Members chadd Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I'm fairly handy with a soldering iron and used to do a lot of break/fix work and I'm interested in getting into building pedals as another hobby. I'm really not interested in designing my own stuff or sourcing the parts individually at this point. I'm a little rusty and I'd like to keep the cost down as much as possible. Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members larry50 Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 http://buildyourownclone.com/ Great kits, but you don't really learn about circuits and components if you're interested in getting in that deep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chadd Posted September 4, 2012 Author Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I'm just looking for the most inexpensive way to get into assembly at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dap99 Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 General guitar gadgets is cheaper than BYOC, but BYOC has better instructions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members larry50 Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I'm just looking for the most inexpensive way to get into assembly at this point. BYOC is highly regarded, well known and well established, geared for people with no pedal assembly experience, they have a wide variety of relatively inexpensive pedal kits and most are pretty well regarded. Check them out. (and no, I don't work for them). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chadd Posted September 4, 2012 Author Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 $80 or $149 seems like a fairly expensive kit to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members larry50 Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 $80 or $149 seems like a fairly expensive kit to me. There are cheaper ones, but that's about the going price for most of the on-line pedal kit sellers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I'll second (or are we up to "third"?) the BYOC suggestion. I've built one of their kits, and the quality was top notch. In particular, their PCBs are really good, which isn't always the case. Other good places to check out definitely include General Guitar Gadgets. There is also a DIY thread here in the Effects forum where you might want to ask for suggestions, as well as a dedicated DIY forum here on Harmony Central that you should definitely check out. www.buildyourownclone.com www.generalguitargadgets.com/ Here's a few more links you might want to check out: http://www.olcircuits.com/olckits.html http://www.modkitsdiy.com/ https://www.smallbearelec.com/Projects/ProjandProd.html http://www.4mspedals.com/kits.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Blakemore Effects Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 $80 or $149 seems like a fairly expensive kit to me. The General Guitar Gadgets kits are probably closer to $60, but the instructions aren't as good as the BYOC ones. Not bad, if you know what you're doing, but (and I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I honestly don't know your level of experience) if you don't know how to spot the difference between a diode and a resistor, you may be better served to try BYOC first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members english_bob Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 $80 or $149 seems like a fairly expensive kit to me. That's the thing- you're pretty much asking to have your cake and eat it. You want to avoid doing all the crappy time consuming stuff, so you have to pay someone else for their time and effort- drilling enclosures, sourcing parts, sorting parts, designing PCBs, writing instructions- and you're going to the people who have to put food on the table by doing it, so it's going to cost you. FWIW, the kits at the upper end of BYOC's price range are fairly complex- lots of parts, original designs, and the end product is a quality pedal (assuming your soldering is up to sniff) so it's not exactly money for old rope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members currynoodles Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 From my experience, sourcing it all and putting them together is much cheaper than a kit. Sure, it's a bit of extra work but you'll learn more in the process and it'll be a lot cheaper. Judging from your prior experience, I reckon you can manage. Start with simple vero designs (or purchase PCB's if you want) and move from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members King Rat Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I went from being a complete "I have no idea what i'm getting into but I want to build/paint a pedal" and bought a GGG's kit... and I bought a soldering iron.. I found that with no real experience/knowledge coupled with no idea how to understand the limited GGG's instruction I ended up making a paper weight.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 the byoc are the luxurious version of a kit available on the planet. they are fairly priced and you get high quality pedals out of it. sourcing parts is the most time consuming task in building own pedals. and if you just want to built one pedal you pay a significant higher price per part.one other thing is the enclosure. if bought online there are no holes and you need to drill yourself. do you have a big enough drill? for the standard 9V plug you need a 13mm hole. a standard drill can only go up to 10mm...do you have the tools for this? yes byoc is not cheap in a sense that you get a pedal for less than say 30$.but they are easy and fun to built, without needed a whole workbench and a lot of time on searching the right parts at the cheapest places on the internet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members brokenfixed Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I went from being a complete "I have no idea what i'm getting into but I want to build/paint a pedal" and bought a GGG's kit... and I bought a soldering iron..I found that with no real experience/knowledge coupled with no idea how to understand the limited GGG's instruction I ended up making a paper weight.. I was reading this expecting a triumphant pedal building ending...haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MesaMonster Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I have built a kit from GGG. It did not go perfect the first time and had to go through my wiring a couple of times. The GGG instructions can be a little confusing. I had to look over the diagram and instructions a bunch of times to finally get it. My next one is going to be from BYOC which will be the Distortion +/250 pedal. I like the possiblility of the circuit. Another good site is http://www.freestompboxes.org. This is a great website for the DYIer with lots of support. There are many schematics that anyone can use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Psychotronic Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I've built 7 or 8 pedals from BYOC at this point. Well worth it, and I was able to build several pedals without knowing ANYTHING about what I was doing, except that I already knew how to solder from doing work on my guitars. Oh, and I highly recommend the Dist. +/ 250 OD pedal, it's great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hooya Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 If you're a little more handy with the whole thing and want to do more of it yourself, http://www.madbeanpedals.com/ You'll have to source components. You can get painted and drilled enclosures from PedalPartsPlus and then you only have to assemble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoboPimp Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 BYOC kits are nice but honestly you can buy an already assembled pedal for the same price Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Inspector 71 Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 Just buy iStomp virtual pedals. Its the wave of the future. The wave of the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoboPimp Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 wave of the future Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chrisjnyc Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I would look for a PCB of the pedal you want and find the parts for it. Kit's are not that cheap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hooya Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 I would look for a PCB of the pedal you want and find the parts for it. Kit's are not that cheap... Kind of what I was implying with the madbean link. The kits for most of these pedals are not any cheaper than buying a commercial version of the same kind of pedal. Some circuits are particular of course, but aside from rare vintage clones, it's usually not worth the cost of a lot of clones. I was looking into a Build-Your-Own tube amp kit, only to realize it would be more to buy the kit than just buy the amp that I really want anyway, plus I'd have to build it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Wyatt Posted September 4, 2012 Members Share Posted September 4, 2012 Well, let's establish that homebrew pedals are built mostly for the hobby of building them. Since we don't get the sort of bulk pricing that Roland, Ibanaz, Dunlop, etc do, many homebrews are going to cost roughly what a store-bought pedal would. The nice thing thing is you get to pick what parts to use and what mods to make. The real savings come in homebrewing the expensive stuff, like Klons. Case in point, I parted to to rebuid me wah...switch, resistors, caps, battery snap, lots of wire (more than I need) and a PCB ran me $48. I already had the inductor, or that would have been an additional $25...plus whatever they charge for a wah enclosure these days. I can buy a used Crybaby for $50, but it'll run me ~$100 to build a premium wah myself. To the OP, don't knock the price of the kits until you really do some shopping...and remember, each order you make is usually at least $6.95 in shipping...it you have to buy from three suppliers to build one pedal..., you can spend $20 in shipping alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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