Firstly, I hope yous are all doing well!
Secondly, I would like to thank you all for your support this year. Whether you bought a Leccy device, hit us up for a chat, commented on a post or read some of the guff I put in these articles and updates, I really appreciate it. The Champion Leccy community that’s been growing over the past few years on social media and our discord means a lot. That means you! THANK YOU!
All in all, it’s been a pretty good year. It’s been less than smooth admittedly, but good nonetheless. Halfway through the year we were hit with a scary medical emergency that really sucked (just a one off scare rather than anything to worry about long term, thank god). Straight after that, we managed to get Covid. Unfortunately I’ve had a pretty protracted recovery, and some annoying back issues which have meant putting off most of what I had planned for this year. I know I’ve mentioned this previously, I just want to let everyone know that I’ve been making significant progress over the last few months and we’re just about back on track. Fingers crossed everything is back to ‘normal’ and of course thank you all for your patience!
Whilst my memory is pretty fickle post Covid, let’s see if we can manage a look back at the year.
2022
The plan for the year was to tie up as many loose ends as possible and have things a bit more simple and streamlined for starting 2023. We jettisoned a bunch of old stock earlier in the year, like the Hand Samwitch and the Canny Fettle Boost. The Canny Fettle Boost is discontinued. The Hand Samwitch could well make a return once we get a couple of other more pressing things sorted.
We also managed to work our way through the very last of our screenprinted enclosures, which is kind of the end of an era and the start of a new one. Whatever screen printed stock we had is built and the store now and won’t be making a return. We’re migrating everything over to a larger shop, and everything will be UV printed from here on out.
We also managed to clear our shelves to make way for whatever’s coming. We had to buy extra shelves even. It’s all about shelves here. We got a wire stripping machine too! It’s on one of the shelves. Anyway, coming out the other end of 2022, we’re just that bit more organised, co-ordinated and functional.
One of the goals for the year was to up production and we have! Even with a chunk of time off from everything in summer, we built 10% more pedals than last year. When the next batch of Swan Hunters go up (see below) we’ll have not one, not two but three pedal lines (Swan Hunters, Kilters and Skitters!) in stock at the same time. That may well be a first!
The bad news is that I won’t be able to fit another batch of either Skitters and Kilters in until summer as there’s a few things that need to take priority. Anyway, we’re definitely making progress on expanding production and I’m hoping to be able to maintain relatively stable levels of stock in the near future. Throwing new releases into the mix will make that a bit tricky, but that’s the goal.
Being able to build more has meant that this year we were very happy to add Pedal Markt as our European dealer! They’ve been patiently waiting for stock for a long time.
Swan Hunters!
The last batch of pedals for the year will be a big ol’ batch of Swan Hunters. They will go up on Friday (16th Dec) at noon (EST).
The postponed stuff
You probably noticed that 2022 was totally devoid of new releases from us, including the end of days fuzz we were so excited about. There’s plenty on the way, we’ll have a couple belated releases next year (see below).
The #endofdaysfuzz challenge will still go ahead. You can read about it here.
Charity things
If you’ve been following us for a while, you probably know that around the end of the year I like to do some special pedal thing and donate proceeds to a local charity called Philabundance. They do very important work getting food to people who need it.
The charity pedal raffle was one of the things that had to be put on hold this year, I don’t really have a plan B, but the next best thing I can think of is to put some of my crazy brain doodles and pictures up for sale. I’ll post about this when I work it out. If you’re interested in a doodle, please hit me up!
On a personal note, the first band I’ve been a part of since coming to America 6 years ago started gigging and we recorded our first EP this year! For me writing and recording music is one of the few pure joys in life, so it was an honour (and a lot of fun) to be able to mix the EP.
If you find yourself curious or unbelievably bored, please do check it out (click on the image below).
2023
The general plan for next year is to finally get round to some pesky behind the scenes stuff, get stuff standardised, alter some PCB layouts to ease production, proofread the website, make sure there are proper manuals for everything, and generally try to look a bit more like I actually do this for a living. I have been considering a return to making ‘content’, if and when I can fit it in remains to be seen, but fingers crossed. It can be a lot of fun. I am hoping to fit in some wee video manuals too.
OK, so barring any unforeseen circumstances, there will be at least two Champion Leccy releases next year, hopefully three. I’m aiming for two in the first half of the year. What are they? Well I don’t want to jinx myself by saying anything too soon, but it looks like the first release will be…
The Dunsh
The Dunsh is kind of an offshoot from the end of days fuzz design. It’s a high gain pedal that includes a couple of gating options and will feature a rather neat wee Baxandall style EQ for a nicely comprehensive range of tone shaping options, and a second footswitch to knock it up a notch. bam.
and the second release will be…
The Forgetter
I am particularly excited about this one. It is a modulated echo. That’s about all I want to say at the minute. The prototype PCBs are on order and should be here late December/ early January. If it looks like it’s working well, I’ll start posting some more detailed info and perhaps even some sound clips.
Batches and new releases dates
So, whilst I should know better than to announce plans, I’m just going to do it anyway. Here’s how the first part of 2023 is looking so far.
January – housekeeping and product development. cake.
February – Woozies
March – Swan Hunters
April – The Dunsh
May/ June – the Forgetter
Summer – Kilters and Skitters
If January is productive, there may well be a third Champion Leccy release towards the end of the year. There’s several horses in that particular race, so I can’t say which pedal it might be just yet. I am also still planning on doing a small run of Divvies if everything looks good.
The end of days fuzz
Yep, still happening. A “winner” will be announced next December. There will almost certainly be a limited run of fuzzes towards the end of the year. There’s a few more details here if you haven’t read it already.
Anything else for 2023?
Yes, one big aim next year for me personally is to finally not be working 7 days a week, and to have more time to dedicate to music before I die. I’m not dying, but I will eventually and I have a lot of music yet to get out into the world. I’m setting myself the challenge of writing and recording a (minimum) 4 track EP by the end of the year, to keep hope alive.
I was thinking about tying this personal goal in with a community project/ challenge. Hopefully we can get a few people introduced and doing some tunes, who knows! Music is an art and a joy that we should all be making plenty of time for and helping each other with.
Also, look out for additional retailers joining us next year. We’ve had to put a few potential dealer relationships on hold until we could get up to speed with production. Well, we’re just about there! If you have a favoured dealer in your part of the world let us know!
Again, thank you for sticking with us and supporting us, as a small batch pedal builder it really means the world.