Pedal Building Book?

[Drewmeyer]

Does anyone know of a good, informational book which contains information on building pedals (detailing components and how they work and the like) which could help a beginner, like me, begin to understand how pedals actually work so I could begin designing my own circuits. I understand that some stuff comes with time, and I have access to the internet which probably contains every piece of information I could ever need to know, but I'd like to have a lot of that relevant information in one, easy to access place such as a book. Thanks!

[mistahead]

If memory serves Merlin wrote one I believe is available from Small Bear.

[smallbearelec]

The only How-To-Build book that I presently carry is R. G. Keen's PCB Design opus. I would like to carry others and welcome suggestions.

SD

[musiclikscreams]

Smallbearelec, I love how ur on the forum and willing to take suggestions. I think that's freakin awesome!

[mistahead]

Sorry about that... maybe I'm off the mark but I could have sworn someone else had referenced Merlin's book.

[MaxPower]

I found a textbook "Electronic Principles" by Malvino in my local used bookstore.  It's a great book imo. The math is pretty simple (some light algebra at worst) and it does a good job on transistors, JFETs, op-amps, and capacitors. It covers other components as well but these are the highlights. It's copyright is 1989 so may be hard to find, but a newer electronics textbook should be better one would hope.  So search your local used bookstores or try buying one off a college student on the cheap.

Texas Instruments has some PDFs you can download. For op-amps anyway. Maybe they have one for transistors? One op-amp pdf is "op amps for everyone".

[Mark Hammer]

Any of the available in-print books from Craig Anderton or Robert Penfold will do you just fine.  While it contains no schematics of projects, I find Anderton's Guitar Gadgets book an excellent introduction into systems thinking about FX.

[induction]

Brian Wampler has written a couple of books and made them freely available on the other forum.

[merlinb]

Ther is also the Stompbox Cookbook by Nicholas Boscorelli, which has some bits worth reading. The projects are, unfortunately, not all that practical. There is a PDF version of it floating around the net (check the other forum).

[musiclikscreams]

links to the PDFs would be awesome

[caspercody]

Here is a link to an article on distortion pedals:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/richardo/distortion/index.html

[MaxPower]

Handbook of operational amplifier applications:
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/sboa092a/sboa092a.pdf

Op Amps for everyone design guide:
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slod006b/slod006b.pdf

They appear similar. Op amps for everyone is the newer one. The other is an old "classic" which has been updated a bit. If those links are wrong for some reason just bing or google "texas instruments op amp pdf".

[tubegeek]

I get a lot of great insight from Rod Elliott (ESP)

Here is a link to his "Articles" page, but the "Projects" articles also all contain many useful explanations in depth. There is a section of the "Articles" list headed, "Beginners' Luck - The beginners' Guide to ..." which is a good place to start, and he has a link to  Lenard which has a lot of good basic stuff.

A specific shout-out to ESP's "Designing With Op-Amps," a 3-part article with a great deal of worthwhile information - that's on the list linked below.

http://sound.westhost.com/articles.htm

And I'd be INSANE not to point you to GEOFEX: look up at the top of this page right next to your own avatar.

[musiclikscreams]

bing

lol

[GGBB]

I found a textbook "Electronic Principles" by Malvino in my local used bookstore.  It's a great book imo. The math is pretty simple (some light algebra at worst) and it does a good job on transistors, JFETs, op-amps, and capacitors. It covers other components as well but these are the highlights. It's copyright is 1989 so may be hard to find, but a newer electronics textbook should be better one would hope.  So search your local used bookstores or try buying one off a college student on the cheap.

I have that book!  It was one of my textbooks for my introductory electronics course at college.  I don't think I actually ever read it (the course was mostly practical electronics and no theory) - maybe I will now.

[PRR]

> I have that book! 

Read it. Keep it at bedside or near the potty.

Don't worry about "edition". Electronics 101 doesn't change much. *Publishers* re-fluff the formatting to make page-numbers come out different, to spoil the used-textbook market (when prof says 'turn to page 234', it will be a different page in another edition). If you just read-through, that don't matter at all.

Malvino is fine, so are several others. They work you on BASICs, battery resistors currents, for a month before they even let-on that transistors exist. MOST hang-ups I see "understanding transistors" are really poor grasp of basic plumbing. Do 50 Ohms Laws 3 times a day and build your mental muscle.

[mistahead]

I've been finding, as far as basic component knowledge goes, the older the material the less BS filled it is.

Someone posted a link to an understanding transistors article set from the early days of hobby transistors - that (and of course the colourfully presented info from folks like PRR and R.G., merlin, etc.) seems less... well polluted than current resources.

2c for a grain of salt!