Many wise words here for pedal buyers

juansolo

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

http://www.danekinser.com/?p=629

crunchman

Having built a couple of pedals myself I know how easily wiring can become a mess, but there are things in those gutshots that are scary.

I wouldn't dream of selling mine commercially.

stickyfiddle

Excellent piece. And nice to know most of my own builds are towards the better side, looking at those pics!

timmysoft

I've had a few shitty builds from small volume builders, its kind of the reason that now i try to stick to mass produced pedals, they spend thousands on R&D to make sure their designs work where as a lot of the newer smaller builders are just throwing stuff together based on an existing design.

My approach to pedals, amps and guitars is now "Boutique is not a word to describe good tone, its a word associated with vanity and plebs"

ThePrettyDamned

All of those

Literally every single one

Still looks better than the innards of my fuzz build

Needless to say, I didn't know much about lead dress.

Maxi

Im so sure about expecting a builder to supply a gut shot .
If its a well known circuit probably not much to lose from the builders point of view but if they actually came up with something quite a bit different even if its based on a well known circuit you can understand them for not wanting it pasted all over the net before money has changed hands .
If it was me I wouldnt have a problem offering up a gut shot because I know its a mugs game in any case . If we produce a popular solution its always a matter of time before a 3rd party schematic follows .
Copy right dont apply to schem's, (PCB image does) etc .

EdGrip

As above - glad to see that my own efforts qualify as at least "average" ^__^

Dave_Mc

Nice link

benmurray85

great article. a couple of years back i really got into building but by no means was i anywhere near what id class as "a builder" or something that could be saleable. as i enjoyed it i wound up doing some builds for friends just for parts money, everything went well. 

then one of them bust and as i couldn't fix it i gave the lad his 15 quid or whatever for parts back and i just felt like shit about the whole affair. 

what worries me is that theres people out there who couldn't give a shit about stuff like that and as this article points out its so easy to just start up a "business" even if you're not turning over vast amounts of money. i bought a couple of "home builds" off ebay sellers and they've been ok but not exactly what i was expecting. i think in future ill research a lot more into the builders or buy established especially since SOME builders now think they can whack an inflated price tag on 20 quids worth of parts.