I think I'm done building clones

[PRR]

> I never took into account dealers and shops wanting to distribute my products

Karl Marx taught that the workers should seize the means of production.

When implemented in Russia this often meant the tractor factory.

You can sell one or three tractors at the factory door. That market soon fills up. Then the factory door-yard fills up with tractors. Your jigs and drills sit idle.

It is a l-o-n-g way from many tractors at the factory door to many tractors in the hands of many paying customers.

Russia never quite figured out DISTRIBUTION. They met tractor production goals but plowed the fields with ponies and women.

For distribution you need a Sears-Roebucks or an Amazon to push a lot of ads/catalogs and to beat the fields for customers. These guys won't work for free, you have to cut them a slice. To move a LOT of tractors they need a pretty good slice.

For lower-price products (pedals) the distribution slice is often more than the cost at the factory door. Factory costs scale-down with volume (you can hire a lot of local women and train them to solder pedals piece-rate, then replace them with Asian women, then with a robot). Distribution is more like custom work, each sucker customer has to be handled individually.

And the issue of responding to customer concerns and complaints. Do it well, you have no time to make money. Do it poorly, the bad-mouthers ruin your reputation.

[FuzzFanatic71]

it has to come from the heart. I do this out of the love of music and keeping myself busy. it keeps the mind sharp and I love using tools coming from a construction/labor background. I feel a lot smarter, patience has grown and my mind thinks in a more critical manor now.

mass marketed and mass produced cookie cutters have given consumers cheap stuff.

if you build it they will come. those in search of real tone can see it and hear it. mojo works!

I'm in the same boat. I love building and I love the idea of my pedals being loved and played by my friends. I always make sure they cover the build costs and bring me a slab of beer. I need to be compensated something for having to suck up those nasty solder fumes.
But really my building helps fill those hours of insomnia I suffer terribly with.

I don't like the idea of undercutting the little guys. Does the fact that no money changes hands make it ok? If the person who I'm building for can't afford the production pedal that I'm cloning, does that make it right? Perhaps one of the small company builders around here could chime in and answer my moral and ethical dilemma.
As for giving free pedals to cashed up rock stars. Never!!! They get enough swag.

[R.G.]

It's funny. Economic laws are just as fundamental as gravity or quantum mechanics. Down at the bottom of it all is the idea of engineering economics. Engineering economics vastly simplified defines money as a unit of measure for what number of pieces of paper give you personal control over the energy embodied in a gallon of gasoline. Or a ton of coal. Or a barrel of diesel fuel.

Things cost energy to get or refine. Even if the energy comes from humans or animals burning kilocalories of food to use. Even if you use horses or slaves, you have to feed them. The universal currency in the MKS system is the Joule.

Governments play lots of games to try to break economic laws, and can, by great effort bend them by trying to force them in other directions than Mother Nature wants them to go. There's hell to pay when Mother Nature un-bends them.

Deciding that you can ignore or change economic laws is a lot like holding an anvil above your foot and releasing it, then daring gravity to start something. (Thanks, Project Rho!)

But humans will always try to ignore or change economic laws for one reason or another. Silly. It's not a game you can win.

[strassercaster]

this is a great thread. many good points on both sides. i am a noob by all means but i dont do much for free above all im a capitalist!,, if i do something free and i have its a gift but when someone requests they need to pay up. i have built three pedals i would have never done for semi friends that when they were done they didnt pay up. i dont need extra pedals of the same build. my one friend had his pedal break he says you need to make these more durable. so he mails it back to me and the box is half crushed a 1590bb i dont think any store on the planet  would have refunded his money. it literally looked like it had an anvil dropped on it. RG post made me think of this pedal. i would of had to hit it with a sledge hammer to put a crush on it like this. ok so i fronted you a pedal and a stack of amps fell on it . Thats my fault ha ha wth.so i took it apart replaced the pots and knobs took a framming hammer and beat it back to square. I am a nice guy but he never paid me for it the first time so i gave him a hammertoned box back. he likes the beat up look but still hasnt paid. ENTiTLEMENT gets old for the upkeepers.


i couldnt wait to give some of my first builds away. I wanted the word to get out and it did a little to much for the hobby side. i did get 200 for several builds then the switch flipped and at some point i decided it was a good way to make some money. i would say extra money buy that is an oxy moron if there ever was one.i guess RG is right 20 years ago there were less than 50 pedal manufacturers now there are 5000 at least . there are some incredible builds and builders that are on par with many big r and d departments at the big boys. i dont consider myself to be a spec of what they know and do thats for sure. However if you want a clone of a 400-2000 dollar vintage pedal For 75 bucks and i dont know you good luck ha ha. Keep building designing and making happy accidents is all us little guys can do