar for about 15 years and keybaord for the last couple years. quite green to production and recording, leaning into that very strongly. also can hold my own on the drums or the bass, will take any opportunity playing whatever is needed to jam out with folks!
that’s all for now, feel free to reach out if you feel compelled to ask any questions or make any comments. keep on shining brightly in the mean time.
-Desert_Moss
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Hi @RandallJones - that was a pretty epic introduction! Thanks for taking the time to share. I’m jealous you have a herd of sheep. We have dreams of having sheep one day but are very much in the wrong place (Minneapolis). Maybe one day.
And welcome to the forum @Desert_Moss. Our boy Sid looks a lot like the kitty in your picture. He is a sweetie and a menace.
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