Progress for regular preorders and early preorders. Feel free to contact me for any questions at alexey@ezhiandaka.art or DM me on instagram @ezhiandaka
UPD 15.11
New meds kicking in, pedals are built, apartment is on the market – stuff’s progressing.
Previous posts showed me at my lowest point this year, but I am recovering, becoming more focused, collected and productive.
I really appreciate all the patience, understanding and support (to the point of financial one) you gave me. I’ll be there for you when you need me.
Big thanks to my family and loved ones, without them I’m nothing.
Gotta go – have a lot of promises to fulfill.
UPD 3.11
The amount of support I got after the last two posts is astonishing.
Thank you, you wonderful people of the gear community.
I’ll be working as hard as I can to fulfill the preorders, earn more funds to ship everything and continue ezhi&aka.
Don’t know where I would be without your interest, you patience and your help.
Thank you.
UPD 31.10
I’m sorry, I’m barely hanging on.
I feel tired, lost, ashamed and overall terrible.
27 RF78s, 36 TMs, 8 BFs and 20 NTRs and NTRSs.
Two months to buy the missing or updated parts/boards for, finish, pack, ship and pay for the shipping. Until the end of the year as I promised earlier, already preying on your generosity and patience.
I have two months.
No money.
No way to generate any income if I don’t take more preorders and build some small batches which will take time.
I’m selling my apartment to fund this or at least send all of you refunds, but not sure if I can sell it fast enough.
People who made early preorders are getting their pedals or their refunds when I sell the apartment.
I feel terrible. I have not been feeling ok for the most of my life with 2-4 months each year being much better (even more when I was younger). Since I was diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder in 2017 each year my depression phase just gets worse and worse.
I’ve tried a lot of pills my doctors prescribed me. If the side effects were bearable I usually took maximum dosages. If anything helped, it helped for 2-3 months and that’s it.
Late summer we added brain damage treatment.
I still feel terrible.
My psychiatrist decided to test a theory since we basically ran out of meds to try.
On Monday I’m starting to take two antidepressants I had the worst side effects from – paxil and mirtazapine. Low starting doses of each gave me probably the worst days of my life I remember with fear now.
This is my last resort here.
One other option left is electroconvulsive therapy I can’t afford.
I don’t know what’s going to happen.
I don’t know if I can finish your preorders this time.
I don’t know how to live this life.
I trapped myself. With preorders, with excitement, with promises. I did this to myself. And since I’m a provider here – for my loved ones as well. Early discounted preorders were poorly financially thought out and I also took more than 100 while the plan was to take 20 tops. I payed taxes, ordered parts, even bought some gear I sold several months later and money was gone.
If you see me spending the end of this year building and selling pedals instead of finishing your early preorders – it’s because I need income to keep the whole thing running. I’m sorry.
A year ago new meds brought me out of the bad depression phase and I felt strong, confident and excited. I reconnected with the woman I love, stopped making my parents too worried about me, made plans to finally move out of my ruined apartment and start living a happy life, finally. I lasted till February.
UPD 20.10
New meds, new treatments (again…), leaving my current workshop for a cheaper (but somehow better) one.
Broms are shipped, seven extra MDTs finsihed and are aboput to be shipped. New test boards for RF78s have arrived, don’t really have enough time to test them.
Packing all my stuff, unpacking and setting up the new shop should be over by the end of the month.
I really need to finalize New Terverb boards and order them since prototype shipping is 30-60 days now.
Earlier this month I stopped caring and gave up. It’s not only about your preordered pedals, my delays and worries.
But
Doctors patched me up a bit and I’m doing my best every day to fulfill all the orders.I am still very sorry for all the delays and inconveniences.
This year showed really well that I need to drastically change and improve my ways.
To develop new weird and broken gear. Pedals, effects, …instruments… stringed…. instruments…. etc etc
Thank you!
UPD 02.10
Tried to end myself by overdosing on my medication. Wasn’t enough, was saved by ER. Very nearly avoided being put in a closed mental facility, parents took me away from them and helped a lot.
Finished and assembled as 12 Double Polarized Flutters+Echo, finished a small batch of Broms which should help fund the shipping of DPF+Es and other pedals.
Reworked RF78 board and ordered new prototypes, now it is even better than the previous version.
