Anybody ever get TIRED of building effects and just want to play....?

[phostenix]

I think it goes something like this:

You're playing your guitar and you start thinking, "I'm not getting the sound I REALLY want. Maybe if I just tweaked this pedal a little or, better yet, built my own...."

So, off you go to the workbench to start experimenting.

After a certain period of time there, you start thinking, "I'm spending so much time diddlin' around with these pedals, I'm barely playing my guitar anymore!"

So, you go back to your guitar.

After a while, you start thinking, "I'm not getting the sound I REALLY want...."   


wash, rinse, repeat....


Grace and peace,

Steve

[tennisdude]

I personally think that effects building has nothing at all to do with guitar playing. It's totally seperate. Actually, I don't even think that effects building has anything to do with tone. It's wierd. I just am happiest when I'm soldering away on a PCB, or finally getting something working. After that, its cool to use the effect alot (or once in a while), and to gaze at the marvelous piece of art-work that is the pedal, but some of the thrill is gone. Of course, thats just me and my messed up brain 

[Paul Marossy]

I think it goes something like this:

You're playing your guitar and you start thinking, "I'm not getting the sound I REALLY want. Maybe if I just tweaked this pedal a little or, better yet, built my own...."

So, off you go to the workbench to start experimenting.

After a certain period of time there, you start thinking, "I'm spending so much time diddlin' around with these pedals, I'm barely playing my guitar anymore!"

So, you go back to your guitar.

After a while, you start thinking, "I'm not getting the sound I REALLY want...."   


wash, rinse, repeat....


Grace and peace,

Steve

Yeah, it does seem to  be a viscious cycle. Although, I will say that I have the best tone ever and I am pretty content with my sound nowadays. 

[runmikeyrun]

i too started trying to get the perfect bass distortion.  Well i didn't quite get it, but came pretty dang close.  Then I found a Budda Zenman, put in some NOS mullards, and didn't look back... well, until about a year later when i built up a big muff with some extra gain stages.  It don't sound like a big muff but sounds damn good on bass.  I take it for backup to gigs.  I still use my budda but definitely like the franken-muff and I will use it if our tour to europe works out (i think my power supply for the budda won't like 50hz).  

I got out of it for about a year, then some of my pedals got stolen in the care of someone else and it kinda sparked my interest again.  I'm thinking of building some of my simpler circuits again for selling and maybe if time allows R+D some new ones.  

I'm growing tired of distortions but my limited knowledge and limited time to learn new things sent me out to buy a flanger as of late.  I have purchased a couple of circuits from fellow board members when i couldn't get them to work properly.  Like other stuff in my life my interest waxes and wanes but always comes back around.  Right now i'm back on the upswing, which is a good thing.

[petemoore]

  Not really, but I had to take into account more a...'for specific usage/*need' approach to how much gets built.
 Most of the 'building' is more 'modding' for me lately.
 The last thing I built is a Chaos, but I haven't boxed it yet, I just built it becaue it looks good, is a departure from what I have, and wanted to try it out, this typing has triggered a *want to box it now...
 The problem isn't with lack of interest necessarily, though one of the most interesting points was at the completion of the first build...or the first time the guitar sounded almost exactly like 'that' [some achievement of near nirvana tonal acquisition].
 I figured out I like playing with many different type distorters, as long as they're [enter long list of adjectives like 'dynamic']...super great...there are a thousand ways to very satisfying distortion sounds, all have ups and downs, some 'better' than others here or there, TS, DTGClippers like Dist+, FF's, BMP, any one of these [+ maybe a booster like minibooster, or a Jfet ~Matchbox] is perfectly capable of keeping me 'in the pink' as far as tone.    
 I think I'm doing pretty well 'staying on the wagon', not building much...but the urge to rethink/redo the cirtuits for more optimal stage switching...another re-draft, mainly of switching between different amounts of gain/distortion W/'proper' volumes [a little louder/more aggressive for leads, which probely would call for a little LP Filter too] for 1 switch to lead from rythm...something I haven't really got perfect that I could use to reconfigure...there I go again, thinking about jerking circuits from their boxes for 'new' panel multi-floor-effect, then using one of the boxes for Chaos house...or...building a second set of my fave circuits for the multi panel effect unit...daft...who am I trying to kid here besides myself...Tone, gain, volume control is well under control, I have N/P getting 'hitting pockets' live [attaining the 'right' tone/volume just switched to] I think I'll get set up the amp and play guitar for sometime...

