BYOC for a beginner - Reverb 2 or Leeds Fuzz?

[tripforks]

Hey folks, I've been mulling this over for the past couple of days and thought "screw it, I'll ask these guys".

I want to get into building some of my own pedals. I've done some reading up and figured I'd order a couple of DIY kits, then see about getting a breadboard to experiment with. The question is, though, what kits?

I'm getting the Confidence Booster to start. But from there, I've decided on either the Reverb 2 or the Leeds Fuzz, both rated as medium difficulty. Are they about easy enough who's only soldering experience is changing pickups and modding a Big Muff to death?

Soundwise, I understand the Reverb 2 is a digital spring reverb that has a ton of decay and such on top. Would it go 100% wet though? And the Leeds is a Superfuzz clone, which is kind of like a harsh Muff with some upper octave?

[AxAxSxS]

Confidence booster is a good place to start, get the circuit tester as well. With that under your belt the ones you are talking about should be slightly challenging but easily do able.

[eatyourguitar]

My only advice is to stay away from germanium fuzz if you dont have a breadboard and dont know how to bias transistors. After you get a nice soldering station and watch some soldering videos, you can build any kit. If there is something you are not sure of when puuting it together, google that part, refrence the schematic etc..

[tripforks]

Awesome, thanks a lot!

So, Confidence Booster + Circuit Tester + either of these kits should be doable, leave Ge alone for now, and do my homework and I should be in the clear, essentially?

[skullservant]

Yeah. I would do that first. I put the reverb together a few years ago and it was a lot, especially for one of your first builds

[Antknee]

I just finished the confidence booster, and I am a beginner also. If you want to throw yourself into the learning process like I did, do some research and build it into an enclosure with a 3PDT switch, LED, and ac power connector. By not including those in the kit, you are forced to research and learn the wiring process for the extra parts, as well as source them yourself. I found the process very beneficial.

[Ben79]

Leeds fuzz was my second ever build and it worked first go. It comes with full instructions. Take your time and it'll be fine. I've played original Shin-ei Superfuzzes and the Leeds fuzz is right with them. Plus if you want, you can go back to it and do the mid scoop pot mod.

To begin with, good soldering and learning about components and values are probably a good first step and the BYOC will help a lot with that.
Like Antknee says though, at some point you'll want to get your head round the off board wiring which you won't necessarily do if you're just following instructions. If you can work out what's going on with the signal path round the jacks and footswitch, that's gonna be a lot of use if you ever need to debug a pedal and saves needing a diagram to follow every time you want to build something.

Get ready for a big dopamine rush when you first hit the switch and hear that fuzz. There should be a name for that feeling.