Starting preparing your Terrible Mothers in October.
UPD 07.09
Dpf assembly goes as expected, should finish and ship all of them in 10 days or so.
Pairs of RF78 and TM will be assembled right after.
Figured out another new feature for New Terverb, possibly including it and finalizing the boards. Should show final New Terverb variant by the end of September. It will be cool.
UPD 05.09 Spent a night building, streaming on instagram showing the process, a bit of Terrible Mother and failed to show New Terverb on the breadboard as it just wouldn’t work right. Need to reassembly the breadboard.
Prepared two pairs of PF+E boards to be put into two DPF+Es, prepared three Brom…fuzzes – boards and enclosures.
UPD 03.09 Had some issues with some of the chosen design variants for DPF+Es I’m assembling, I keep getting unsatisfactory results with fjord code design 2 out of 12 people ordered, sent them emails asking to choose other designs. After these 12 DPF+Es (in 7-10 days if I keep the pace) the assembly of TMs and RF78s begins. I have 37 early preorders for TMs, 27 for RF78s and it will take me at least a couple of months to assemble and ship all of them.
I still haven’t shown Brom…Fade (8 preorders) and New Terverbs (10 mono, 12 stereo). They are both again on the breadboard. I should finalize everything and order pcbs by the end of September to actually assemble and ship this pedals by the end of the year.
UPD 31.08
All PF+E from early preorders finished and shipped. Next are 12 Double PF+Es, trying to still finish 2-3 pedals a day though Doubles are two pedals in one box basically so they require more time. At the same time working on some additional orders (not many, about 10) to keep funding the early preorder enterprise.
I go to bed and wake up every day thinking about how lucky I am to have so many beautiful people’s trust and support. Without all of you I could not live this life at all. I understand you might be already tired of my whining and excuses etc and I am sorry, but I am so invovled in what I do and what I do is so involved in my very being it’s really hard to separate.
All early preorders will be finished and shipped by the end of this year.
UPD 23.08
Wrote a large post with explanations, but here is the main stuff.
Finished and shipped all regular preorders from January. Pedals from January and February early preorders are prepared for assembly, two-three are being assembled every day and shipped to their respective owners with lots of appreciation for your patience and support from me. This is the tempo I can now keep due to some improvements in health. All 100+ early preorders will be finished and shipped by the end of the year. In the meantime I will also work on small batches of already released pedals like MDT21, DTT and Brom…fuzz and several dealers’ orders to fund the whole enterprise, but early preorders are my absolute priority. Feel free to contact me for any updates on your pedals or any other questions. Thank you.
Large post starts here:
Last regular preorders of Brom…fuzzes were finished and shipped in early August, you might have seen photos of people receiving them in instagram latetly. Naturally after these were done, I started really putting together all the early preorders.
Here is a rough timeline with explanations – I opened all the preorders except for Terrible Mother in early January. All of the circuits were prepared and pretested finalized but with no working pcbs at the time, except for two designs which were worked on and reworked on and on – New Terverb (and its stereo/double mono version) and Brom…fade.
I started designing the pcbs and ordered tons of the most valuable parts, including 70% of all enclosures, all rare and not so rare ICs and even all needed belton bricks. Soon first drafts of pcbs were ordered, all of them had some minor issues and so second versions followed in February, March and April. Terrible Mother came as an experiment in February and suddenly almost 40 people were on board for the early discounted preorder.
When I first opened the preorders, early preorders were ment to be 2-3, maximum 5 units of a new design to provide newer pedals with a nice discount for people who trusted me and didn’t mind waiting thus helping fund the initial development and start of production. Well, 2-5 units quickly turned into more than 20 for new PFs, DPFs and Terverbs (where 1 double mono pedal is essetially 2 separate mono pedals in one circuit with added switching and wiring and larger designs, etc), 30 for Rf78s and then I couldn’t say no to those 40 TM preorders.
‘Couldn’t say no’ describes the situation I put myself in pretty well and if it sounds like I’m trying to avoid responsibility for this stupid actions – it’s not, I agreed to take that many orders and it as well as promising quite reserved waiting times were definitely my mistakes.
Here I must stop and reassure you – all the pedals are being built and will be reaching their respective owners soon.
