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Of that the retailer will take somewhere around 30-40% (split the difference and say £35), leaving £65.
3PDT - £3ish, £8 if it's a decent one - let's assume it's a cheapo.
Pair of jacks and a DC socket - £10 total for ones worth using (otherwise you risk too many returns) - it states that the jacks are USA switchcraft
Enclosure - looks like a Hammond, £5 assuming decent bulk
Powder coating and silk screening - £5 in batches
Pair of CTS pots - £5 a pair?
Board and components - £3 - though those PIO caps may be quite expensive, depends what they are.
Davies knobs - £2 the pair
So that's £33, leaving £32.
£32 to assemble it, package it, post it out to the retailers, manage any returns and try to make a living. Screw that for a living. Even if all the parts came to £5 you'd be earning £60 before tax on a pedal that probably takes an hour or so to assemble. That's got to cover tax, premises, insurance, food, heat and power and everything else.
I've lost count of how many times I've done a breakdown like this and demonstrated that the boutiquers and small builders are not laughing all the way to their private banks. The component cost is almost irrelevant for hand made things.
For what it's worth I own several ZVex pedals. Half the value of ownership is in the paint jobs - they're artworks that happen to make cool noises as much as they are guitar pedals.
And this from someone with a well-known dislike of overhyped 'hand built' products...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The problem (as much as it is one) is that the boutique market arose because of consumer interest - guitarists as a whole are quite keen on blood sweat and tears having gone into the tools they use. Witness the endless (and largely spurious) debates about hand-made vs CNC'd guitars - there is as much focus on the method as the result. BTW - I mean that as a throwaway example, not a new topic in this discussion (though no problem with someone starting a separate one!).
Your post doesn't come across as rude to me.
And I do believe that the paid-amateur is distorting the market, though I wouldn't express it as "ruining it for everyone else", it's just that having a day-job that pays all the essentials does tend to make people underestimate the value of their spare time compared to their paid time. I think that's a matter for the consumer of the product or service; do they want lowest price, or do they want someone who can afford to put things right if they go wrong? Or, rather, where on that continuum are they happy to put their money?
I completely see your point and it's not rude, it's a perfectly valid argument. The thing about it being within consumer electronics is that those who are buying them are either not comfortable building one themselves are opting to buy one made by ZVEX for another reason. Usually a lot of the bullshit, although encouraged by makers, is generated by consumer's ears being influenced by price and hype.
There are guitar builders who assemble pre-made parts which is something we can view as 'we can all do that'. It is the fine tuning skill and experience as well as the support they can provide which separates them from the layman, and not everyone wants to get their hands dirty. Sadly for these guys it is getting increasingly difficult to earn a living as the prices they need to charge can appear unbalanced when compared to factory line competitors.
Smaller professional builders are not opting to build pedals by hand as a for a deliberate cost or time consuming reason, it by and large can provide more consistent results than a mass-production line - which is evident when you start opening up a lot of Joyo pedals. If you take @Sporky's earlier comment about the price of producing a run of Valvesporkers, on top of this he could not afford for products to be repeatedly returned so he has to ensure his every effort is going in to making it as solid and durable as possible - and that does take both skill and time. In contrast Blackstar launched their first bunch of pedals with enormous marketing knowing the far east distance-production and the saving on cheaper component increased the possibility of unit failure - which did happen but the investment was in place to cushion that. If someone approached Sporky and said we would like to invest a huge sum of money in the Valvesporker, transfer production to the far east and cost save on local components then undoubtedly he could drop the price and ironically would be making far more profit per unit than producing them himself individually by hand.
To a builder smaller, simpler jobs are usually the most awkward to deal with. I find true bypass loop pedals to be the bane of my life. I get a request for one in a plain enclosure and it becomes a real challenge to price. It's a switch and jacks in a box which anyone semi-competent with a soldering iron could put together so charging too much doesn't sit well with me morally. By the same token it has to be worth my while time-wise as I could be making something else more profitable. There was a guy on EBay for a long while selling 'volume boxes' as attenuators (can't find him on them now) and charging £45 and claiming them as some piece of his own revolutionary design - it wouldn't sit well with me but plenty of people bought them and judging by his feedback were very happy.
I've made 3 Orange Squeezers so far - I've improved my understanding each time - what components are critical, which can be messed with to improve sustain or attack - I imagine a genuine maker attempts many many many more experimental versions before commiting to make a pedal - and I view the cost of the pedal to be mitigating some of that time.
It's like pirating albums - it didn't take the band 50 minutes to compose, write the songs, rehearse them, evolve them... they didn't record them using little indian babies as sound engineers in shanty town studios on an old binatone tape player.
Likewise the cost of a pedal isn't based on it's parts count.
Bill Finnegan used to spend an awful lot of time trying to improve the Klon, different pcbs, components, that's dedication and professionalism - you can buy a copy off ebay but it might not have had the same rigourous testing you can expect of a man who deeply cares about his products reputation.
Precisely, and in parts used in both development or lost to mistakes we learn from the cost adds up and it is indeed not as simple as comparing parts to the finished article.
+1 on what EdGrip said- I sympathise with the fact that it's probably not fair for hobbyists to be subsidising what they're doing with their day job (and also other countries with lower labour costs making stuff made in the west seem expensive), but that happens in all fields of work, not just pedals. Also I don't see how you could ban the former, either, because using that logic you wouldn't be allowed to cut your own grass or wash your own car, taken to its logical conclusion (or at least do it as a favour for a mate).
I thought the rumours were that he got someone else to do the research? No idea if it's true or not...
I stand corrected.
I didn't mean that you were wrong to think it was a lot of money (or even to think that it was too much money) - just wanted to demonstrate how £3 in components on the PCB turns into a £100 pedal.
I think "transparent" has become the new bullshit-indicator word.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein