#1 · Feb 02, 2012 19:11 UTC
Yeah, the winter's been a pedal-building frenzy... Here's the breakdown of what I've built to date and some info. Note that I bought 4 of the BYOC kits when they were having their buy 4, get 25% off, so the prices listed here were not always what I paid):
1. Large Beaver (buildyourownclone.com Big Muff Pi replica) - $90 (plus custom painted case and diode switching, another $15). including my six-way diode switching mod. Very useful pedal for overdrive, crunch, fuzz, and great rock tones with a Ross compressor clone in front of it. Only downside to byoc kits is the price, and that they don't let you order without the case. Instructions are absolutely top-notch, and the design of the board takes into account placement of all parts, keeping wiring to an absolute minimum. Gorgeous, double-layer, through-hole plated boards that are a joy to solder.
2. MoRC (Ross compressor clone from guitarpcb.com via mammothelectronics.com) -65$. A Ross compressor clone. This one was a bitch to get working, turned out it had a bad trimmer from the shop. They have a good selection of circuits, but there are three problems/issues with guitarpcb.com kits. 1)nothing is labeled on the board, you have to eyeball the components from looking at the circuit... there's no labeling on the top of the board either. 2) their boards have a full exposed copper back groundplane. All the competitors make multi-layer PCBs with through-holes and the circuits under a resist layer, or literally sandwiched inside the board. Because guitarpcb's have a huge wafer of copper on the surface, getting solder to stick and to stay where you want it is more of an issue. My electronics guru buddy has also pointed out that this design is much more likely to fail over time. 3) No wiring schematic. They give a general overview of wiring for the different types of boards, but you are pretty much left to your own devices and end up with diagrams all over the place, and weird wiring schemes for things like the LED... not very user-friendly at all. It sounds good, a little crunchy, harsh and bright... very good for that Ross thing where it tightens up a big muff instantly.
3. Shin-ei companion fuzz ($38 from generalguitargadgets.com). I really like this vendor, and I'm going to buy more stuff from them. Not only do they have a ton of kits, but they are reasonably priced, and they allow you to save $12 or so by removing the enclosure from your order. If you're like me and you have a bunch of enclosures to use, this is a killer deal. Not only that, you can buy just the board, their instructions are top-notch (including build pictures, option info, and a wiring diagram), and their boards are coated with through-hole contacts, awesome to solder. I am looking at getting more kits from them, I've got a tube screamer, foxx fuzz/octave, and tremolo pedal waiting to be built. BYOC has a much more usable selection of kits, with very custom layouts that fit well into tight enclosures, ggg tends to have classic circuits... if there's an old pedal you want to make, they probably have it or a rough facsimile. Not as customized for space, etc, but a huge range of products at good prices.
4. Optical compressor (somewhat customized opto comp from byoc) - $75 + release switch and two additional caps, $3. Again, beautiful kit, excellent instructions, includes solder points and cap spaces for a three way release switch that turned out to be pretty cool, although you have to read the forum to figure out how to set it up. Excellent sound. I threw in a green LED and I love this one so much I bought another one. Unlike a Ross compressor, there is no low-end cut, so not good in front of a muff, but great in front of most everything else, very fat, and usable on bass. Not as insane as my Boss CS-1, but that pedal is really just a wacky effect... this one is much more usable.
5. FET preamp (Boss FA-1 clone from BYOC) - $80. A fairly easy build, and a really nice sounding pedal. The only thing it's missing is a volume knob--yes I understand it's a boost, but it would be so nice to just dial up some crunch and then control the volume too. It gets great crunch, and the baxandall EQ is one of my favorite EQ circuits... turn up the bass and treble and you get a very convincing Fender mid scoop.
6. Analog chorus (byoc, based on Boss CE-2?) - $79. A lot of components on this one, and a very tight, well-organized layout, box film caps, etc. This one stymied me for almost two weeks, it passed sound but didn't chorus. Turned out it had a bad trimmer and a loose cap, either one of which might have produced the problem... since i fixed them both at the same time, replacing the trimmer and finding and soldering the one loose cap leg... The chorus is lush and very 80's... I immediately want to throw out Police licks when I turn it on. Great sound, and for what it is, a fairly easy build.