Spring came and went and only saw me working on regular preorders of new MDTs and Brom…fuzzes alongside some small dealers’ and extra orders – Double Tape Ts emerged and 11 of them were built in April-May and July.
Ok, so something like 200 pedals to build starting in January and here we are in August with roughly 100 of them still not finished and not shipped. What were you doing all that time, Alexey?
Here are my explanations and they will inevitably sound like excuses and I am sorry for that. I putting everything here and in my about and warning pages for you to know who you are dealing with.
In 2017 I took a lot of preorders for Moomins, Tape Ts and then Terverbs, then early autumn happened and I had a suicidal eposide, was finally (I was 27 at the time) diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder and admitted to a mental institution here in Yaroslavl. Their treatment was fine, I guess, but they moved very slowly with it and basically wanted me to spend 6-12 months in the mental hospital before being put in front of a comission and being released and put on disability retirement.
I believed it was too slow and I had a lot of pedals to build, so I signed the papers stating I was not a danger to myself and others and left. I got my new meds from a private psychiatrist, they started working and I spent last months of 2017 fulfilling numerous orders quickly and rather easily. Another massive number of orders came in spring and were succesfully finished by July.
I was full of energy, making plans, announcing new large series of pedals and then… Then autumn came and my cycle moved back to depression. Current meds were not working, though I was taking them religiously, gave up alcohol forever and even sugar and carbs for couple of month at a time, numerous times – but I still got worse. And I didn’t notice the transition point.
One day in winter I woke up to a room full of unfinished designs, schematics and messy breadboards and realised I haven’t built or even really prepared to build anything from the new preorders. Mild deposit policy also didn’t help since I not only had very limited funds to pay for the development, parts. etc, I had no income – and I was so scared of the amount of money I earned in summer for all those orders, I just gave it all to my parents for them to pay off their mortgage.
2019 was not great but I had some dealers’ orders which helped me to refund all the autumn 2018 deposits. In 2020 I slowly returned with a new design – Polarized Flutter and the reception was great, even the global shitshow and shipping issues couldn’t stop me from getting back into business.
But then August came and along came the very worst depression drop in my whole life. Old meds thought updated and being taken in aboslute maximum dosages were not capable to keep me from falling. I lost 40 pounds in 6 weeks, could barely walk, left my previous psychiatrist, nearly put myself through some shady clinic offering 30 procedures of electroconvulsive therapy to finally treat me, swallowed 50 xanax pills with vodka, somehow survived a fire and finally found a new doctor, new meds and in a couple of month I felt not only better – I felt amazing going from depression straight into the next hypomanic episode.
I guess you can already see the pattern – depression, new meds, hypomania, new work, new orders, depression, rinse and repeat.
So yes, when I took those 200 orders in January and February this year, I was 100% convinced I’m healed now, full of energy, can sleep 4 hours a day and be super effective until hypomania inevitably turned into slow dive into depression with no energy, work slowing down, sleeping for 12 hours and still exhausted, looking for new meds and trying to be at least somehow effective in work and life. Since early August I’m on twice the maximum dose of two last antidepressants, double maximum dose of Lamotrigine and tons and tons of caffeine to be as awake and capable as I can.
It’s not the first time. I working and will finish all the orders. I am really ashamed for my false waiting time promises, my excuses and my weakness. And I am really sorry to keep you all waiting. And I am also very tired of these cycles, feeling too good for two months only to be useless and slow for the rest of the year, new meds, rinse and repeat. I am trying to break the cycle. In the meantime I am slowly working on your pedals. This is who I am. I am sorry to disappoint you and keep you waiting. But you should know.
I will be continuing working on these pedals and take preorders for something like 5 pedals at a time for already released pedals like MDT21, DTT and Brom…fuzzes to help fund finishing and shipping your early preorders. I will also work on small dealers’ orders containing released pedals and sell one-off and b stocks. I’m hoping to finish and ship every last early preorder pedal by the end of the year, including New Terberbs and Brom…Fades finilized versions of which will be shown soon.
Since I have nearly all early preorder pedals prepared (populated pcb, drilled and finished enclosure etc) the plan now is to assemble and finish two-three pedals a day providing maximum quality and attention to detail.
I just need more time, hope you understand.
UPD 19.06
Pre last batch of Broms is finished and is being shipped as we speak.
