Hello everyone! And I mean that from the bottom of my heart!

I am very happy to finally be sitting down to write this updates article without thinking ‘is it too soon?’ or ‘am I jinxing myself here?’. I think things are looking up enough that it’s safe to pop my head out, give a hopeful wave and then get back to ignoring the insanity that I can’t do anything about and focussing on the small things I can control. Go Birds!

What’s been happening?

Well, I’m glad you asked! For the last 3 or 4 months – I can’t remember when the last update was – I’ve been working steadily on a few things. First and foremost getting my whole back/ hip / leg area working as it should. It’s been a lot of work, a few hours every day of light activities and eternal postural vigilance, but things are getting markedly better! No more leg being dead, no more horribly crunchy sounds from my hip and I’ve even been able to start getting my walk intensity up to ‘brisk’ on occasion! And so, I feel confident that I will one day in the not so distant future be pain-free and able to work at least semi-regular hours, which should be enough to hopefully maintain a business, and not just any business, but this one, Champion Leccy, which is good, because like most of you I rely on work to bring in money for things like food and shelter.

Apart from slowly rehabilitating my stupid flimsy human body, I’ve been busy working on my stupid flimsy human mind. I’ve also been working on some new ideas.

What does all that mean?

Yes, that last sentence was uselessly vague, but that’s because I’m going to break everything down now. It was planned! Haha!

So, the ideas I’ve been working on are twofold.

Firstly, pedal designs!

Secondly how I can/ should/ will need to run Champion Leccy (and my life in general) from here on out. I’ll get to both those things right now without any more dillydallying.

My plan is as simple and flexible as reality will allow. I intend to keep to my highly-disciplined health-focussed SAS level training regime of gentle daily walks and healthy eating for another 2 months. Around the start of April I will have some big decisions to make. Either, things are looking like they will keep on steadily improving and all the hard work has paid off, or there is a ceiling on what I can do myself and I’ll need to start going in for scans and the like. Maybe I can get some Robocop legs.

It’s too early to call, and I’ve had so many false starts that I can’t say 100%, but as long as the world doesn’t implode (which it could well do), things are probably looking good long term.

The ideas stuff!

Before I get into the pedal stuff (and feel free to skip this if that’s the news you seek, just jump to the next big bold heading) I wanted to share some ideas with you. I’m planning on some lifestyle changes and there’s going to be some knock on effects with Champion Leccy.

Firstly, I realised there were a few things I just hadn’t given proper thought to since the pandemic. Partly because of the whiplash of being constantly on edge with the changing global situation, but also partly with silently trying to work through back pain, falling behind, making things worse, feeling left behind, trying to catch up and then making things worse again. It’s been a janky few years, and it’s time to recalibrate.

I’ve had to be a bit more realistic with myself about where I am (middle age), where Champion Leccy is (in a ditch) and where the world is (awful). I think I’ll likely come back to this in future articles, but the idea of connecting to the community has really shot way up the list. The human element of all of this has to be the most important thing.

For such a long time I’ve struggled to get on with social media. I don’t like the ideas around marketing, I don’t like the idea of trying to sell to customers. So many times I’d have something small or silly to post and I just wouldn’t, because I couldn’t work out how it fitted into a social media campaign plan strategy for successful business growth. Like I’d get a proto going, but then I’d think ‘oh I shouldn’t post this because it’s not quite there, and it might not come together as a product’, or ‘the post will lose impact and people will move onto the next shiny thing unless I time it just right’. And it ended up with all content grinding to a halt.

It’s still a bit of a mental block, but I do intend to share more of what’s going on as it’s going on. Like in the old days! And really trying to use social media as an opportunity to connect with people. Like in the old days! I’m also going to be about more in the discord, cos it’s nice. It’s not too busy and it’s cool to just be able to chat with people, like you, about whatever. Answer questions like a real human and you know, all that good stuff.

