Should I take the risk?

You Get To Decide!

I have been racking my brain for some years now as to how I might bring a pedal to the bass community that is something special when it comes to helping bass players find their sound.

I have design ideas, features, toggle switches, enclosure concepts… but I have yet to find a partner to build any of these ideas.

With the recent upload of my DI shootout video, it started to bring this goal of creating a pedal back into focus. I fell in love with so many features of the amazing units I showcased in the video, and most of all I returned to the idea of simplicity.

I included the Teletronix TDI, and immediately regretted not owning two of them so I could record my effects in stereo when I’m in the studio. I combed the internet for a used one as I hadn’t heard anything from Teletronix in a long time, and came up empty handed.

Then a couple of friends saw the video and told me “I guess I’m on the hunt for a TDI now…”, and so ensued much frantic scouring of Reverb and Ebay hoping to find one.

Nada.

So I reached out directly to Teletronix to see if there was any remote possibility they might still have some new old stock and be able to sell me and my friends a few units.

It turns out there are 24 left of the run of just 50 that were made. The owner of the company told me he’d taken a step back from designing and building since 2022 due to the rising production costs in Australia, and his desire not to compromise on the quality of the units by going offshore. I was also told there are no plans to make any more of these DI boxes beyond the 50 in the original run. 😯😢

I think that’s a massive shame as they’re an incredible tool in the studio, and no matter what happens I’m going to get myself a couple more.

But then I asked them if I could simply buy the rest of the stock and sell them through my website as kind of an exclusive dealer.

Most of my audience in is the US and Europe so I could greatly reduce the shipping costs to the customer, and it would be a great dry-run of selling a pedal of great value to bass players through my site, in preparation for eventually manufacturing and selling something original of my own design.

All this to say: Who’s in? If I get enough interest from you all, I’ll pull the trigger, assume the risk of the up-front bulk purchase from Teletronix, maybe even do a pre-order to let you secure your unit, and ship them to you accordingly.

It has a Lundahl transformer in it, an “automated eliminator circuit” 🤷‍♀️ that I don’t understand but I know it eliminates ground hum, and a line driver circuit that takes care of sound degradation with long cable runs.

I’m not going to pretend I know even 1% of the engineering side of what makes this thing tick, but I can tell you the reasons I want a couple more of them for my studio: they’re clean, warm, and simple to use.

Like I said, I’m getting at least one more no matter what. If you want in on this limited run of something I’m told won’t be made again, I think it would be fun to be the person that takes them off a shelf gathering dust in Melbourne Australia, and gets them into the hands of bass players who care about their sound.

As a very preliminary price I’m looking at $279 + shipping.

Janek