Newbie

[Bunford]

Hi,

I'm about to start making pedals.....i hope! I'm a newbie to the whole thing, even electronics. I am a dab hand (genuinely) at DIY type stuff though plus i pick things up quickly (passed my driving test after only 12 lessons!).

Anyway, i am looking to build:

MXR Dynacomp Compressor
ITS8 (Ibanez Tube Screamer 808 Replica)
AMZ Mosfet Booster
6 Band Equalizer

And ideally i'd also like to build (but not seen any layouts, schematics, parts bill etc so don't know if it's possible):

Reverb
Delay/Echo
Flanger
Wah Wah (Vox Replica preferably)
Kill Switch (to put between last effect pedal and amp to kill the entire signal when i don;t want feedback/hum etc)
Chromatic Tuner

I want a complete home made pedalboard which will give me a great indie guitar sound but also leave me open to experiment.

Can i use perfboard to make all pedals or just basic ones? Best to buy ready to solder PCB or make my own? Also, got any links, books etc to recommend to read up on understanding schematics, soldering tips, etc?

I would also like advice on the best place (physically or online) to buy parts in the UK. I cannot seem to find basic things like the Hammond 1590BB enclosure in the UK at the moment.

All kind of advice and tips gratefully appreciated!!

Cheers,

Gav.

[markm]

This may help you.
http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page#Getting_started
Oh yeah.....and welcome 

[Mark F]

Hi Gav! Welcome to the Forum. This is a GREAT place to learn stuff. I think Steve at Small Bear Electronics ships to the UK and he specializes in Stompbox parts, enclosures etc. He's got hard to find & obsolete stuff that only people like us use. He also has the BEST customer service around so, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND him for ordering your parts etc. As far as Perf vs. PCB that is a personal preference. I would recommend that for your first couple of builds you use pre made boards you can order from several of the sites discussed on this forum. General Guitar Gadgets, Fuzz Central, are two that immediately come to mind. After that you can try your hand at something kinda simple with perf and see how you like it. At the top of this page is a place called GEOFEX that is a veritable goldmine of knowledge about stompboxes & DIY in general. Good Luck!

[boogietube]

Reverb -www.generalguitargadgets.com
Delay- www.generalguitargadgets.com and www.tonepad.com
Flanger-www.generalguitargadgets.com and www.tonepad.com and www.geofex.com
Wah Wah www.generalguitargadgets.com and www.tonepad.com and http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/ and www.geofex.com
As was said -there are dozens of layouts on this site in the layouts gallery
Another great site www.runoffgroove.com

Good Luck!

[Ge_Whiz]

Welcome, Mr Bunford. There are a good number of UK builders here, and previous threads list good UK suppliers (Rapid, CPC, etc.). Use the 'search' function to find them.

Some of the builds you name are fairly simple, others much more complex, so it's probably a good idea to build your experience steadily. I would suggest this order:

Kill switch (wire footswitch across signal lines to short input to earth);
Mosfet booster;
Tube Screamer;
Equalizer (but consider something simpler, like the ROG 'Mr EQ';
Wah (simple electronics, but tricky mechanically);
Analogue reverb (springline), not too difficult;
Delay/echo, Flanger are getting a good deal more difficult if they are to sound good;
Chromatic tuner, forget it. Buy one. Remember that digital multi-FX pedals like the Digitech RP-50 can now be had for less money than some tuners alone, and work fine. Plus they offer delay, flanger and reverb.

With all those pedals and tuner, one or two passive A/B switchers might be useful too.

Good luck!

[roknjohn]

Hello Gav,

Welcome to the Forum. As far as perfboard vs. PC boards go, I usually do my work on perfboard unless it is an unusually complicated or messy build. It's not as neat and clean as a nicely etched board, but it works for me. If you are new to all this, you may want to consider purchasing ready made boards for the first few projects. Most of the projects at General Guitar Gadgets (GGG) have boards you can buy. Once you get the hang of things, you could move on to perf board or try etching your own. At one point I used to etch my own boards, but now I can't be bothered with all the prep work to build a project. Plus now that I have young'ins running about the house, one less toxic substance for them to get their hands on.

Best of luck, and if you run into any trouble, you have plenty of help here.

