Abusive posting

[aron]

Hey guys.

There is a "Report to moderator" link on each post. Feel free to use it when you see members attacking each other. Look, sometimes it's easy to lose our temper when posting. It happens to the best of us. What I don't want is people swearing or calling other people names - especially long-time members. When I start seeing people attacking others and abusing their posting rights I will lock their account for a while.

This forum is for learning and helping others. That being said, there are resources in this forum that may help you. The FAQ links, the FAQ forum, the Wiki have all been created to try and help people new to this hobby. In my schematics page I put the following text. It still seems to hold true after a few years:

Before you go wild downloading these links and buying parts for the schematics listed below, there are a few things you should know.

    * If you don't feel like reading yourself or helping yourself, you shouldn't pursue building your own boxes. Read all the links you can before asking questions.
    * Some schematics on the Internet have mistakes. There is no way to know. I got caught by one of these and it cost me a lot of time before I realized that the schematic was incorrect. You can protect yourself from this by purchasing a solderless breadboard (also known as prototype board). These types of boards make it easy to prototype a circuit and see if it works and how it sounds before you commit to putting it on a perfboard where changes are not as easy to make. Unfortunately you still have to buy the parts to prototype it even if it's a bad schematic :-(
    * Building a complete effect (with box, stomp switch) costs money. The components are cheap but the box, stomp switch, pots, are expensive. If possible, go mail order for these parts. In many cases you may be paying MORE than if you had purchased the unit.
    * YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES. Prepare to take some time to debug your circuit. If you're the type that's patient and can use this as a learning experience, great! If you don't like this sort of thing, don't do it. Buy ready-made effects. Read R.G. Keen's Effect FAQ for more caveats.
    * Your stompbox could sound different from the original, especially if you don't use the recommended parts or values. This is especially important when using certain types of transistors such as FETs. Many times, even the brand and type matters, especially for capacitors!
    * Just purchase some of them, if you look at the schematic and it looks intensive, then perhaps you should just buy the pedal. This goes for most delay type pedals unless you have a PCB. Hand-wiring is just not appropriate for complex circuits. There is a coolness factor that is the box and name alone. Another reason is that some of these manufacturers are really cool guys and care about their pedals. Many hand-made pedals are simply great and there is a reason why they are so popular. If you value your time and really can't afford to waste a lot of it, consider the reasonable prices of hand-made pedals that are popular and selling. After you get past some of your mistakes and buy a bunch of parts, $175 for a hand-wired pedal doesn't seem bad at all :-)

I encourage you to purchase pedals in production. If it's currently in production and you can afford it, buy it.