[Pedal love]

I seriously think a lot of you spend a lot of time searching for that perfect tone that you will never find. My advice- find the effects you can live with and quit going for your perception of tone nirvana, that perception will change over time, as everything else changes.pl

[Burstbucker]

Yeah, I've been spending WAAAYYYYYY too much time over the last two or three years tinkering with effects and neglecting my playing in the process.

But I've got to admit that this pedal building hobby can be a lot of fun!  I don't regret it but my playing is definately suffering because of it.

I've got a couple pedals that I've just started, a Mayer Axis Fuzz and a  Silicon Fuzzface, that'll keep me busy for another couple of weeks.  After that, when I have time, there are at least five more Distortion/Overdrive pedals that I want to build, a Bosstone, a Rocket Fuzz, an MXR Distortion+, a Son Of Screamer and a BSIABII,................ wwhhhheeewwwww!!!!.........
Yeah alright, I'm a pretty sick dude!
8^)

I probably won't tackle them right away though, it might be over the course of another year or two.

But even when I'm not building pedals, I still manage to goof off.  Instead of playing and practicing, I'll stand there in front of my cranked-up amp bashing out power chords and riffs and spending countless hours tweaking various pedals, just trying to nail that "perfect" tone. Of course that's like hitting a moving target and it's basically turned into a compulsion at this point I guess.  Maybe I need to order me one of those Fulltone OCD pedals.
;^)





 

[Toney]

New builds often give me new music.

In that window of ahhh.. thats how I want it, happy now... I have a bit of a playing honeymoon .
Ride the new sound and see where it takes you. Often I'd just noticed myself playing something new/interesting. Guitar reacting in new ways...new tones.

I think every new build (that I liked) gave me something. Seemed natural to play in a certain way.
We have probably all asked ourselves that question. Sure, it takes time and brainspace.
I think there comes a point where you've built a lot of you goal-builds and can pick and choose with discretion.
Planned practice times are a mighty fine idea if the habit is falling away.

[KMS]

This is something that no doubt all of us on this forum think about......but can't always get what we "think" we want commercially.

15 months ago I was a stompbox newbie...I still am a newbie, but I have learned a few things and had a lot fun/reward building this stuff.


One thing for me, my wife would never let me buy the commercial boxes and she is too smart for me to try and hide the lump sum of money it takes to purchase one, so if I buy the parts slowly and build the stuff slowly I can hide the cost---I just pilfer my lunch money for this stuff, buy from the supplier which is about 4 blocks from my work place and she has no idea what it cost.....so I just tell here it is real cheap compared to buying one at the store (and for the most part that is the truth). Too bad I have found this method instead of dealing with her straight on, but the bitching is so much less like this.

For me, I have just arrived at a leveling off stage of stompbox building.  I plan on doing some more builds but I have to get back to practice with the new sound I now have and work with this new box to make it part of my act.

I'm satisfied with my tone.

My new box has opened up capabilities I didn't even know existed and will take me quite a while to learn how to apply those capabilities so a new FX is not yet in order anyway.

Some of what you build yourself cannot be attained any other way.

My newest box is a combination of all my FX in one big steel box (which I got for free)  including 6X GEO isolated splitter(6 parallel channels) with expansion to 8 channels already etched on the splitter board,  my own diy ten channel stereo mixer, my own diy matrix switching circuit, my own onboard foot controlled master volume, and then a diy OS with a commercial BOSS OD2 and a diy tremulus lune......many auxiliary jacks including dual power supplies for external devices and external jacks for addition daisy chaining for which I have my Cry Baby in its original box hooked up to one channel right now. I just ran all this into my Vestax 4 channel reverb and my Electra EP 200 Plus Delay last night and I am in the "magic zone". I can't explain in words how happy I am that I built this FX......my own design which is still not done and I have no idea what I will add to the box next (I have room for about 6 to 8 more FX in this box).  OK  I admit it weighs about 15 pounds but it is simply unbelievable the variation in tone, brilliance, bass, treble, mids,  feed back, so on and so forth I can make with this set up.  One thing that I really like is having the Cry Baby 535 on its own channel where I can mix in as much treble, fuzz, or bass tone that I want and it is solo mixed as a wet/dry method to the rest of the FX for which I can do the same with all the other FX.  The Vestex Reverb combined with the OS has allowed me to make any mode of compression that I want...I can take it to too much attack while maintaining endless sustain.......all this with no hum and no pop.......good luck finding that in a music store. 

Yes I think about it, but not for long.

[MartyMart]

I'm lucky in this respect, I make a living from music so I'm "playing" all the time, either
Bass/Keyboards or guitar ... quite often in front of a computer screen ! <<< square eyes >>>

I have not built anything for a couple of weeks, that last being a "Dr Boogey" and a "Jfet Vulcan"
both of these with a TS-9 and a decent fuzz, would almost cover every sound I need !!

