becoming a pedal builder

samzadgan

so...as some of you know...i am a bit of a pedal whore...and through playing a lot of pedals in my playing life, i think i have developed a good idea of the variety of pedals and what sounds good and doesnt (to my ears and what i use them for). So with that in mind...i want to start building pedals...but here's the kicker...I have no idea about electronics...the last time i touched a soldering iron was in school when i was about 16 years old...and thats more than half a life away.

my questions are:

1. whats the most useful...and easiest pedal to start with

2. where/who should i be buying kits from?

3. what are some idiot proof resources i can use to learn about building  (think "idiots guide to...")

when offering advice on the above...really imagine how dumb i am on this...imagine you are teaching me how to play guitar and the first thing i need to learn is how to hit a string.

Also my ambition is not to build clones...i would obvioulsy start with those, to learn...but i'd like to be able to create my own pedals (as much as that is possible) so the knowledge i want to pick up is learning how things work and how different compnents interact with others to create certain sounds.

 

anyway...i would appreciate all the help and advice i get

 

Forge

Fuzz face, buy a kit from Pedal parts and check the theory of the Fuzz Face on Geofex. The FF is a good fuzz engine to customize and you'll learn about biasing, RF protection, transistors and plenty of other things

Forge

Do bear in mind you also want a good soldering station, Hakko (genuine) or Webber are great. If you go the vintage way you need to find quality NOS parts suppliers, they do cost a lot, and you will need a component analyser and multimeter too.

samzadgan

ok...fuzz face would be cool...i've always had ideas about a different kind of fuzz face...so that could be my first project. thanks Forge...ill look into all that stuff...as for soldering iron, I have a mate that can lend me a soldering iron...ill find out what it is.

also...if i want to build a fuzz face but add something like a boost...is it as easy as buying two circuits and just linking them up? or does it change the fuzz face circuit all together?

Forge

Two circuits together will work fine with 2 footswitches (it means they can be used separately or stacked), of course if they are both maxed out you may get some noise and you also want to think about the order in which they should be as the results can vary greatly. Keep the same polarity to keep the build simple, I'd say both NPN to start with. I have combined the FF and COT designs, they work fine together.

freakboy1610

You can get a basic but effective multimeter on Ebay for less than £10. You may need this with a Pedalparts kit as none of the bits are labelled. You can get a perfectly adequate Antex 18 watt soldering iron for £15 from CPC. The PedaIparts Shin Ei FY2 has a boost built into the PCB. I found this page quite helpful. You can save it as a pdf and print it off. It's good with soldering tips but also has info about which way around the components should go etc.

samzadgan

thanks guys this is already a great help...

the boost on the fuzz face was just one mod i want to do to it...this is something thats been in my head for a while...and it may be my klon!

 

 

 

 

 

but...probably not.

randomhandclaps

I was mentioning in the fatally wounded 'Incoming Tonebender' thread that I used to run a workshop for people wanting have a go a making simple musical circuits. Personally I would recommend starting with a simple single silicon transistor boost.  I'd probably start with something based around a 2n3904 or 2n2222 because even as you mod/make more progressive builds if you understand and know how to put this simple circuit together then it will always be useful.

Although I agree with a Fuzz Face being a good platform for building and designing other fuzzes (hell it's worked for 90% of the industry) I believe that the relative simplicity or complexity of the fuzz face circuit it open to debate.  I have mentioned it on here before when someone was attempting to put one together and naturally a couple of people (none of you guys above) piped in with views and information gleamed from reading the likes of TGP.

In truth (and rather sadly) as I grew up around musical electronics I have rather anally spent the past 13-14 years in particular studying, building and trying to understand three of the founding guitar effects in the form of the single transistor 'Rangemaster' type, the two transistor 'Fuzz Face' type and the three transistor 'Tonebender' type.  When I first started I had a lot of opinions and preconceived ideas based on basic viewing of schematics and information circulated by others.

If you take the fuzz face, try searching the internet for the definitive values to make a perfect fuzz face.  You will never find them.  There are main two reasons for this.  The obvious one is taste - what one person likes in a fuzz face circuit will be different to another.  My problem with this to a degree is that someone will still say to you "I want a fuzz face!", so unless you can read their mind, other than narrowing down the obvious choices like silicon or germanium, how are you to know what they see as sounding like a fuzz face.  Indeed it leaves the glaring question of "What is a fuzz face?". 

The other reason is due to the variables and the small number of parts.  Plenty of people look at a fuzz face and say "Well it's only 8 components and 2 transistors.  How hard can it be?".  Although it is simplifying it greatly the other way to look at it is that (forgetting even inconsistent transistors) each one of those components has a 12% effect of the functioning of the circuits and hence has the ability to greatly alter the sound.  Not only can they alter the circuit itself but they also alter the behaviour of the other components and the transistor and vice versa.

There is a hell of a lot of shit also spread about fuzz faces from both the mojo brigade and 'boutique' builders as much the 'I could do that!' mentality mentioned previously.  IMHO there is an art to building a great fuzz face, but like most arts it is largely lost to the myth and bullshit spread by those who want to overcharge for their magic beans.

Building a fuzz face can range from buying a few modern and consistent silicon transistors (the aforementioned 2N3904 or plastic 2n2222 as prime examples) and being a pretty much plug and play affair right through to pulling your hair out during sleepless nights of wondering why those 8 components and two transistor squeal, splutter, gate and so on.  As with absolutely any build the key is to maintain a focus that just because I have built a simple kit using modern transistors doesn't mean you've cracked it and conversely when struggling for two hours to get two seemingly perfect NOS trannys to play together don't give up.

Obviously, despite how much I have looked at this, this is still my opinion.  If however you do go ahead and get stuck or need any information the just ask.  If you need any schematics or explanations etc. then again just ask.

MtB

For the idiots guide to......

http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

MtB

The link doesn't quite work right, so follow the link, and on the "Getting Started" page click the link the link to FAQ. Lots of info about beginners stuff...

samzadgan

Sweet...thanks for all the advice so far...going to spend quality time online this weekend!

ecc83

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/1w-amplifier-kit-n48fl

I am not a pedal builder so I won't presume!

I would suggest you build the above however. It is a very easy build and run off 9volts will give a surprising amount of volume into even a 16 Ohm speaker for test/signal tracing purposes.

Although the specc says "4-9V supply it will run on 2x AA very well and makes a pretty good guitar headphone amp or again a signal tracer.

Whilst at Maplin, buy some AA battery boxes that make up a 9volt stack. MUCH cheaper than PP3s for testing and last forever. You can also bulk buy AAs very cheaply at RockBottom and similar places, £shops e.g.

Two more tips: Fit a power switch to the test rig which can be a piece of 19mm MDF together with an LED indicator.

Dave.

juansolo

Where to start... Build a few kits, it'll teach you a few good practices and get you some experience soldering.

My advise would be to get off kits asap and onto vero/perf board. It's harder but you'll learn more than just slapping a kit together, as that's just painting by numbers. At this point you'll likely build stuff that doesn't work. Get a multimeter and make yourself an audio probe. Learning how to falut find effects is a good way to understand how they work. As with everything else, the more you do, the better you'll get at it and the more you'll understand.

Forum wise. Madbean is a good starting point. As is BYOC. Loads of links on my site also.