GADSDEN, Ala. (AP) – Distorted guitar and youthful rebellion go hand in hand.
Distorted guitar also goes hand in hand with electrical know-how, circuit boards, complicated schematics and hours of research, but “School’s Out” is less fun if Alice Cooper sings about getting back to class in August.
Local musician Clint McDuffie, guitarist of Gadsden band GallantHorn, knows all about the technical side of rocking out. He spent the last few years learning how to build circuits and control electronic sound in his spare time – he went to UAB for business management, not electronics – building pedals to use himself. In December he decided to try and market one of his creations, a distortion pedal called “Red Ghost,” and left his job behind to work on building pedals full time for his new company, Deep Space Devices.
“I was always in retail management,” he said. “I realized I had to just go all-in or be miserable. It’s the same, sappy story you hear with anybody, but it’s a dream career.”
Each pedal is handmade. McDuffie starts with a “breadboard,” a sort of circuit-building sandbox where connections can be tested without soldering, allowing the board to be reused for tweaking. It’s otherwise functionally the same as a circuit board, though larger. McDuffie’s board has a dozen wires plugged in, the multi-colored veins of a pedal in progress.