All regular MDT21 preorders fulfilled!
All early preordered PF+E prepared, assembly and shipping coming next week.
I finally got hold of my loan money and I’m ready to assemble and ship out pedals with the fastest speed possible.
I really really really appreciate your support, understanding and patience.
Unfortunately, EMS post keeps disappointing and surprising, sometimes delivering pedals in 5 days and sometimes needing 50-65 days to deliver. I’m really sorry about that, but it’s the last viable ‘fast’ shipping option out of Russia. Regular post is even slower with packages being transported by sea, DHL and FedEx rates are $150-250 overseas from Russia ?
I’m planning on preparing all the Double Polarized Flutter+Echos next week too, possibly shipping in 10-12 days.
I love you all, stay safe.
UPD 29.05 –
This week’s progress.
EARLY PREORDERS UPDATE:
There are several reasons why it takes so long for me to finish your early discounted prepaid orders.
Main one is that I’m generally quite a slow builder.
Rf78s are postponed because of a large shipment of main ICs being lost. New ones are ordered and are on their way.
New Terverb and BROM…fade are still on their breadboards being changed and updated every time I work on them. I need to finally make decisions and order the PCBs.
One issue I haven’t really mentioned is money. I had to spend a large part of my shipping fund due to parts lost in the mail and moreover due to newer Russian financial regulations which increased my taxes a whole lot and forced me to prematurely close all accounts and credit in one of the banks. Apparently they don’t know what paypal is and thus they made me prove I’m not financing terrorism (yup).
These issues are 100% not your problem and I should have been wiser and more careful with the shipping fund.
I know you all have been really understanding and patient and I’m really lucky and grateful.
I’m in the process to take a new loan from a new bank to cover those unexpected expenses and make sure everyone receives their pedals.
It will definitely take time but I can promise all your early preordered pedals will be finished by the end of summer. Probably much sooner, but I don’t want to waste any more of your time with my wrong predictions and false promises.
Thank you
UPD 05.05
37 regular preorder pedals to go (MDTs and BROM fuzzes), New Terverb being repacked into a smaller (the same as PF, MDT, TM and RF78) enclosure, already built PFs disassembled and upgraded with the ‘last moment upgrade’, RF78 chips still in transit, solving this problem as I can.
Early preorders are coming after regular preorders, waiting time is stretched into the summer. I’m sorry, I’m trying to bring the best possible builds as quickly as I can. I really apreciate you patience and trust.
Early preorders
NTR – 10
NTRS – 6
PF+E – 11
DPF+E – 12
TM – 37
RF78 – 30
BROMFADE – 7
113 total. I really underestimated the time needed to build all of these.
Regular preorders
MDT21 – 10
BROMFUZZ – 25
UPD 29.04 – Did a couple of last minute circuit redesigns for PF+E (6 of 11 are built and being prepared for shipping), also improved Brom…Fuzz circuit. 29 of 56 Brom…Fuzzes are shipped or prepared for shipping. Working on early preorders, RF78 still wait for their lost main chips (hopefully arriving soon), 10 of 40 TMs are prebuilt, please note –
Early preorders take a long time to prepare. Maybe much longer than the estimated three-four months. That is why they were all discounted – to allow me to buy\order needed parts, enclosures. finishing supplies etc etc. Without your trust and these preorders these pedals were not possible at all. Buying 5k worth of reverb bricks is not something I can do without your support like this.
Circuits are being built, tested, rebuilt, tested again for maximum weirdness and fun.
New Terverbs and Brom…Fades will be the last early preorders to be fulfilled as I’m still working on them (main Brom circuit just got rearranged early this week for example).
I gave up earnings from these pedals just to be able to bring them to life. I am really grateful for your trust, patience and support.
Please feel free to contact me for any additional info, about your pedals, what state they are in, etc.
Thank you!
UPD 20.04 – Almost all mono PF+E pedals are finished, soon to be shipped. Half of private MDT21 orders are already fulfilled. All current DTT orders are fulfilled. Double Tape Ts coming soon. Finished more than half of preordered Brom…Fuzzes.
I’m changing waiting times for all pedals on the website, progress is steady but slow. Please feel free to contact me if you have any problem with that.
