Where to start?

[BitchPudding]

So I've decided to try my hand at making pedals and possibly selling them in the future if the want is there.

But seeing as I have ZERO experience with building stuff, I wanted to know where I should start. What kits should I buy, parts, what type of soldering iron. Things like that. What do I need to know to get into this?

I'm looking ultimately to make crazy fuzz pedals that would be both affordable and versatile. I would like to start with a Fuzz Face and basically tweak it to shit, but I dont know how easy that circuit would be to make.

So please, impart unto me your knowledge, crafty fuzzbros. CRAFTY!

[KaosCill8r]

Fuzz Face would be a good easy one to start with. Low parts count. Easy to mod into crazy town. Meathead is the same. Try any of the one knob fuzzes. Ritual, Colorsound etc.

[Crowella]

Okay dokes. Lets see what I can begin with because there is ultimately a lot being asked here.

Equipment may be an easy one. A good soldering iron is a must. This is usually one that is temperature controlled, has changeable tips and is normally in a "station" like setup. This will likely be more expensive than the pen type ones that you just plug into the wall and go but you'll realise pretty soon that soldering with them becomes quite messy as the solder and the component you are soldering don't heat to the right temperatures. I would start right with that and get practicing by getting some off cuts of wire and soldering some joints on a small piece of veroboard or other copper holed surface to get an idea on how to solder correctly as this is a good way to reduce errors due to bad joints, which I can say from experience, is a very hard thing to debug.
http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/How-to-solder/

Which leads me to my next point. Multimeter. Get one. It'll save your ass in so many situations. Forget how to check resistor colour bands? It'll have you covered. Need to know the pedal current draw? Check. Need to see if two points have continuity or not? Yep. HFe of transistors? With some multimeters, yeah, you're golden. Awesome tool, keep it by your side and it'll save you many headaches. Other equipment is simply stuff like solder (60/40), desolder braid, pliers, yada yada yada. Consumables.

If you want to start off with a kit (fully support that), try somewhere like Small Bear Electronics and look through the list of kits/projects. There are a number of projects there that will help you get familiar with the building side of things and severely reduce the stress of ordering the right parts and forgetting something . Typically, easy builds will have low component parts and less complex wiring. Fuzzes are usually a fantastic example although when it comes to modding, a random knob/pot appears, then another... then another. It grows. Anywho, look at the kits in the link below for a start.
https://www.smallbearelec.com/Projects/ProjandProd.html

So lets say you've ordered and made a kit or two. If done right and debugged properly, it'll sound great and you won't want to kick it off your pedal board any time soon. Awesome. Next thing I would recommend is getting some reading done. Geofex. There is a whole wealth of information there that goes into a lot of depth about how particular aspects of each circuit work and why they do/don't. This is also a great site if you want to think of ways to mod circuits once you realise what part of a circuit does what.
http://www.geofex.com/

Basically, at this point, I'd go buy a decently (not overly expensive) soldering iron station. Get a kit from the link above or something similar which will reduce the project to just building and see where you get to from there. If you can complete a kit, fantastic. You may find that you didn't get too into it or you got completely suckered in like me and can't help working on pedals.

[Mike]

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
Excellent advice.

Don't go overboard on the soldering iron. Something in the $50 - $75 range is going to do just fine. Hakko makes good stuff, and you can find knock offs for not a lot of money. As mentioned, stations blow away pen irons, and are worth the extra expense just so you have a safe place to set your 375 degree iron. I am currently using a knock off of a Weller WLC100, and I do NOT recommend it. No temperature control, and hard to adjust to a usable temperature. I'm too invested in tips to replace it for a few more years. Don't make the same mistake I made-- buy a decent iron.

For a multimeter, just about any multimeter will work to get you started. Harbor Freight regularly puts theirs on sale for $3. Buy a couple. They'll hold you over for a few years.

