Manufacturing and Quality Control: Engineer Jorge Aguila
Recently I had an opportunity to talk with Jorge Aguila – Senior Manufacturing Engineer at Strymon. Jorge is a man who wears many hats! In
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It was 2005, and I was in eighth grade. I had just picked up the guitar and was taking lessons, so my friend Richard thought I’d be interested in the guitar effects pedals his dad had been working on with his buddies – some tube-driven distortion and DSP-based multi-effects pedals with quirky names and crazy chassis. He brought one of the pedals to my house – a tube preamp/distortion unit – and it made my hackneyed renditions of “Voodoo Child” sound like I really knew what I was doing. The pedal’s brand was Damage Control. In fact, that’s me holding the guitar in the photo on the right. The photo was taken at the Damage Control holiday party in 2006. I never imagined that nearly ten years later I would be working for that company and the talented people who founded it.
Pete Celi, Gregg Stock, Dave Freuhling, and their babies.
Damage Control
Damage Control was founded by Gregg Stock (analog engineer) and Lucian Tu (industrial designer) in 2004. During this time, Gregg began crafting his own circuit board (shown to the right) incorporating high-voltage vacuum tubes and pre-and-post-distortion parametric EQ. Once the board was designed, Pete Celi (DSP specialist), who Gregg had worked with at previous audio companies such as Alesis and Line 6, came to Gregg’s house to check out his latest invention. “Pete brought his guitar over to my house on a Friday so he could play through what I’d built,” recalls Gregg, “on Saturday, he called me up and basically said, ‘I’m in.'” Soon after, Dave Fruehling (embedded systems expert), another long-time friend and colleague of both Gregg’s and Pete’s, joined in and completed the Damage Control team. 
With Lucian Tu designing the signature chassis and Gregg, Dave, and Pete improving upon the initial specs, Damage Control rolled out four tube-driven distortion units within their first two years–first, Demonizer and Womanizer and, later, Liquid Blues and Solid Metal. Meanwhile, Dave and Pete had delved into the world of Digital Signal Processing, designing some more intensive DSP-driven pedals also incorporating tubes known as TimeLine and Glass Nexus, which became the next additions to the Damage Control product line. Although the pedals were praised by players and reviewers, sales did not quite take off as hoped, and the team temporarily found itself focusing more on consulting gigs than new Damage Control pedals.
Strymon
The trio of Gregg, Pete, and Dave remained intact, however, and in its afforded time continued to work diligently on a brand new set of product designs. In 2009, the team decided it was time to recommit to building their own gear. Now-departed colleague Terry Burton, who had been working independently in their offices, had created the Strymon trademark. The team decided to make a fresh start and began using the Strymon name for this new line of Damage Control designs. Following the development and successful release of blueSky, the team brought in Ethan Tufts (self-professed Marketing Nerd) to help promote the next generation of Strymon pedals.
Since 2009, Strymon, based in Westlake Village, CA, has launched a line of thirteen pedals covering everything from all-analog optical compression to DSP-driven modulation.
DIY-ing our space in Westlake Village, CA.
From us, to your pedalboard, with love.
Present Day
Thanks to the humbling support from an awesome fan base, Damage Control/Strymon remains inspired to design interesting, quality products that we ourselves would want to own. When I asked what has been most rewarding about the Damage Control journey, Dave Freuhling answered, “Not working for the man. We’ve worked hard and are fortunate enough to have the freedom to not follow the rules. No matter what products Strymon cooks up in the future, we’ll maintain the spirit of where we started.”
Echoing Dave’s thoughts, ‘Marketing Nerd’ Ethan Tufts added, “We’re all about collaboration here. There is no one ‘mastermind’ or egocentric founder behind the design of our products. We decided early on that we don’t want to work for ‘the man,’ and we don’t want anyone here to feel that way, either.” After helping out wherever I can here at Strymon for a little over a year now, I can confidently say that I don’t “work for the man,” but, rather, with a group of talented friends.
As we capped off our second Strymon Social this past September (again, to everybody in attendance, thank you so much for coming), I felt extremely proud to a be a part of a company with an enthusiastic fan base as well as an honorable mission – to invent tools that spark creativity, which Damage Control has now been doing for over a decade. As a matter of principle, I had to ask Pete if there was a single Damage Control/Strymon pedal that he could call his favorite. “Each project presents a new set of challenges and discoveries,” Pete answered, “but the development of the Damage Control TimeLine stands out as a special one. We were just starting out and we had no idea what we were headed for, but the excitement of the initial phase has an energy that is unique and I’ll always associate that with the Damage Control TimeLine. This of course was also the genesis of the Strymon TimeLine, allowing us to stretch the concept and take it to a new level.”
To me, Pete’s answer encapsulates what Damage Control has been about from the very beginning: pushing boundaries and pursuing creative goals, no matter how challenging, and building upon success through diligence and teamwork. I look forward to being a part of what comes next. Here’s to the next ten years.
Strymon Holiday Card, 2013. We don’t really drink at work.
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Michael
Michael Callas spent some time writing for Strymon in 2014, and is now off making a name for himself in the film industry.
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29 Responses
Any chance you guys might be putting out a tube distortion pedal? (Nudge nudge wink wink?)
I need an excellent tube dist. to complete the rig I’m putting together, any suggestions or advice?
p.s. I have a glass nexus and use it all the time. Your newer Strymon products sound freakin’ amazing, all of them!
