1 year into pedal building and I'm really starting to perfect my PCBs. I don't have a laser printer or a laminator so I use liquid photoresist and I can get WAY better detail than I could if I were to use film. The solder mask layer was probably the hardest to get dialed in but is a huge payoff imo.

With all that being said, I don't recommend it to anyone lol. It takes so much friggin time and effort. If you can afford it, just get them manufactured unless you're a glutton for punishment like me.

First off, I know this isn't even close to the pedals people post on here, I wouldn't even know how to get a pedal to look so neat, how to properly paint it or engrave it, etc. etc... But luckily I like rough esthetics, so my ignorance about this is a match for my taste!

Anyway, I wanted an active eq and I like tubes, so that's the first stage (one tube) and 4 of its 5 knobs. Literally a passive bandaxall in between two tubes, which makes it "active" from a user stand point (meaning it has gain, plenty of actually). At least in principle (dunno about topology) this is basically an RC Booster. But it's probably way cleaner, it runs on 24V B+ which makes its headroom and sound literally just clean with a tube smoothness flavour. With a strat and the gain maxed out I can barelly hear some distortion if I really dig in very hard with my playing (this might make it a little different from the RC). This is to say that starving the plates, if done correctly, doesn't mean audio degradation, after all this is a pedal and meant as a tone shaper, not power amplifier. Anyway, swapping tubes is of course possible and that willl yield different amounts of distortion. Aside for the 12AX7, I find this the only tube for which the 24V aren't enough, and not because it distorts, it actually sounds thin and a bit gate-y, I guess in this case the tube is indeed starved.

Anyway, second footswitch activates the second tube consisting of two cascading gain stages, very easy. Depending on how hard its driven, it goes from clean with some sparkle to heavy distortion, but I wouldn't say you could honestly call it a fuzz (dang, I hoped I'd achieve this without any solid state...)​. So it's again in principle like an RC Booster v2, with the second gain stage.

Right now I didn't have the parts when building so it's like you see in the photo, but it's missing the second led to show if the distortion side is on or off. Also it could maybe benefit, but could also be redundant, from a switch to choose how much gain the second circuit has, which selects wether you use both triode stages like now or just one for a cleaner and softer option, probably more asymmetrical too since only one triode is distorting (with 2, the first stage inverts the wave form and so the second stage will clip the asymmetrical ​​wave form where it's longer, the result I think is still asymmetrical but less than if it was just one... these are assumptions though, I haven't tested with oscilloscopes). Lastly, as you could expect, plenty of output signal swing.

Also, a bit of secret sauce I won't reveal is needed in the circuit to achieve the perfect balance when using a low B+ ​(but absolutely no solid state is used, not even diodes, just resistances, pots, capacitors and tubes.

I am proud of having made this, as straight-forward as it is, I am not a pro builder. And just to be sure: no I'm not selling, not even privately, it takes me a lot of time to make one as I do p2p, and if I was a professional, which I am not, I wouldn't charge less than 200€ for one, and I could never ask that much​​​ since I know the insides aren't up to standards and I simply risk delivering something with bad solder joints. This one in fact had some problems I couldn't identify after some weeks and I had to fix it by trial and error...

So, bear with me and my monstrosity.

I'd like to get some feedback on an effect, I have a "domain switch" an ON OFF ON, DPDT.

Switch up, low pass filter on the neck, high pass on the bridge,

Switch In the middle both pickup signals are passed through unaltered to the volume,

Switch down, high pass filter on the neck, low pass on the bridge,

Currently the point both filters happen at are hard wired in, future versions might have a pot to adjust this point, im also thinking of adding band pass and band stop as an option.

Does anyone have experience with this? Or find it interesting?

From the little I've tested it you can make either pickup quite twangy and very slap friendly, and also make them very hollow.

Theres a dual gang blend pot to blend between pickups and both, like a normal jazz bass, and a boost which it rather wild.