7. 5-knob compressor (byoc, a Ross/Dynacomp clone with added ratio, attack, and tone knobs) - $99. More problems with this one. I didn't do the initial wiring so when it didn't work, I went over it with a fine-toothed comb. My buddy had run a bunch of long wires for the jacks and removing, shortening, and resoldering every jack connection fixed the pedal. Also, the initial LED didn't work, because my buddy soldered it in backwards, and to remove it i had to heat the crap out of it, so it was a lost cause. I replaced it with a very cool violet LED... not bright but unique and eye-catching. This one has a lot of space-savers on it too, including a footswtich wiring board that makes wiring the footswitch about a billion times easier, and a little pin header to mount the footswitch to the board. Overall a semi-complex build. On the sound side this is hands-down the best compressor I own. Covers the range of squish from "just louder" to "squished and spanky". The ratio knob is actually more like a blend knob, which is very cool... clean sound plus-compressed sound. It's a lot less bright and strident than the MoRC Ross clone from guitarpcb, but the tone knob (actually a low-cut) allows you to go from just a little low-cut at its full off setting, to lots of chop at the high end. The one do-all compressor pedal I've made.
8. Classic compressor (another Ross clone, from BYOC this time). Before I ordered this one, I had discovered a little electronics store near my work that sells parts way cheap (not quite Mouser prices, but no shipping and instant gratification). So I bought the PCB for this one, $12, then some parts from byoc (the 3080 chip, pots, i/o jacks, dc jack, and footswitch), $15, then the components for the board from my local electronics shop, $8. Around $35 total, plus the cost of an enclosure, around $5 (though I just used one of the left-over enclosures I had). I used carbon film resistors instead of metal film, and I used tantalum caps in place of all the 1uF electrolytics, and box caps where I could find them in the right values. Again, a tight board, well laid out, with top-notch instructions. Compared to the MoRC, this one sounds a lot cleaner, less crunchy, and less bright overall. More like I want a compressor to sound, and you can't beat the price. I will build everything I can from the board when I can get the board, now that I've got a parts source... it's way superior. When I started making pedals my build time was probably 20 hours, spread out over the course of a week or two (and sometimes 3 or 4 hours of troubleshooting). This last compressor from BYOC took me about 2.5 hours from start to finish, and worked when I plugged it in. So I'm getting better and more efficient... hopefully the next couple will flow also.
1. Large Beaver (buildyourownclone.com Big Muff Pi replica) - $90 (plus custom painted case and diode switching, another $15). including my six-way diode switching mod. Very useful pedal for overdrive, crunch, fuzz, and great rock tones with a Ross compressor clone in front of it. Only downside to byoc kits is the price, and that they don't let you order without the case. Instructions are absolutely top-notch, and the design of the board takes into account placement of all parts, keeping wiring to an absolute minimum. Gorgeous, double-layer, through-hole plated boards that are a joy to solder.
2. MoRC (Ross compressor clone from guitarpcb.com via mammothelectronics.com) -65$. A Ross compressor clone. This one was a bitch to get working, turned out it had a bad trimmer from the shop. They have a good selection of circuits, but there are three problems/issues with guitarpcb.com kits. 1)nothing is labeled on the board, you have to eyeball the components from looking at the circuit... there's no labeling on the top of the board either. 2) their boards have a full exposed copper back groundplane. All the competitors make multi-layer PCBs with through-holes and the circuits under a resist layer, or literally sandwiched inside the board. Because guitarpcb's have a huge wafer of copper on the surface, getting solder to stick and to stay where you want it is more of an issue. My electronics guru buddy has also pointed out that this design is much more likely to fail over time. 3) No wiring schematic. They give a general overview of wiring for the different types of boards, but you are pretty much left to your own devices and end up with diagrams all over the place, and weird wiring schemes for things like the LED... not very user-friendly at all. It sounds good, a little crunchy, harsh and bright... very good for that Ross thing where it tightens up a big muff instantly.
