Recommend a good "real" first project

[trumpus]

Hey all,

This is week has been my introduction to these boards and there is so much info here i have spent a fair amount of time reading and learning, so thank you!

I have just recently gotten into effects building and have found a ton of great sites for kits, schematics, parts and stuff.  I just finished my first build, which was a true-bypass box kit from loop-master.com.  I know it was a really easy build, with no actual board, but I have no knowledge of electronics whatsoever, and had zero soldering experience, so I figured this was a good introduction to soldering and figuring some basic "what-not-to-do's" out (like crossing wires and blowing up a few LED's!).  After a few mistakes and a lesson in desoldering, It worked,  so I wanted to take this project through to completion and finish and label the box.  Even though I didn't bake it, it came out pretty nice!

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=108233&perpage=15&pagenumber=3

So, now that I've gotten this under my belt, i'm ready to move on to an actual effect (hence the "real" first project title).  I have been considering either building a kit from BYOC or trying to muddle through figuring out the schematics and layouts at Tonepad.  I was hoping some of you  with more experience, might have some recommendations for a good first project.  I really don't care what pedal it is, I just want to build something!  I have been leaning towards a BYOC compressor or TS-808 clone, as I still don't know much about reading schmatics, layouts and figuring out offboard wiring.  I don't even know which parts of the componenets are which (ring, sleeve, tip??).

Any suggestions would be really helpful!  Thanks.

Brian

[petemoore]

Hey all,

This is week has been my introduction to these boards and there is so much info here i have spent a fair amount of time reading and learning, so thank you!
  *fair amount of time reading ... change that to *copious....when you have time, reading through what may seem 'useless' info is where you may find the good stuff too.

I have just recently gotten into effects building and have found a ton of great sites for kits, schematics, parts and stuff.  I just finished my first build, which was a true-bypass box kit from loop-master.com.  I know it was a really easy build, with no actual board, but I have no knowledge of electronics whatsoever, and had zero soldering experience, so I figured this was a good introduction to soldering and figuring some basic "what-not-to-do's" out (like crossing wires and blowing up a few LED's!).  After a few mistakes and a lesson in desoldering, It worked,  so I wanted to take this project through to completion and finish and label the box.  Even though I didn't bake it, it came out pretty nice!

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=108233&perpage=15&pagenumber=3

So, now that I've gotten this under my belt, i'm ready to move on to an actual effect (hence the "real" first project title).  I have been considering either building a kit from BYOC or trying to muddle through figuring out the schematics and layouts at Tonepad.
  I suggest starting with a gain stage, [1 transistor] check out the beginner project, NPN Boost.
    I was hoping some of you  with more experience, might have some recommendations for a good first project.  I really don't care what pedal it is, I just want to build something!  I have been leaning towards a BYOC compressor or TS-808 clone, as I still don't know much about reading schmatics, layouts and figuring out offboard wiring.  I don't even know which parts of the componenets are which (ring, sleeve, tip??).
  I use a testjig box [es] it has two jacks, a ground wire from the jacks [alligator tip at end] a wire from the input jack tip [hot...to alligator clip] and a wire from output jack tip to alligator clip. The bottom box is metal, heavy', the top box is non conductive like cardboard. This way I can throw my circuit board on it, with nothing but the battery and pots on it, and test just that, this eliminates some of the offboard wiring debugging and lets me concentrate on getting the Cct board working. Also it tends to save batteries and wires from frying themselves and getting 'ragged' [broken strands or complete breaks].
  Use socket for the transistor or heat sinks...[sockets]..this way pinout can be refigured much more easily, bad transistor can be found with a simple unplug/plugin swap process.

Any suggestions would be really helpful!  Thanks.

Brian

[Mark Hammer]

Welcome on board.  I'm pleased you did a bypass box as your first project.  It's one I often recommend as a 1st project because there are no components to burn out, no errors to make in terms of buying parts, it's cheap, it's fast and easy to build, and it will always be useful.

The 2nd one to build is another matter.  I would suggest going to http://www.tonepad.com and looking through the list that Francisco has there.  He has graded them as beginner, intermediate and advanced.  Whether any given project *deserves* to be in that category is another matter but in general you should take a peek at the beginner projects.  Ideally, you will want something where hand selection of parts or tricky biasing/setup are not part of the equation.  What you want is something that is a simple matter of etch, solder, wire-up.  What you may NEED, beyond that, is something that I suppose only you can decide.  Certainly a simple booster like the Stratoblaster or any of the others over at www.generalguitargadgets.com is something that can remain useful over a lengthy period.  Buffering and strengthening signals is something that will always prove useful.

