Does everyone still buy pedals?

[Mark Hammer]

With the advent of the internet, especially higher data-transfer rates, a few things have happened:
- more people had access to more information about pedal design, resulting in more and more pedals
- more people could set up websites to peddle their pedals
- prices for building/manufacturing supplies and services became very competitive, because of THAT particular glut
- pics, soundfiles, and videos could tantalize us more
- the glut of pedals, coupled with web-based re-sale sites (Reverb, Craigslist, Kijiji, and whatever else is in your area) made it possible to tap into the glut at 2nd hand prices.

That's not to say there is no motivation to build, anymore.  Rather, with so MUCH to enjoy, saving some time via the 2nd-hand route, rather than having to build everything, is a reasonable strategy.  If you have an idea for a mod, and somebody has done you the favour of making and stuffing the board, machining/legending the enclosure, and testing/calibrating the circuit, that lets you get right to the mod without having to do the rest of it.  Just because you bought pre-cut french fries, pre-baked and sliced buns, and preshaped hamburgers, doesn't mean you're NOT making dinner.

[merlinb]

I bought a cheap looper pedal only last month, so I can have a repeating riff playing through my breadboard while tweaking.
I also bought the cheapest dirt pedal I could find (Twinote Boogie!), to see if I could reuse all the hardware for my own circuits, cheaper than buying blank enclosures etc.

[Ben N]

I also bought the cheapest dirt pedal I could find (Twinote Boogie!), to see if I could reuse all the hardware for my own circuits, cheaper than buying blank enclosures etc.

How'd that go?

[garcho]

I've bought a few TC Elec pedals that have the "toneprint" and "mashable" foot switch. With their software you can draw the taper you want to have on any of the pots, you can switch the functions of some pots, you can do things like "i don't need the octave down, so let me turn that pot into a tone control instead". You can load LFOs, tone controls, etc. You can alter the entire overall sound of the pedal (think crystal clear chorus or muddy BBD chorus). And having a pressure sensitive foot switch is great too, especially for reverb or delay, to be able to "punch in" swells and things like that. Some brilliant tinkerer around here recreated their "mash" thing with some FSR and a spring.
This is echoing what a lot of us are saying here, "i don't do digital". Which I think should make us all go "damn, I oughtta get into digital!"

There are functions and more detailed options that I would change on pretty much everything I've ever bought, so despite not being against buying pedals, I still make stuff all the time. I make a lot of non-pedal devices, too, maybe that makes up for the hunger to build.

Switching systems are common now, sort of, but making a custom "rig" to me is where DIY is really at. No manufacturer can set up your sound station for you, especially now that so many of us don't "just" play guitar. A lot of us are interacting with synths, CPU, hi-tech drummers, etc. The routing, the buffers, the switching, the cables, built-in stuff (EQ/comp/tuner, etc) the whole shebang. Those things are almost always better DIY because either it doesn't exist, has a bunch of features you pay for but don't need, or it's missing the one thing you really need. And it'll be made very cheaply and fall apart in a year or it will cost an arm and a leg.

[bool]

Ha. I still have some older TC pedals.

[Steben]

Modding excellent quality pedals saves time and mechanical errors.
And Mark adds an astronomical point: 2nd hand market

Parts are a puny element in this proces. Most are dead cheap. But you don't pay parts in pedals. You pay for build quality, endurance, sturdy boxes and saved solder time.
But there are exceptions. Fuzz Faces, boosters, .... Somehow the smallest part count make the most ridiculous prices.

A decent 2nd hand tube amp is hard to beat with a 100% copy DIY build. Tubes need swapping anyway on the long run. And you can mod them just the same.
Remember the Epiphone Valve Jr. Why would you build that from scratch?

[merlinb]

How'd that go?

It turned out to be a sort of clone of the Sansamp GT2 so I'm still playing with the stock circuit, but yeah I can definitely re-use all the hardware and just make my own PCB for it eventually.

[garcho]

I guess it all depends on why you're building right?

You're broke/of principle - can build for cheap, cut corners where you can feel confident in the compromise, can have 10 fuzz pedals for the price of one "boutique". Ah, but are you sure it's actually cheaper?

You can't find it/doesn't exist - custom tailored sound for your very own ears! But are you sure you can actually build a working and reliable one, in your own singular lifetime?

You can't stand not building stuff - 'Nuff said. But where do you stop? Die casting your own enclosures? Smithing? Mining?

I imagine most of us feel some combination of those 3 reasons and their limits.

[willienillie]

A couple months ago I bought a nearly-NOS Dunlop Crybaby from ca. 1984, mostly because it had the stack-of-dimes inductor.  Dead stock, even had the box and instructions, and luckily the original Allen-Bradley pot is not scratchy.



I added true bypass w/grounded input, Switchcraft jacks, and then "Thomas Organ-ized" the board components.  The big fender washers are to arrest the warping of the enclosure around the tension spring bolts (Dunlop wah shells from this period were too weak/thin).



Sounds great.

[Guitarist1983]

Yes; I'm not expert enough to build equivalents of these: Strymon's El Capistan and Blue Sky.  Origin Effects Cali76CD compressor and EXH Nano POG.

[mac]

In 2008 I bought two Boss pedals, dd3 and ch1, a Carl Martin PS while in vacation in Palma *because* it was a EUR 100 promo.
For 100 "eurazos" more I bought a Valve Jr v.3.
EUR-USD 1.45 in those days IIRC.

I can build a delay, chorus or a regulated PS, but Boss makes great pedals. At only EUR 33 new, why bother?

mac

[cloudscapes]

I stopped buying many since I tell myself I can eventually build it my own way, which then ends up taking years.

Exceptions would be really advanced reverbs (got an empress reverb this year) or hi-fi multitrack loopers, sicne I have not yet mastered the art of codec-fu and DMA. Also sometimes I buy pedals to support a buddy and if they're a really unique concept (even if I could in theory recreate it)!

[Steben]

For 100 "eurazos" more I bought a Valve Jr v.3.
EUR-USD 1.45 in those days IIRC.

yes
I plead guilty 
I bought a V Jr "half stack" for +/- a thick 200€
That's a steal only for the cabinet hardware for starters.
Better speaker .... great enclosure for a 12-18W amp.

[Danich_ivanov]

I guess some people buy pedals (edit: or shall i say keep buying) because they are gassing, or they just want something new, but my thing is that i spent a while figuring out my setup, my needs and wants, and i also like to keep things simple, so at some point i bought pretty much everything i needed, and haven't bought a pedal since then, but it has nothing to do with me getting into diy. Although now that i am into diy, what i'm triyng to do essentially is replace all commercial pedals with my own, plus whatever happens along the way.

[mac]

yes
I plead guilty 
I bought a V Jr "half stack" for +/- a thick 200€
That's a steal only for the cabinet hardware for starters.
Better speaker .... great enclosure for a 12-18W amp.

+1

I bought the combo because I had to fly back home and it had to fit in the x ray scanner, and in the cabin overhead locker. And the weight was in the limit :-)

I love it.

mac

[jfrabat]

I bought a Ditto Looper X2.  I am also looking to buy a chromatic tuner.  Other than that, I build what I need...  or want...  or just to keep boredom away!

[Invertiguy]

I'll buy a pedal if it's something I don't have the capability to build (tuners, loopers, digital stuff that can't be done with an FV-1) but overall I try to build what I can, not necessarily to save money but more for the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into what exactly a particular pedal is doing and ways to modify it to suit my needs as well as for the simple satisfaction that comes with turning a pile of parts into something that sounds cool, which is something that no commercial option will give you

[karbomusic]

I buy them here and there, either because it interests me, I don't have time to R&D myself, too complex to build myself. I gig a decent amount and work a day job so I can't always spend a week or few burning a lot of time along the way when I need the actual pedal more than the experience of building it. That said, I bought a Strymon Sunset awhile back on a whim, I was surprised that it seems to do the 6 vintage pedals better than the actual vintage pedals.

I still build for peers and local musicians via word of mouth but I do keep it somewhat to a minimum because I have so many other things to take up my free time.