3. Shin-ei companion fuzz ($38 from generalguitargadgets.com). I really like this vendor, and I'm going to buy more stuff from them. Not only do they have a ton of kits, but they are reasonably priced, and they allow you to save $12 or so by removing the enclosure from your order. If you're like me and you have a bunch of enclosures to use, this is a killer deal. Not only that, you can buy just the board, their instructions are top-notch (including build pictures, option info, and a wiring diagram), and their boards are coated with through-hole contacts, awesome to solder. I am looking at getting more kits from them, I've got a tube screamer, foxx fuzz/octave, and tremolo pedal waiting to be built. BYOC has a much more usable selection of kits, with very custom layouts that fit well into tight enclosures, ggg tends to have classic circuits... if there's an old pedal you want to make, they probably have it or a rough facsimile. Not as customized for space, etc, but a huge range of products at good prices.
4. Optical compressor (somewhat customized opto comp from byoc) - $75 + release switch and two additional caps, $3. Again, beautiful kit, excellent instructions, includes solder points and cap spaces for a three way release switch that turned out to be pretty cool, although you have to read the forum to figure out how to set it up. Excellent sound. I threw in a green LED and I love this one so much I bought another one. Unlike a Ross compressor, there is no low-end cut, so not good in front of a muff, but great in front of most everything else, very fat, and usable on bass. Not as insane as my Boss CS-1, but that pedal is really just a wacky effect... this one is much more usable.
5. FET preamp (Boss FA-1 clone from BYOC) - $80. A fairly easy build, and a really nice sounding pedal. The only thing it's missing is a volume knob--yes I understand it's a boost, but it would be so nice to just dial up some crunch and then control the volume too. It gets great crunch, and the baxandall EQ is one of my favorite EQ circuits... turn up the bass and treble and you get a very convincing Fender mid scoop.
6. Analog chorus (byoc, based on Boss CE-2?) - $79. A lot of components on this one, and a very tight, well-organized layout, box film caps, etc. This one stymied me for almost two weeks, it passed sound but didn't chorus. Turned out it had a bad trimmer and a loose cap, either one of which might have produced the problem... since i fixed them both at the same time, replacing the trimmer and finding and soldering the one loose cap leg... The chorus is lush and very 80's... I immediately want to throw out Police licks when I turn it on. Great sound, and for what it is, a fairly easy build.
7. 5-knob compressor (byoc, a Ross/Dynacomp clone with added ratio, attack, and tone knobs) - $99. More problems with this one. I didn't do the initial wiring so when it didn't work, I went over it with a fine-toothed comb. My buddy had run a bunch of long wires for the jacks and removing, shortening, and resoldering every jack connection fixed the pedal. Also, the initial LED didn't work, because my buddy soldered it in backwards, and to remove it i had to heat the crap out of it, so it was a lost cause. I replaced it with a very cool violet LED... not bright but unique and eye-catching. This one has a lot of space-savers on it too, including a footswtich wiring board that makes wiring the footswitch about a billion times easier, and a little pin header to mount the footswitch to the board. Overall a semi-complex build. On the sound side this is hands-down the best compressor I own. Covers the range of squish from "just louder" to "squished and spanky". The ratio knob is actually more like a blend knob, which is very cool... clean sound plus-compressed sound. It's a lot less bright and strident than the MoRC Ross clone from guitarpcb, but the tone knob (actually a low-cut) allows you to go from just a little low-cut at its full off setting, to lots of chop at the high end. The one do-all compressor pedal I've made.
8. Classic compressor (another Ross clone, from BYOC this time). Before I ordered this one, I had discovered a little electronics store near my work that sells parts way cheap (not quite Mouser prices, but no shipping and instant gratification). So I bought the PCB for this one, $12, then some parts from byoc (the 3080 chip, pots, i/o jacks, dc jack, and footswitch), $15, then the components for the board from my local electronics shop, $8. Around $35 total, plus the cost of an enclosure, around $5 (though I just used one of the left-over enclosures I had). I used carbon film resistors instead of metal film, and I used tantalum caps in place of all the 1uF electrolytics, and box caps where I could find them in the right values. Again, a tight board, well laid out, with top-notch instructions. Compared to the MoRC, this one sounds a lot cleaner, less crunchy, and less bright overall. More like I want a compressor to sound, and you can't beat the price. I will build everything I can from the board when I can get the board, now that I've got a parts source... it's way superior. When I started making pedals my build time was probably 20 hours, spread out over the course of a week or two (and sometimes 3 or 4 hours of troubleshooting). This last compressor from BYOC took me about 2.5 hours from start to finish, and worked when I plugged it in. So I'm getting better and more efficient... hopefully the next couple will flow also.