Component choices

[bluebunny]

I see what you did there, Mark.  A worthy runner-up.   

[Here2learn]

Nobody said WELCOME!  ??

All the classic pedals were made of the cheapest parts. Remember most listeners listened on pocket transistor radios which had even worse parts (because of mass production there were exceptionally cheap parts available). We know that the "FuzzFace", Jimi might go through a case of 100 to find one with "the" sound.

While parts in general have got much better, some have gone further downhill. 1/4 jacks were always a bit iffy; I see some today I don't think will last 3 gigs. Mechanical abuse parts, get good stuff. (Pots are indeed in that class but start with medium-cheap and see how it goes.)

Since you are new to *this* racket, shop the for-pedals parts houses. Small Bear Electronics is excellent, in the US, when his workers are willing. (NYC is not the best place in a pandemic.) He mostly carries a thousand PEDAL parts, not millions+ of cellfone or MRI or military mystery-bits like Digikey/Mouser/Allied. He also sells to medium-size commercial builders, and if a part don't work for purpose they tell him. Tayda and another also focus on pedal-type parts, but keep a larger selection of sometimes odd parts, are lower price but slow or very-slow shipping.

Remember that in hifi-world you only use one preamp at a time. Pedals are more like shoes. A guitar player may have a dozen pedals on the pedalboard, and another two dozen in the closet for various reasons.

Thanks for the welcome, and the analogy.
Not quite sure how long I'll be welcome though lol

I hadn't thought about that but it makes sense that pedals would be a bit like shoes.

I see by the replies below yours folks round here have a sense of humour.
Not used to that in electronics but it's great to see

Edited to add:
Thanks for the heads up on the stores. Very handy to know and their prices aren't that bad.

It's definitely looking like the mechanical parts are the higher priority.
Very glad to have found this forum as I'd have spent a fortune where it wasn't needed

[Here2learn]

IMHO, the only things worth spending money on "quality" are the mechanical parts: jacks and switches, i.e. things where keeping the electrons happy is not on the top of your list.

Thanks.
We're looking at Neutrik jacks currently.
Are there any jacks you'd recommend?

[EBK]

I'm a fan of Switchcraft jacks, particularly the No. 11 open frame jacks.

[Mark Hammer]

I see by the replies below yours folks round here have a sense of humour.
Not used to that in electronics but it's great to see

Forty odd years back, Electronics Today magazine used to have a regular feature with tech-related cartoons.  I think you'll agree that, during the intervening 40-some years, the quality of humor has improved.

[amptramp]

There is a visual representation of capacitor linearity here:

http://diyaudioprojects.com/mirror/members.aol.com/sbench102/caps.html

that shows ceramic capacitors have a large nonlinearity because the ceramic element acts like a a ceramic headphone and flexes in response to applied voltage but the others are quite linear.  It can also act as a microphone and feed a signal due to vibrations into the circuit.  Ceramic is best used at radio frequencies.

Another parameter to watch out for is dielectric absorption.  This is measured by charging up a capacitor with DC voltage, shorting it out, removing the short and measuring the voltage.  The closer you get to zero the better and once again, polypropylene is best.  The dielectric can form an electret, the electrostatic equivalent to a permanent magnet.  Electret microphones are quite common.  Normally the value of dielectric absorption is negligible but if a circuit is sensitive to bias voltage, this could be an issue.

But polyester is quite common and almost as good as polypropylene.

Waxed paper capacitors were quite common for a long time but they develop electrical leakage after a while due to moisture absorption.  Sometimes these are encased in plastic like the notorious bumblebee capacitors so called because the values are identified by coloured rings like a resistor.  These are known to split down the side of the plastic case and let moisture in.

There is a decent wikipedia article on capacitor dielectrics here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_types