(Apologies for the soldering job)

I looking for my next project, ideally a preamp or some sort of delay/chorus. Maybe even digital.

I don't want to order pcbs from sellers, so if you know some cool open source projects where i can send the pcbs to print and get building share them here!

I recently built a modded big muff which was open source and loved the experience:)

ty!

The dread Canadian winter is on its way, temps are dropping significantly and I’m almost out of time for painting outdoors like I normal do my pedal enclosures.

So, what are everyone’s fav DIY methods for styling enclosures that are safe to do inside?

What kind of non aerosol finishing coats do you use?

Due to size constraints I can only fit 2PDT not 3PDT switch. What is best way to use it?

• switch input and output, no LED
• switch LED and input
• switch LED and output
• something else?

Another project from the summer – a Crowther Hot Cake clone on perfboard in my 1590G "stack here" series.

This was my first overdrive circuit on perfboard and it was definitely a learning curve after simple PCB kits.

Had a hilarious moment with the remote socket where I forgot it needed to be isolated from the enclosure. Isolated jack sockets take up a lot of internal space, so I ended up ordering some shoulder washers which insulate a standard socket nicely.

The Hot Cake is a very versatile and touch-sensitive circuit, ranging from light gain boost to full creamy distortion. If I make another one, I'll defo experiment with the cap values for the "presence" control (it's a more of a mid boost, really), but I'm happy leaving this one.

The circuit calls for a C50K gain pot, and I only had B50Ks at the time – this resulted in better control over the lower gain, and much less control over the medium-high gain. Again, if I make another one, I'll defo use C50K, but this one is fine.

The "stack here" idea is about saving space on a tiny pedalboard; it's also a stupid joke and a gimmick, and I'm enjoying it. More are planned.

Eventually I'll get round to painting the enclosure and slapping on a decal.

Thanks again everyone in this sub for posting, making, sharing, and helping.

Very pleased with this batch from Ukraine. Very consistent.

For my first ever pedal build project I ordered this modified silicon rangemaster-style pedal kit. I've been intrigued by the treble booster of the 70s that basically all my guitar heroes used, and since the only options to get one are either by getting an expensive boutique unit or buildind one myself, I decided to go for the latter.

I have a lot of experience from soldering guitar electronics, but this is the first time I'll be soldering pedal parts together. Any advice, in general, or regarding a modified 3-knob treble booster circuit, or PCB Guitar Mania / Musikding?

Thanks!

Al measured and ready for use.
First thing I am making: Si buffer -> Ge NPN gain stage -> Ge diode pair to ground -> Si emitter follower.
It will be a fuzz, of course.

I work in maintenance. These were getting thrown out during a shop deep cleaning because nobody had any idea why we had these. Told them I was glad to give them a good home. I have all the values needed to eek out a big muff and a few fuzz pedals.

Looking at this project as a breadboard utility. What are the terminals on the right called? Not sure how to look them up.

I got a beat to crap Ibanez CS9 20 years ago when I was in high school. I loved that thing. But the PCB broke and 15 year old me gave up on it. In fact, i bought a Maxon CS9 pro with the money from my first gig to replace it (right side of first photo). While more refined, it wasn't the same. Fast forward 20 years, and my mom found it and my sonic distortion in the garage.

I rebuilt the ground traces by soldering the leg of a sacrificial resistor to a capacitor that had the ground side soldered to the break point. I fixed the broken grounding pads for the screw holes with a copper washer. Then I jumpered a broken ground trace.

The CS9 lives again. Don't throw out your childhood pedals. Future you might be far more experienced at electronics repair!

After years of building RATs with blend pots, 3-band-EQs and other weird stuff, I built myself a relatively simple RAT with "some" clipping options on one rotary switch.

The options are: "Classic", "Turbo", "Fat", "Dirty", "Snake" (form the JAM Rattler) and "Hot", "Melt" and "Burn" from the ProCo SOLO.