[Burton]

Welcome! I'm new here too, and I'm basically in the same position as you.  I think a good first project (although it's just a boost, not compression or anything) would be the Beginner Project in this forum ( http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?board=6.0 ).  The great thing about this project is A) you get to find all of the components yourself, not just get them from a kit, B) get experience with perfboard, not just using a premade PCB from a kit, and C) there are step-by-step pictorial instructions along with the schematic, so you can easily follow the schematic while doing the project.  I haven't done it yet, but it seems like it would really help you learn schematics and basic electronics, and you can actually use it! (I was thinking about making it an onboard effect in my guitar- that'd be cool!) If that project is too easy, you might want to check out the second project ( http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?board=16.0 ) which appears to be some kind of op amp, and is similar to the first project in terms of build pictorial, schematic, etc.  I think I'm also going to do that one.  Hope this helps. Have fun!

[toneman]

Welcome aboard Brian,   4 a first stompbox project, i'd recommend a power supply. 
That way, U can power *all* the pedals U can build ...well, depends on how *many*  U build.   
Minimal investment 4 maximum useability....U will use it with everything!!
Nothing worse than trying 2 troubleshoot a stompbox with a bad batt   
U'll have to google as i don't know of links.
MayB GGG or TonePad or AMZ or GEOFX ??
Get your pwr basics down, and U'll keep going & going & going....*withOUT* a duracell   
staypoweredUP!
tone

[Noplasticrobots]

I'd reccomend the Bazz Fuss here:

http://www.home-wrecker.com/bazz.html

It's pretty easy to modify, as you can see there's three different versions on that page! Have fun.

[cd]

Welcome aboard Brian,   4 a first stompbox project, i'd recommend a power supply. 

Unless you are absolutely 110% confident in your soldering and wiring abilities, I would NOT recommend a power supply, or anything that requires wiring AC power for a beginner or first project.  There's the usual litany of potential problems for newbies but in this case, a wrong wire won't blow up a chip, it could very well KILL you.  In all seriousness, if you're going to be wiring AC from a wall socket, be careful!

For a quick fix, a Powerall or Onespot from Musician's Friend will save you batteries and power your FX for <$30.

For a first project - get the Craig Anderton books, "DIY projects for Guitarists" and "Electronic Projects for Musicians".  Great starting point and you'll have a lot of information at your fingertips in book form, instead of having to look up stuff through Google all the time.  DPFG is worth it for the "build your own preamp" chapter alone.

[tiges_ tendres]

When I was thinking about my first "from scratch" project I tried to straddle the boundary of having an effect which wasn't covered by anything I currently had that was store bought, but yet also sounded awesome enough to impress me to carry on effect building.

I ended up making a fetzer valve from runoffgroove.com and have never looked back.  Easy to perf, great sounding unit.  I also echo the bazz fuss.  Super simple, but you definitely know what it does!  Very rewarding! plus it's a great modding platform for later when you get the twitches!

[ryanscissorhands]

I found the beginner project to be a great intro to effects. There's pictures for everything you need to do, it's fairlyu simple, and you'll find more and more that once you have a clean booster, you've always needed one.

I also recommend ordering boards from generalguitargadgets.com, since you can do cool effects without having to make your own layout, or figure out the perfboard-thing too much before getting to effects that you want.

I get switches from Aron, pcb's from GGG, other parts from Smallbear (smallbearelec.com).

Edit: Oh, ya, and welcome to the forum!

[trumpus]

Hey,

Thanks for all of the great input.  A little feedback...

I definately would prefer to build an effect, rather than a power supply, for several reasons.  First, I already have a Godlyke powering my board, and i love it.  If i were to replace it, i would go with a VL PP2 or some equivalent.  Second, echoing what was said about the possibility of getting hurt...yeah, i'm not that confident with my skills yet, so i think i'd stay away for now.

As for which effect, like i said, i don't care.  I was also interested in the BYOC phaser and delay with effects loop mod.  So yeah, i'm looking more at trying to decide between a kit or something easy from Tonepad or someplace similar.

IS the bass fuzz a pedal for guitar or bass (i am strictly a guitar player....)

Brian

[smashinator]

IS the bass fuzz a pedal for guitar or bass?

Yes!

My recommendation for a first "actual effect" build is either a fuzz face, or some variety of booster.  I just finally got around to building a simple clean boost after making a bunch of other effects, and I really dig it.  Best of all, they're SIMPLE.

[jmusser]

Go to Joe Davisson's Site (should be in the" Links" above), and build either his Easy Drive or Antiquity Fuzz. Both have very few components, and sound great. Any help you need with them, just PM me.

[fixr1984]

The first project I started out with was the "electra distortion" http://www.geocities.com/j4_student/beginners.html  I found it to be fairly easy. The web page gives you the parts list, instructions on how to make it as well as a rough cost of parts.  And I have to say that for only about 20 bucks in parts this thing actually produces more distortion than the built in distortion in my Marshal Half stack. The only thing i would change about it is the dpdt should be a 3pdt other wise when you turn it off its off and you get no sound at all.