Effects - Pedals, Multi-Effects, and Floor Boxes

[gambit]

i need a career change, and pedal building seems to be a decent business to get into..

so where do i start? books, equipment, tutorials, any parttime courses particularly useful for a complete novice?

[MrChrisos]

First, you need to find some cartoonists to paint your pedals. Then, now this is the important bit son, you're going to need to go on the Joyo website... Stick with me. You'l be aaaaalright. :thu: (Start with BYOC for your skills, then onto FSB, you'll be learning as you go. Start with clones and then modify them - as your confidence grows, get creative. I'm not a pedal builder, this is just what I'd do)

[Vince]

If I'm honest, I think the people who have the most success in building pedals for a living, are those who have a crazy amount of electrical engineering knowledge. The ones who can see a resistor, capacitor or diode from 20 paces and tell you everything about it and what it would do to the circuit they are building. I'm all for people learning new things, but it just seems they have such an unfair advantage over the rest of us mere mortals that it would be daft to try unless you had that sort of knowledge as second nature.

[arcaneaether]

:snax:

[english_bob]

Electrical / electronics engineering skillz

Bullshitting-people-with-pseudoscience skillz

A good ear for toan

An angle- something that marks out your pedlols as different from everybody else's

Web design chops

Props from minor internet celebridees

[english_bob]

Start with BYOC for your skills, then onto FSB, you'll be learning as you go.

BYOC stuff is fine for learning to solder (although TBH, so is making your own leads, and that's much cheaper) but it requires no knowledge of electronics and won't impart any either if you just follow the instructions. Any serious answer to this question is going to have to feature "learn about electronics. A lot" very prominently.

[MrChrisos]

i need a career change, and pedal building seems to be a decent business to get into.. so where do i start? books, equipment, tutorials, any parttime courses particularly useful for a complete novice?

Ask Madebymike for work experience :idea:

[onyxrhino]

you know how pedal builders are always releasing a pedal "based on tones from Gilmour/Page/(insert miscellaneous dad rocker here)"? It's a sound marketing strategy, it immediately gives your pedal an identity, and a customer base, no matter what it actually sounds like. Maybe you fill the niche of making pedals focused on sounds of guitarists who have actually been relevant in the past 20 years or so?

[bieke]

not sure whether a startup as a pedalmaker is a good move nowadays,
you will need to come up with a superior product (Strymonish), create a hype (ZVexish), a cunning and profitable business plan (freekish), a distribution network, and most important of course, you need the skills and expertise to build the darn things.

A friend of mine started up a business a couple of years ago, building amps and pedals. He can keep his business running because he also does repairs, modding, services, custom jobs.

[H.P. Lovecraft]

and one of these dialed into your choice

[cmog]

i need a career change, and pedal building seems to be a decent business to get into...

"Decent business" is an interesting choice of words. From a microeconomics point of view, it is a small, niche industry where competition has exploded in the past five years. You would be competing with many businesses/designers with impressive skill sets and tertiary educated expertise. Most of the larger boutique brands will tell you that making a go of a pedal business requires a lot of personal sacrifice to stay above water, let alone succeed. There are hundreds of business models that are more decent than building pedals for a living. Start it as a hobby, learn as you go and strive to build/design things that are new and unique. Focus on the knowledge first, and if a business comes from it one day - success! But moving into it as a career change puts a lot of pressure on a line of work already fraught with hurdles and hard roads. I moved from a chemistry research background to a builder at MI Audio as a career change. I now have a managerial role and was very fortunate to find a job at an established pedal business. But starting a business from scratch is definitely one that takes a lot of consideration, regardless of the industry. Good luck!

[gambit]

oh yeah, this would definitely be a side project alongside my day job, but i'd like to get into it enough to supplement my income. i've got no delusions of grandeur about where i'm starting from. i just want to do it right from the get go and think some form of study/learning alongside the poking around with an soldering iron would be the way to go. also not bothered about building a company out of this.. or competing with Strymon :lol: if i can make a few cool pedals that aren't a rip-off, and that people want to buy i'll be happy.

[renula]

Make a delay based on your favorite dano, and I'll buy it.

[Naterel]

You need spunk

[dpizappi]

oh yeah, this would definitely be a side project alongside my day job, but i'd like to get into it enough to supplement my income. i've got no delusions of grandeur about where i'm starting from. i just want to do it right from the get go and think some form of study/learning alongside the poking around with an soldering iron would be the way to go. also not bothered about building a company out of this.. or competing with Strymon :lol: if i can make a few cool pedals that aren't a rip-off, and that people want to buy i'll be happy.

Clearly you know nothing about pedals.

[gambit]

You need spunk

i'm backed up with the stuff.

[gambit]

Make a delay based on your favorite dano, and I'll buy it.

i just bought another PB&J to mod and possibly rehouse if i can get enough skillz to put it together

will probably start with something simple but i think it'd definitely be cool to offer some kind of PB&J oscillating fun in a sturdy pedal. people seem to like it going by the reaction to the vids i use it in.

[hotmess]

Do you have a couple thousand bucks saved up? Because that's what my overhead is looking like right now if I really want to get into it and start up.

[BR4D]

You need spunk

And a dapper wardrobe.

[BR4D]

Do you have a couple thousand bucks saved up?

Because that's what my overhead is looking like right now if I really want to get into it and start up.

I would say that's an incredibly conservative estimate. That might cut it if you want to sell a dozen pedals on HC. It won't come close for any kind of serious distribution.