Early preorders will definitely be extended to June at least, RF78, Brom Fades and New Terverbs being the last ones.
UPD 6.04
Well, yes. Sorry about that. Tried to post updates on instagram and always forgot people are checking out this page too.
So, regular preorders are being shipped, first Brom…Fuzzes, almost all MDT21s, all DTTs. I will continue finishing and shipping regular preorders every week until there are no more of them. All dealer orders are put on hold in favour of regular and early preorders.
Early preorders for PF+E, DPF+E and TM are the first ones to be finished, everything is prepared (enclosures, soldered boards, etc), assembly, testing and shipping left. Post has lost one of the fsr packages but I’ve got enough for all PFs.
First PFs coming this week.
RF78 are delayed as the main shipment of the delay chips used in them is lost too. I’ve already ordered the replacements and everything else for the pedals is already prepared (enclosures, boards etc) so when the chips arrive, I’ll just put them into basically finished pedals, test and ship them.
Terverbs and Brom…Fades are the slowest now. Basic New Terverb is finalized, stereo version is being tested. Brom…Fades have received the least preorders so they are now on hold. I’ll finish and assemble them as soon as I’m done with most of the regular preorders.
Thank you. Your patience and understanding means a world to me.
UPD 4.02
Daily, yeah…. Sorry about that. Been busy working on Terrible Mother – added new modes, a 4th delay instead of needlessly scanning through clean signal, the main effect is now inserted into clean (so when the effect’s volume is zero the pedal turns into a very strange tremolo), but you still have your dry clean on a different pot to mix in.
Since tap footswitch is useless in lfo envelope control mode it automatically switches to ‘dice stop’, stopping at the current value.
Drilled a ton of enclosures, received a ton of belton bricks, Terverb finalization very soon. Basically it’s brick into brick into brick into modulation chip into my very first overdrive (also based on an IC not suited for it) into crossfade section to play your reverb sound with your dry sound’s envelope. Stereo has double of that.
Got some fancy screws to attach IR sensor to RF78, but they are way too long, ordered shorter ones. Might take some time.
Once the toggle switches arrive first Benzo…Fuzzes from the second batch will get finished and shipped.
There is another very seductive idea in my mind, my first synth/instrument. I’m fighting the urge to start working on it since I still need to finish drawing PCBs for TM, Terverbs and Brom…Fade.
UPD 27.01 – First RF78 pcbs had some flaws, tested, fixed, main batch ordered. New Moomin has the same enclosure and almost the same layout but the pcb wouldn’t really work with regular two layers, so it will be my first lazy 4 layer pcb. Ordered.
Terrible Mother is being tweaked and modified as we speak and this is probably my favourite design so far.
I’ve also received obsolete 41256 memory chips for RF78, other parts are on their way.
UPD 20.11
PCBS for DPF+E and PF+E tested, working, already started building. PCBS for RF78 ordered, arriving tomorrow.
ALL BROM…FUZZ Batch1 orders shipped. BROM…FUZZ Batch 2 #1-#9 finished.
New Terverb updated, waiting for new breadboards to throw in Fadeverb capabilities.
EARLY PREORDERS WILL BE CLOSED IN A WEEK, ONLY A HANDFUL OF PEDALS LEFT.
UPD 01.11 – ORDERED A SHITLOAD OF NEEDED COMPONENTS, REVERB BRICKS, TOUCHPADS, IR SENSORS, A TON OF SMALL STUFF, ICS, OBSOLETE RAM, you name it. Working as hard as I can to build and deliver asap.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Brom…Fuzz #40-#48 – finished, preparing shipment
Brom…Fuzz #49-#57 (last ones for batch 1) – finished, emails sent.
Terverb Stereo (New Terverb Stereo) – final prototyping, ordering pcbs ~ in a week
New Terverb – final prototyping, ordering pcbs.
Polarized Flutter+Echo, Double Polarized Flutter+Echo – prototyping complete, ordering pcbs in 1-2 weeks, designes finalized.
Moomindrone T21 – prototyping, drawing pcbs, design finalized.
Terrible Mother – prototyping, design finalized.
Running for 78 – prototyping, added a comparator circuit now need a timer to tame its ridiculous loading times (yup, that’s a thing with old digital chips)
BROM…FADE – finishing prototyping
TapeV – prototyping.