On the back of that, I’m done trying to appear as a bigger business than I am, I’m just a guy in a South Philly rowhome, and that’s fine. Let the truth be known! I won’t be hiding it any more. My work area (my house) looks like crap and I won’t be embarrassed by it any longer.

In terms of solid business practices and my sanity, I don’t plan on doing preorders again (though I will likely be opening up some slots up for the Kilter V2 release, see below). I also don’t plan on setting another timeline or deadline if I can avoid it. It gets done when it gets done. I can’t sacrifice my health any more. I’d rather be poor than dead, which I am (the former, not the latter).

The plan from here on out is to have everything built and ready to ship before listing it. If it’s in the store, it’s here and ready to go. I’ll most likely be switching to batch builds and cycling through whatever needs restocking the most. I just won’t be able to keep everything in stock at the same time.

If you want to know, I should be able to tell you the order of the builds, but I won’t be committing to a batch date until everything is good to go. I’ll let people know through instagram and discord how batches are progressing.

Nothing is absolute though, so let’s see how all this pans out.

Pedal stuff!

If you skipped to here, you should feel bad. Please go back and read the bit above, otherwise it won’t make sense. No that’s a lie, do what you like, I’m not your dad.

General restock

I’ll slowly be working on getting everything built and back in stock from now, as I mentioned above, I’m planning on having everything built, ready to ship before I start listing things, no more preorders no lead times, nuthin.

As far as what will get restocked when, I don’t know yet! Stay tuned, shoot me a message or ask in the discord if you want any details.

I will be prioritising the Swan Hunter and the Divvy. Everything else will follow shortly after.

Divvy blowout!

February and March will mainly involve a lot of preparation and restocking. I don’t have timelines for everything, but the last Divvies will likely be first, if that makes sense. The remaining stock will be listed at the discounted price of $99. I can’t remember off the top of my head, but there will be somewhere slightly north of 20 in total. Once they are gone they are gone.

Kilter V2

This will 100 gazillion percent be the next new release. Yes, that’s right it never happened last year. I’m still working on the details, and don’t have a date yet, but here’s what I definitely can say. I will be offering some preorder slots before release, these will (almost certainly) be the last preorders I do. The release will probably be in April or May. Demo units are on their way out this week.

Evil Twin

I don’t know how many of you have been following my antics long enough to know what the Evil Twin is, but it was one of the first pedals I designed and built back in early 2017. It is a crazy oscillating noise drone box that is very loud and crazy. Absolute bedlam.

Anyway, it’s going to be making a comeback this year. It’ll probably be something that I do in small batches, maybe once a year, who knows, but it’s a fun one that I get asked about every so often and have been promising to get back out there.

A working prototype has been built and tested. I have started on the artwork. Due to all the not working that’s been taking up the last few months of rehabilitation, I will be relying on money coming in from other stuff before I can buy all the bits I need for a first batch. So if you want one, either buy some of my other pedals that you’re not interested in in the meantime or dupe some moron into buying them on your behalf. That’s the plan, I’m relying on you. Or you know, do what you want, I’m not your dad.

Skitter V3

I am still chipping away at the Skitter. It has been the biggest victim of my silly circumstances and I feel bad for that. I am hopeful that I will have something that ticks all the boxes that I want ticking by the end of the year. I built a preliminary prototype recently, but it didn’t work as I was hoping, so I went back to the drawing board and redesigned it. I haven’t finished the PCB for that yet, but will in the next few weeks. Once I get something that’s working, I will get it back in the line up as a regular very ASAPs.

What else is on the horizon?

Word has it that there will be another Baltimore Pedal Show in summer.

Word also has it that there will be another Philly Pedal Party in the first half of the year.

Once I can get some money flowing I will be getting back to a couple of other prototypes that may also make a showing as limited batches this year or early 2026. Namely the Hand Samwitch (a handheld oscillator of insanity) and the Dunce (renamed from the Kosh) which is a smaller simpler Dunsh-based circuit without any EQ options.

OK, I’m tired, so it’s bedtime. If you made it this far, thank you. There is no prize though.