ssgfowler Posted March 13, 2009 Posted March 13, 2009 I found out about the BYOC effects pedal kits after reading one of M-Theory's posts a couple of weeks ago. I was really wanting a Phase 90 type phaser, so I bought the kit. Now look what happened... Great stuff, I get to combine 2 things I like, homebrewed electronics, and painting stuff! I've got a brand new addiction, and a really good sounding phaser.
Jazzric Posted March 13, 2009 Posted March 13, 2009 ah yes...this is what I'm talk'in bout...I found the site... http://www.buildyourownclone.com/
m-theory Posted March 14, 2009 Posted March 14, 2009 Sorry about that...that's liable to plague you forevermore. Nice looking pedal you made there! How's it sounding? I built one using a BYOC board, but sourced my own parts.
Dave Posted March 14, 2009 Posted March 14, 2009 M-theory, nice work on the pedals. I like the fact that you dressed all the wiring out of the way. Nice clean look to the job. BTW, you're not a bad painter either...
Jazzric Posted March 14, 2009 Posted March 14, 2009 M-theory...your stuff is awesome man...all you guys....thank you for getting me hip to this stuff...and it all started with the EVJ.....
m-theory Posted March 15, 2009 Posted March 15, 2009 Thanks, guys. This has become a bit of an obsession for me, I'll admit. As hobbies go, I could do much worse, I know, but it can definitely devour the free time rather mercilessly. The painting came a lot easier to me than the wiring, because I sold auto refinish products in a previous life, so I learned a lot along the way. Working with spray bombs is far different than automotive products, but I do what I can to make the best of it. The soldering and overall wiring layout part is, by far, the most laborious, and requires great attention to detail. Not really the hobby for those without great patience. I've been building these pretty regularly for the past couple of years, and I'm finally getting comfortable with a process that seems to work for me. Trust me, I wouldn't want to show gut shots of everything I've built over the past couple of years! I certainly recommend it to anyone with any interest at all, because you not only will inevitably learn a whole lot about circuits and tone in general, but you can get a chance to personally audition some of the most costly, revered pedal circuits around, for a tiny fraction of what it would cost to buy the real deal.
ssgfowler Posted March 16, 2009 Author Posted March 16, 2009 Great looking pedals M! You 100% correct, a whole lot of patience and attention can save a lot of frustration if you want to build pedals. But its really satisfying to fire it up and it works the first time. The phaser I built sounds great, very "Script 90" sound.
SlagJones Posted March 16, 2009 Posted March 16, 2009 How much time did it take to complete your pedal? What kind of paint do you use?
m-theory Posted March 16, 2009 Posted March 16, 2009 The phaser I built sounds great, very "Script 90" sound. I had a heck of a time finding suitable matched JFETS for that circuit. I bought 100 of them, and only found 4 that were acceptable, and even those four didn't have terribly impressive gain. I think a guy would have to order 1,000 of them to find 4 TRULY great devices, and even that might not do it. It's just a total crap shoot. JFET production is so sketchy and inconsistent that you just never know what you're going to get when you order. It'd be interesting to know how the transistors in their kit measure up. How much time did it take to complete your pedal? What kind of paint do you use? That looks like it's directed at you, ssg. I've got a chorus pedal that I built recently that I did a similar paint job on, and it looks really cool. It's my teenager's favorite that I've done. I tend to prefer more precise, orderly designs, but there is something to be said for the trippy effect as well.
SlagJones Posted March 16, 2009 Posted March 16, 2009 It was actually directed to anybody. How long would you guess a pedal like the phaser or dod overdrive would take to build on average? Or give best/worst case scenarios. Or answer anyway you want. and what kind of paint?
face Posted March 16, 2009 Posted March 16, 2009 I've been jonesing for a couple of pedal kits over at www.generalguitargadgets.com mainly the ts808 clone. That would make three overdrives for me, but who doesn't need a tubescreamer? oh, and check this out... http://www.olcircuits.com/olc_darthfader.html I have GOT to have this one.
ssgfowler Posted March 16, 2009 Author Posted March 16, 2009 I spent maybe 5 hours on soldering the PCB and wiring the switch and jacks over a three day period. The paint is just acrylic craft paints with a lot of clearcoat. If you don't like the way the swirl paint job turns out you can just wash it off with water and start over.
m-theory Posted March 16, 2009 Posted March 16, 2009 Build time depends on your level of expertise, the type of circuit you're building, and what type of board you're building on (i.e. PCB vs. perfboard, vs. stripboard). If you're experienced, you can build a simple booster in a couple of hours, complete, if you're not hyper-anal about layout detail. If you're not experienced and do care aboyt layout detail, it could take considerably longer. You have to work at your own pace, regardless of how long it takes. hey, m-theory, whats that goldish pedal? That was an interesting project that had me virtually paralyzed for quite some time, while I pondered it. It was a fairly early build for me, and my goal was to try to include the key elements of what I thought I needed at the time, into a single box, in order to avoid patch cables. This pedal morphed several times, before I finally settled on what it would be, and pretty much at the moment that I finally settled on it, I changed my mind entirely! Initially, and in this pic, it was, as I recall, a tonebender (two furthest right controls and far right switch), a fixed wah (top center switch and top left knob), and a mosfet boost (lower middle switch and lower left knob). The two switches on the left were an A/B/C combination, to allow me to switch between the two inputs of my main amp at the time and a second amp. I don't know that it ever actually gigged in this incarnation, to be honest. The first real for the pedal was with a modified tube screamer on the far right, a modified phase 90 at the upper middle position, and the clean boost. My knobs are currently lined up like bowling pins. Looks kinda goofy, actually, but not to worry...it'll never be used again, because I've completely changed to 3 entirely different circuits, and have a new routing system for my amp inputs. I don't even want to guess how many hours I've got into that box, but I know that I spent months thinking about it and planning it out before doing anything. I've also changed things around signficantly, more than once. At the end of the day, I ended up with a very clean internal layout and learned a great deal along the way, but it's ultimately not a box I'll be using again.
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.