Hello, this song was written in honor Demonizer pedal.
https://soundcloud.com/search?q=damage%20control%20dayl%20pezer
Love your Products
Dayl
Hi, I was wondering does the
does the solid metal use the tube to create the distortionor does it used solid state Distortion in use tubes for the signal
@Joe Brown – Yes, the distortion in the solid metal is tube-driven distortion.
What are the power requirements for the demonizer? I know its 9v AC but what about the minumum amps? Cant find the info anywhere.
@Kasey – The Damage Control tube pedals such as the Demonizer are very power hungry and require a power supply that outputs 9V AC and a minimum of 2000mA of current.
Hi,
Not sure if you guys still check this but – I have a Liquid Blues (Serial No LQB-0001!) and the LEDs in the right-hand (boost) chamber are coming up green instead of orange, then turn off for a few seconds when I press the boost footswitch before turning red.
Any ideas what the problem might be and if it’s an easy fix?
Many thanks.
Shaun
@Shaun Macey – Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your Liquid Blues pedal. One possibility is that you may have a faulty REMOTE jack that is causing the footswitch to act differently, but there could still be other issues. Please shoot us an email to [email protected] for further help with this.
Hey, I came across an old Demonizer and it works great for about 30 seconds. Then it turns off and on again, but only in bypass mode. When I have the bottom plate off and a big fan on it – it seems to work for quite a while. Would this be an easy fix, or do you have any idea what could be causing this?
@Zack – Not quite on what specifically could be causing this. One thing to check is making sure that the grounding screw inside the pedal (bottom removed with the jacks facing away from you) on the left that goes through the circuit board into the chassis is tightened. You can also try swapping out the tubes. If this does not help, it may be a deeper hardware problem. We have limited capabilities for repairing these units as we no longer have parts readily available, but please email us at [email protected] for further info on the old Damage Control pedals.
I have the Damage Control and the Tubes need to be replaced. Which Tubes are the equivalent and better than these. Someone on utube replaced them with another Brand and he gets better high frequency response.
Regards
Gino
@Gino D’Amico – We used generic tubes for those pedals and you can use any normal 12ax7/ECC83 preamp tubes from any other brand and get different results. We really do not have data on how each of the different tube varieties will respond with the pedals, so you will have to give it a try yourself. I would go with a reputable brand of tubes if possible.
I have owned my Solid Metal pedal for many many years. I love its versatility and have used it so much that i have had to frankenstein the power wire directly to the board as the connector broke off the board . anyway is there any current strymon distortion pedals built in the same design as or close to the way these tube pedals were designed and built. I like it for durect recording into my DAW as well as for live sound. thanks so much .
Hey Derek! Glad to hear you’ve gotten so much use from your Solid Metal. It’s a very unique and great sounding pedal. There’s nothing currently in the Damage Control lineup that is based off that, but riverside is a popular choice for our customers looking for a very versatile drive that can even act as a tonal preamp for direct recording scenarios.
Check out some of the demos, and if you decide to get your hands on one I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!
https://www.strymon.net/product/riverside/
I used to dream of having a Damage Control Timeline but settled years ago for a TC Flashback. Now looking at a Strymon El Capistan. I’ll still keep an eye out for a DC Timeline. Add to my impossible dream list: Colorsound Octivider, MuTron Bi-Phase, Morley Vibe Wah etc THANKS
Hello. When saving a midi program on the DCTL doesn’t save bypass/active parameter. The midi control language says is uses midi clock 0x1A. My question is can i use a controller and send cc26 to the DCTL to cotrol the bypass/active feature? Thank you
Hey there, please email us at [email protected] and we can take a look into this for you. Thanks!
HOW DO I SET MY NEW (MIDNIGHT BLACK) pedal
My Second Timeline, I have two (2x) now … ? for
the total delay of 20 seconds, this one has no MIX-1
TIME-1 or FEEDBACK-1 ?
WHATS UP WITH THAT ?
~ RUSS
Portland, Oregon.
Hey Russ, shoot us an email to [email protected], and we’d be happy to help you out with this.
Hi, I just bought a Womanizer second hand, and it’s great. The optical compressor is very warm and musical, so much so that I took my Keeley Compressor Plus off my board. All the material I’ve seen just said the opto-compressor is based on a “classic circuit.” Can you say WHICH classic circuit it’s based on?
Hi Rod,
Glad to hear you’re digging it!
Please email our support team at [email protected] and they can do some research into this and let you know.
Hi, On my Damage Control Liquid Blues the manual says the right side should glow either Orange (Nuclear Off) or Red (Nuclear Boost ON).
But mine is either No Color or Green.
What is causing this?
Thanks.
Hey there, please email us at [email protected], and we can look into this 🙂
I used to play a DCSM Petal in front of a solid state amp and it was such a great tone. I ended up selling it after i got my 3120 Peavy head. There was a rumor that strymon/ DC were going to come out with a high gain amp, but I don’t think that ever happened. can you elaborate on that story perhaps?
Hi, can you e-mail me the Damage Control Timeline manual?
I think I have it mostly figured out, but I don’t know how to save to User Presets 1-4.
And there are probably other things that I don’t even know that I don’t know.
Also, the ‘Filter/Grain’ dual-pot knob doesn’t seem to do much of anything. Any Ideas?
Hey there! Shoot us an email to [email protected] and we’d be happy to help out.