I'm finishing a production with a new band soon, and will post some clips when I can 

Playing and practice is very important, even though I've played piano since I was 8 years old
or so, I still practice scales etc every week !

Marty.

[Ge_Whiz]

Complete the following phrase:

I have not built anything for a couple of weeks, that last being a "Dr Boogey" and a "Jfet Vulcan"...

... having run out of effects boxes to build, photograph, sound clip and present copious build notes on for the benefit of other forum members." LOL

Rock on, Marty. 

[MartyMart]

Complete the following phrase:

I have not built anything for a couple of weeks, that last being a "Dr Boogey" and a "Jfet Vulcan"...

... having run out of effects boxes to build, photograph, sound clip and present copious build notes on for the benefit of other forum members." LOL

Rock on, Marty. 

So you "DID" notice my compulsive obsessive behaviour then !!

...... and I thought that I'd gotten away with it  !!   

I hoping to calm down a bit .... I'm eyeing over the JCM800 sim though .... !!

MM

[brett]

Hi.
As a guitarist who has played for 20 years but never played in a band, I don't need to reach a very high standard of playing.  Actually, that's exacyly where I am - fairly bad player who does electronics.  What I enjoy is trying out new strings/a new pedal/try out a new guitar/etc with a bit of playing and I suppose there's a certain quality of playing needed to do that.  I mention new strings coz today I replaced some really old strings on my guitar with heavier ones, and the improvement in tone was substantial.  My new guages are 11, 14, 18, ...

I find that designing (and refining) new effects and building amps takes as much time as building boxes.

cheers

[Herr Masel]

It's wierd, I feel like I am the only one who doesn't care that much about tone. The reason I started building is I am really interested in it. I like doing it and learning the skills and theory. There are sounds in my head I want to get, but I start building something out of interest and only then become obsessed with making it sound good. My playing suffers a little, but really if I put my mind to it I'd find time for everything. I forgot who it was that said complaining about not having enough time is silly - you get as many hours a day as Einstein, da Vinci and Bach (or whatever "greats" were used as an example, the principle stands).

[jmusser]

Right now, I'm a little burned out with the circuit building. I think Marty and I both have built 50 circuits this passed year, so I'm playing around with gun building right now. I agree with the other guy, that for me effects has nothing to do with playing. I enjoy the mental challenge, and the creativity. Some of my favorite guitar players use very few effects. I think they do inspire you.

[cbriere]

Apart from adding low cost effects to my board,
I found i get multiple benefits out of building effects,

- better undurstanding of "my own sound" and how to acheive it.
- Hystory and evolution of effects over time.
- better knowledge of how to get a particular sound to replicate legendary tones.
- understanding of the technology involved and their effect on sound.
- felling of "having the control" on your sound. (this helps a lot in concert to tweek my setup for the room)
so on.

cb

[petemoore]

  After the whole 'first things first' tyrade I sometimes go into, I don't always follow that order myself.
  I'm trying to save for a speaker upgrade, what's where I think the weakest link in my chain is @ This Point...a very strong chain already.

[phostenix]

Buck,

I PM'd that Boss ME-50 info to you.


Grace and peace,

Steve

[Xavier]

I'm totally out of control.

All the pedals in the loop of my GT6 are DIY, except for my Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor. I have to confess:

- AMZ Mosfet Boost. I don't have a use for it really. I think it should have some more grit --------> Maybe I should build 2 or 3 dirty boosters
- Red Llama. Sounds cool, but I only use it in a couple of songs.
- OD1 clon: Sounds exactly like the original I use to have. I use it primarily for boosting the Tube Factor, but it thins out the tone a little too much. Will have to work on it.
- BSIAB II. Sounds decent, but too gainy. Need to get the damn 2N5457's to quiet it down. Cuts too much bass though.

This means I'm constantly re-working in my pedals.

Besides, I have just built a Ge Rangemaster which probably I will never use, just for the sake of it. I have tenths of populated boards that never will be boxed.......

I should concentrate in my playing....

[Gilles C]

Indeed, it also happened to me...

As many of you, I was playing guitar, wanted a better sound so I started building effects, began to build more than play, then stopped playing guitar for a while, then stopped building effects. 

Oh, and what didn't help was that many effects were not working perfectly...

I did not play guitar or built effects for over a year for health reason, then took airbrushing for a new hobby. Now, I would like to put in boxes and paint all the effects I built, decorate a few guitars... and start playing again. Will I go back to effects building? Maybe... But not one everyday as I was doing before

Gilles