JD Sleep’s love of guitar began as a teenager and at the age of 14 he bought his first one for $25. (It was a Danelectro Hawk, black crackle finish with a white pick guard.) The Dano into a borrowed tweed Champ gave a sound straight from heaven (or so he thought at the time). He played in his first rock band, STC (the last initials of the band members), in high school. They were a smash! A hit sensation! The crowds went wild!
When he was about 16, he built his first stompbox. Whatever it was must not have worked. But that didn’t stop his passion for great sound and building guitar effects because since then, JD has built over a thousand working stompboxes! And he has great confidence in your stompbox building abilities as well. If he can do it, he knows you can, too.
In the mid 1990s, JD started providing online information about DIY stompboxes. Those of you around back then may remember a simple green website with DIY information, mostly for PCB layouts. Around this time he was playing in a jazz band in Cary, North Carolina called “non-fiction”. The fan base was immense! Okay, it was a wedding band, but he got to play occasional jazz standards which is always fun.
Then in 2006, after the website/store had been established for several years, JD quit his job with IBM and concentrated solely on General Guitar Gadgets, developing new projects, kits and PCBs and for a little while selling effects pedals such as the infamous Standard Overdrive.
Today, General Guitar Gadgets is still a family owned operation located near Good Hope, Missouri, USA. When he isn’t working on the site, JD keeps himself busy with his wife and their nine children. Besides playing guitar, he enjoys shepherding and digging Missouri dornicks. He also encourages his children in their artistic endeavors.
He occasionally offers stompboxes for sale through various outlets, such as ebay and reverb.com.