Geofex is definitely a must read. It will take a while before some of it makes sense, but RG's articles get a bit more clear every time you read them. I must have read his Tech of the Wah article 200 times... seriously. If you want to build a Fuzz Face, this is an essential read: Technology of the Fuzz Face.

And last, I usually recommend the Beginner Project over at DIYSB as a great place to get started. It's a nice, easy booster with a bit of dirt. Lately thought, I think that it might be better to start with a true bypass looper with an LED indicator. Many pedals, particularly if you are building a kit or using a pre-fab PCB, are the soldering equivalent of paint-by-numbers. Once you practice soldering, it is pretty easy to stuff a board, even if you have little idea how the circuit works. Offboard wiring, though, is something that seems to be difficult for a lot of beginners. It's easy in theory, but in practice, it can be a bit of a challenge the first time you do it, and can take some debugging. Building a true bypass box removes the chance that you are debugging your offboard wiring and your circuit board at the same time, and greatly increases your chance of initial success.

Good luck!

Mike

[BitchPudding]

Sweet, thanks a bunch guys. Cant wait to get this started and build some stuff.

[Crowella]

Actually, the advice about building a looper or something simple is great advice too. Off board wiring can get quite confusing and daunting, even more so than the board itself. Doing something like a looper will get you familiar with how to wire 3PDT switches (the switches boutique builders rely on), wiring LED's and jacks which, when you think about it, is pretty damn important to virtually every build you will do.

Really hope you enjoy it! Can't wait to see what you can do with your first and future builds.

I could give advice for days but what is probably best if you can do some of that research with building the kit and ask as you go. There's no shame if it doesn't work right away.

I can tell you that you will both love and hate your first soldering iron burn. They become far less frequent with time.

[eatyourguitar]

I have changed my ways with suggesting a fuzz face for a first project. fuzz face could possibly be one of those endless pursuits. when you build germanium fuzz faces, you will never build two pedals that sound the same. this is a problem for any company. it could also be one of those pedals that already exists no matter how much you mod it. a lot of the silicon fuzz face variations are just not that interesting for me. I think if you are going work up to a point that you are going to sell pedals you should start with all the same tools you will use to do your research and development.

you need a sweep generator + scope or you are just working blind using your ears and never having any hard facts about what your pedals do or don't do. I like to look at phase and frequency response. I often use the rotoscope (xy mode) to see phase relationships vs frequency and clearly see the non-linearities for the x--->y transform. here is an example of rotoscope


this next screen shot is after I did some breadboarding of a simple NPN buffer to get the perfect bias point that would start clipping at the top and bottom at the same time for maximum headroom.


this is the tone generator + sweep generator. great price.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11394

for the oscilloscope search ebay for the cheapest owon oscilloscope not a pocket handheld version. used is probably ok for an owon. DO NOT BUY AN OLD ANALOG SCOPE USED UNLESS YOU CAN RETURN IT OR IT IS WARRANTY.

[LaoWiz]

When I started, I went the opposite way and made a breadboard testing block with an enclosure w/ a bypass switch and jacks. I was able to breadboard a bunch of small fuzz circuits quickly which was fun.

At the time there were not a lot of fabricated boards available as there are now. I think now I would start by getting a few boards from Madbean as they list the parts you need and have wiring diagrams.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/index.html

A good soldering station, wire strippers, multimeter, wire cutters, desoldering braid are good tools to start with.

I use a small vise to hold PCBs during soldering, one of my favorite things to have around.

[GAS KING]

I'm in a somewhat similar situation.
I've modded pedals, and made pedals from kits. I've done some minor amp repair/mods, and unsuccessfully built an amp from a kit (well, it works now, so I guess that's a success!).

Although, I don't particularly have any deep knowledge though..........as in, why or how a circuit works or is developed. Which is something I'd really like to learn over time.

Was looking at this page: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/

I figure it's a win/win. Make cool pedals. get to try them out and use them. expand my knowledge (hopefully).

Plan is to make 3-4 pedals and see how it goes. From there.....who knows. I know my bandmates would love cheap clones of pedals.