How to Design My Own Pedal?

[KerryF]

Does anyone have a website that gives you information on how I can design my own effect pedal.  I like building pedals, but I would like to design my own and I would like to know how I can do this.

Thanks.

[John Lyons]

A good way to learn how to design circuits is to study all the circuits you can. There are a ton of circuits out there. Once you start to notice paterns in existing circuits you can take parts of a few different effects and graft therm together and try different combonations. The more you look into it the more it will make sense to you.

Go to these sites and absorb the info:
http://www.muzique.com/lab/main.htm
http://www.geofex.com/
http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/schematics.html
http://www.geocities.com/tpe123/folkurban/fuzz/snippets.html
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/
http://www.runoffgroove.com/articles.html

John

[The Tone God]

Not too mention the function which can give you information on a variety of topics.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=38952.0

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=36973.0

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=31387.0

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=34415.0

Andrew

[moody07747]

did some searching myself and found a great book from wampcat1

check out Melanheads mods, Keeley worked out his mod so HE could do it... its not too complicated, but you have to know what you are doing..since I DIDN't know what I was doing, I bought the MOD book from Brian Wampler (wampcat1) from his Indyguitarist site... it has a ton of DS-1 mods...plus many other pedals... buying a ds-1..$39.99 + buying the mod book $25 = 64.99 still half the price of a Keeley Ds-1... I did one for a buddy and I loved it... with the toggle switchable diode arrays and such...even did the seeing eye...

I ordered mid day today and it should come in soon.  I cant wait to learn and start making some custom pedals for myself.

[billings]

A got a copy of The Art of Electronics (horowitz and hill) the other day and I've already gotten through the foundations section and much of the bipolar transistors section.  It's not math-intensive so far, and it explains a lot of stuff relating directly to circuit design that are hard to suss from the various writeups you'll find on electronics on the web.  I haven't designed any circuits yet, but that book is definitely helping me to better understand the circuits I've seen.

[KerryF]

Wow thanks everyone.  You are all a great help!  I just learned a lot more in just a few hours.  I cant wait to start a design!  Anymore information is always welcomed though.

[wampcat1]

did some searching myself and found a great book from wampcat1

check out Melanheads mods, Keeley worked out his mod so HE could do it... its not too complicated, but you have to know what you are doing..since I DIDN't know what I was doing, I bought the MOD book from Brian Wampler (wampcat1) from his Indyguitarist site... it has a ton of DS-1 mods...plus many other pedals... buying a ds-1..$39.99 + buying the mod book $25 = 64.99 still half the price of a Keeley Ds-1... I did one for a buddy and I loved it... with the toggle switchable diode arrays and such...even did the seeing eye...

I ordered mid day today and it should come in soon.  I cant wait to learn and start making some custom pedals for myself.

Thanks!

bw

[Cliff Schecht]

A got a copy of The Art of Electronics (horowitz and hill) the other day and I've already gotten through the foundations section and much of the bipolar transistors section.  It's not math-intensive so far, and it explains a lot of stuff relating directly to circuit design that are hard to suss from the various writeups you'll find on electronics on the web.  I haven't designed any circuits yet, but that book is definitely helping me to better understand the circuits I've seen.

I've got a copy of this book and while it does explain a lot fairly well, it leaves out a lot of important math.Then again, my dad has a huge collection of engineering texts dating back to the 1920's so I don't really have a problem finding good books, it's just understanding them!

[RaceDriver205]

Please dont design another fuzz! 

[Cliff Schecht]

What exactly do you wanna build? The first step for any engineer is laying out the problem that needs to be solved, so if you have no problem...

[Seljer]

What exactly do you wanna build? The first step for any engineer is laying out the problem that needs to be solved, so if you have no problem...

though in the world of guitar effects its often the other way round: "accidently find some weird circuit that does some freaky cool sounding stuff" -> "put the thing into a useable envelope" 

[Peter Snowberg]

First, you need to learn some electrical engineering.

This question is similar to "how do I paint my own picture" except that you need to apply physics in addition to creativity.

Once you have the physics end down you can start to apply the creativity, but without the solid foundation you can't understand what components and circuits need to be applied to the problem.

Once you do have the physics down, the question is self-answering.

[KerryF]

Well I am planning on building probably a OD or Distortion.  I already built a custom fuzz pedal with 4 fuzzes in 1 box.

The 4uzz:

[RaceDriver205]

Maybe you could design a delay? Seems a waste to keep designing distortion-type effects, they all sound roughly the same (they sound like distortion).
With a delay you could use something like the PT2399, all you have to do is provide the support circuit, and it does the work. Therefore it is not complicated. You'd need an input mixer, an output mixer, and pot controls. PT2399 is cheap from futurlec.com, and mixers are easy done with Opamps.
Or you could do a reverb if you want it to be a bit more involved, and use a few PT2399s.

[KerryF]

I would love to do something other than an overdrive, but so far I have built overdrives/distortions/fuzz and I understand them the most.  I look at layouts for soe delays and I go crazy at their complexity and I am only somewhat new to this.  I looked through the 4 posted links of the posts in this forum and I took a few notes and decided to post them here to help anyone else.

1.   Input Capacitor= High Pass Filter (HPF).  Provides DC blocking and how many lows you will get in clipping stage based on the capacitor value.
2.   HPF->Diode Clipping w/ LPF->Tone Control->Volume Control.
3.   Less Lows-Clipping Stage-More Lows (adjust) = Better Distortion.
4.   Select a tone control.
5.   Pre and post filtering may be the trick to good distortion.
6.   Experiment on breadboard: Simple Stages->Get It Working->Add Filtering->Add More Stages->Add Interstage Clipping->Add Whatever Makes It Sound Right.
7.   Gain stages can be: Bipolar, JFET, Darlington, MOSFET, Inverting OpAmp, Non Inverting OpAmp, 2Q Feedback Amp (Fuzz Face), Mu Amp (JFET).
8.   Find Simple Circuit->Layout On Breadboard->Switch Parts To Find The Best Sound.
9.   Learn how the pedal you want to build works.
10.   Print schematics of the same type of pedal and circle similar sections.
11.   Take note in what you don't like in certain schematics so you can change them.

[moody07747]

nice fuzz box

we could use some delay and chorus circuits on the projects page.

thers plenty of fuzz

my first project will be a booster and then a few distortion pedals as i play lots of rock.

[KerryF]

Thanks.  The 4uzz (I named it) is awsome with 4 different fuzzes which you can switch between with a rotary switch.  Its pretty awsome.

I designed my schematic so I am done with that process.  I bought a Solderless Breadboard so that is ready.  All I need to do is design my layout for it.  Anyone know of a good Breadboard layout creator.  I have the veroboard/perfboard/PCB layout creator, but when I make it big enough, I cant scroll down to see more of the layout.  Its the DIY Layout Creator.  Someone on here made it I think.  Anyone have any suggestions?