And has been for some time now!
You’ll have to forgive me for this one being a wee bit late and a little all over the place. Well, you don’t have to, but it would be nice. I’ve revisited, rewritten and renamed this article a number of times over the last few months hoping to reach a point where I could hit publish. But, there’s been so many false starts in recent memory that I’m still reluctant to post anything too quickly.
As most of you will probably know – and god knows I’m sick of talking about – I’ve been struggling with some health stuff for quite a while now, mainly a lower back/ hip injury that makes sitting down and working very difficult. No sooner have I mentioned some plan or other, than things take a wrong turn and I’ve made a liar of myself.
You’re probably familiar with the concept of time, so it should make sense when I say I’m not as young as I used to be. A consequence of this natural phenomenon is that trying to “push through it” has stopped working.
About two years ago it got so bad that I had to step away from everything Champion Leccy indefinitely to focus on living the good life of not being in pain. Pedal production, any kind of social media presence and the like have been sporadic and unsustainable since. Until now! I hope! We’ll see!
Whilst I have to admit to myself that the idea of a full recovery is wishful thinking at this point, the good news seems to be that as long as I keep up my daily maintenance routine religiously, I think I can build enough pedals and do enough of the other businessy stuff to keep everything going.
The day to day running of Champion Leccy is going to have to change though and I’ve spent a good stint thinking about what that looks like. I want to keep the focus of this article on what’s coming up, but I have a subsequent more detailed article about those changes for people who might be interested in a bit more depth and enjoy wordy words like ‘subsequent’ coming soon.
Alright, it’s time to concise it all up and just get into it.
A new way of working
The gist is I’m simplifying, stripping back and getting back to my small builder roots for the time being. Champion Leccy is a one man operation and there’s a bunch of limitations I have to accept. I work out of my South Philly rowhome, so sanity and storage are issues I need to contend with for a start.
The happy news is that I have a bunch of ideas and I’m pretty excited about the future.
The sad news is that if things haven’t improved by the end of the year I’m going to have to make some big decisions about whether to continue or not.
Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking about:
Limiting builds to 30 a month, until I can consistently do more.
Discontinuing a few models, clearing the decks of old blems, B-stock and protos that are cluttering the place up.
Working on more pedal designs, but doing smaller batches and more limited runs, including hand engraving art for more one-off pedals.
Most importantly, I want to get back to connecting with people again, and focussing on the community. Which, on top of the usual, will include:
Writing more articles over a broader range of topics. Some projects, some stuff related to creativity, some looks at life for the wonky brained, and of course some specific pedal related stuff.
Focussing more on doing videos, video manuals, suggested settings and all that.
I’m also making a conscious effort to regularly get back to art. Some of the art I make will be up for sale. If you ever see something you like, please hit me up to make an offer. You’ll also be able to check it out on my other instagram account.
As I’m living the lush life of a bonafide artist now, stuff will just happen when it happens. I can’t be forcing myself to work to deadlines, falling behind and doing myself a mischief trying to catch up like I have been. It gets done when it gets done.
So let’s get onto some specifics for 2026!
Fare thee well Fettle Boost
The first line for the chopping block is the Fettle Boost, which is sad cos it was my first original design.
Anyway, the very last units are listed here. Once they are gone, they are gone.
So, how final is this discontinuation? Well, I do still have a couple of PCBs around, I’m just out of enclosures and it’s not worth reordering. So you might see the odd hand engraved unit pop up now and then, but there won’t be any more production runs.
Next on the death list is probably the Dunsh. I’ll have to see how sales are once I’ve caught up on builds and am back into the social media landscape hawking my wares. But again, unless demand goes up significantly, it’s probably time to finish up stock and call it.
I’m looking at the idea of having a rotating spot for whatever dirt idea I’m excited about. They will probably all be limited runs, but if something has legs, I’d be happy to do more.
Restock!
I’m going to be restocking everything as quickly as I can. Starting now! If you are waiting on something coming back into stock, shoot me an email and I can get you one built quicksmart. I try to get restocks in the right order and quantity, but it’s impossible to know who’s actually out there and what they might be after, so do please let me know!
The Skitter
This is a big one. I stopped building both the Kilter and Skitter a few years ago because I had some ideas for updates to the circuits, so I stopped production. Health problems got in the way and the redesigns got delayed, whilst I tried to keep other plates spinning. It’s a huge benchmark to finally be caught up.
During a big clear out late last year I found a bunch of V2 Skitter blems, B stock or prototype enclosures/ units. These will go on sale with a discount around the same time as the V3 gets released. They will be listed separately to help avoid confusion.
I’m looking to do a preorder version with limited edition artwork, probably in March, and the release proper will probably be in April.
Ne’ermind
The Ne’ermind is going to be a very fun gross lofi echo. Strangely enough it is the first dedicated echo that I’ve ever done. I am really excited about it. It is gnarly and crunchy.
The prototype is very, very close. I just need to do one last round of PCBs before signing off, but it’s on course for release later this year. It really depends how the Skitter re-release does and how well I can keep up with my build schedule before I can fit it in.
Pedal Shows!
Effective Slam – Richmond, VA
March 14th (Stone Brewing from 12 noon – 5PM)
That’s right! Pi Day! And in honour of that, I will almost certainly have a wee Big Muff Pi style treat. There will be a few hand engraved Bloody Getts available for sale. For those of you who don’t know the Bloody Gett was a Black Russian Big Muff based fuzz that I discontinued in 2019. I kept working on and developing one small section of it, which ended up becoming part of the Canny Fettle Boost and later the Dunsh circuits in some form.
Check the Effective Slam insta for more details and the full line up.
Philly Pedal Party – Philly, PA
April 11th (Johnny Brenda’s from 12 noon – 5PM)
There will hopefully be a Ne’ermind prototype for people to play with, and who knows, maybe I’ll even have some Skitter units ready for sale too!
If you’ve read this far, thank you. I really appreciate it. It means a lot that you spent time checking out my odd little corner of the pedal world to see what’s going on.
If you’d like to read some more about some of the behind the scenes thinking, I have another article coming shortly.
If you have any questions, you can contact me or join the discord.