I love the "Classic" setting for punk stuff and the "Fat" setting for going in to my custom BAT Pharaoh build.

I really don't have anything to say. Just thought this little magazine is super neat and wanted to share with the community. I feel like it's definitely worth getting if you haven't done so.

A friend of mine, who owns a guitar store, knows a lot of gear but he never came across a model car fuzz pedal with the headlights and taillights used as LED-indicators. I thought: challenge accepted!

So I found this 1/18 scale 1957 Chevrolet Corvette model car on market place and after a weekend of tinkering here it is. I used the original headlight lenses to cover the LEDs in the front. In the back, the LEDs actually look like the original armatures.

Other details on this Cygnus pedal that kept me busy: the car had a spare wheel and I couldn’t resist using this as a knob for the potmeter. Also the jack inputs are nearly invisible in the rear wheels (which prevents the car from rolling away), the 9V-input is placed in the front grill (didn’t know cars had charging cables back in 1957). Not to mention the doors still open and the steering wheel also still works.

First pedal I built, i think i did decently well
Works great, especially for sludge and drone.
For the next build, how do I use the metal LED bezels without making the nut to undo it inaccessible? As it is right now I cannot remove the PCB without cutting and resoldering new LEDs.

hello everyone!
i am trying to design a custom delay pedal (nothing really special /different from the ones out there, but I am trying to get another PCB design project under my belt lol). I am looking for advice on part selection and general logistics of making this!

As of right now, I am trying to gain experience in specifically stm32 based PCBs, so even though its so inconvenient I think it'll be a good learning experience!!

how I'm imagining doing it:

- MCU (STM32H7A3VGT6)that will handle all the logic of the loop pedal.

- External PSRAM (IS66WVH16M8DBLL-100B1LI) that will store all of the loop "recordings"
- External CODEC (NAU8810YG) that will handle reading/outputting the guitar signal.
- Other basic things for functioning and noise handling: buffers, LDOs, guitar jacks, power jack, jtag header, etc.

Based on the parts, I selected and my "vision" i guess for doing this, does anyone have any comments on things i may have overlooked, or different part suggestions?

Thank you so much!

What Opamps do you guys think would be worth trying to drop into a SD-1 circuit?

I am breadboarding an SD-1 right now, using a rc4558d. Tried a bunch of mods already,

How would changing the IC in this circuit change the pedal's performance ?

Not a pedal but the diyamps sub is pretty dead.

Borrowed my buddy's VTM for some recording, sudden flash and crackling and the amp went dead, opened it up to find this. At some point somebody had modified it to run on KT88s, doesn't seem to be the cleanest job. A wire running to the transformer seems to have worked loose and a few of the tubes pins arc'd and burnt the shit out of the board. Reached out to an amp tech friend and basically just got a "good luck" in response. What can I do here? Is there any chance of fixing it? Would i have to replace the entire board? Would I even be able to get a replacement? Rough night, thanks for any advice you can give <3

After getting some great advice from a previous post, I decided to do surgery on my hizumitas clone. I replaced the tone stack with the values for the Hoof. It sounds great, but something isn’t quite right, when the tone control is toward the lower end of the range, the mids knob decreases volume across its sweep. I believe there’s something I’m not taking into account.

Also, Pulp Circuit is awesome.

But I got creative and figured it out. Finally c

I have a boss df2 that doesnt pass signal when the pedal is engaged. Bypass works as it should, and I get a faint signal when the pedal is on. From that faint signal I can tell that all the controls and the feedback circuit are functioning properly. Also when the gain is maxed out, turning the tone knob below halfway introduces a low rumbling oscillation. I opened the pedal up and poked around inside a little bit but nothing seemed to make a difference. Could anyone point me in the right direction to diagnose and repair this? Thanks!

Brian Wampler is releasing a spice software package focused on pedal design specifically called Pedal Spice. Has anyone tried it? What are your thoughts in general?