[d95err]

I would also like advice on the best place (physically or online) to buy parts in the UK. I cannot seem to find basic things like the Hammond 1590BB enclosure in the UK at the moment.

Smallbear is great, even if you're in Europe. However, if for some reason you want to shop in Europe, checkout these places:
www.musikding.de, www.banzaieffects.com, www.tubetown.de

My advice would be to start out by buying a complete kit from somewhere. That's absolutely the easiest way to get started. You get all the parts, a pre-drilled enclosure and good build instructions. generalguitargadgets.com, Buildyourownclone.com and musikding.de are a few good kit suppliers.

[herr.satz]

I can vouch for Musikding being really good. Very friendly with good delivary times. They have a Distortion+ kit there, as well as a tonebender kit and a booster kit.

[Bunford]

Cheers for all this, sounds good. I can't wait to start. The things i'm having most issues understanding is the 'soldered' side of the board. How is this set up? I assume wires corss, touch, jump each other etc underneath the board on the soldered side? Just that every pic i've seen just seem like random blobs of solder dotted about!

Also, would an a/b line selector solve the following issue:

I have a Marshall 100Watt amplifier. I have a guitar. Well, a few actually. I'm hoping to build some kind of setup where i can sort of have two effects loops between my guitar and my amp. I want to be able to have effects such as Tube Screamer, Compressor, Delay, Booster, Matchless DC/30, Supa Nova Overdrive all connected when i'm in my 'dirty' playing and using the booster/tube screamer for lead bits and then i want to be able to stomp a switch to flick over to my clean channel with things like compressor, reverb, tremolo, delay etc in that loop. Not sure if i'm explaining myself very well. Here's an attempted diagram:


                                                                                            GUITAR
                                                                                                 I
                                                                                                 I
Booster---Tube Screamer---Delay---Compressor---OD---A/B Selector ----Compressor---Delay---Reverb---Tremolo
    \___________________________________________/       I       \_________________________________/
                                                                                                   I
                                                                                             Kill Switch
                                                                                                   I
                                                                                                   I
                                                           AMPLIFIER TO BE CONSTANTLY ON A FLAT/CLEAN SETTING

I hope this makes sense. I basically want to be able to use an A/B selector or something that can play the role in the above diagram to have the one output to the amplifier but be able to flick between two different effect loops for the clean and dirty settings.

Hope this makes sense!

PS - i plan to have much more effects in the loops such as Fender Princeton emulator, EQ, Chorus etc etc, just that i left them out to make the diagram more simplified.

[MikeH]

This is just a simple dual looper.  You have a box with two effects loops, and two switches to turn each loop on or off.  This can be done entirely with passive components, you don't even need a power jack or battery unless you want LED indicators

[Bunford]

I'd rather have an LED on it. And i'd also prefer to have one switch as i immediately change from clean to dirty and vice vera so it's a bit fiddly switching on on/off and then switching the other switch on/off.

I would have though it would be possible to do with just the on switch to flick between effects loop A and effects loop B. My system would ideally be:

* Guitar plugged into "the box"
* The box needs one signal input for the guitar input and one master output sending the signal (processed by effects loop A or B) to the guitar amplifier
* The box also needs Output and Input A for the first effects loop and an Output and Input B for the second effects loop

I just need a box where the signal comes into the box, gets diverted through effects loop A or B (chosen using the single switch to flick between both on "the box" for immediate changes) and the the processed signal gets sent out of the box to the kill switch/amplifier. Any ideas on where i can get a layout, parts list and schematic for something that would do this?

Effects Loop A (dirty channel) will have: MOSFET Booster > MXR Dynacomp > Supa Nova Overdive > Ibanez Tube Screamer 808 > PT-80 Echo/Delay > V87 Vox Wah > 6-Band Equalizer > Matchless DC/30 Emulator > Thunderchief (Marshall 100 Watt Tube Super Lead Stack Emulator)

Effects Loop B (clean channel) will have: MXR Microamp > Orange Squeezer Compressor > DOD Overdrive 250 > PT-80 Echo/Delay > Stage Centre Reverb > Stereo Tremolo > 6-Band Equalizer > Fender Princeton Emulator

Just in case it makes any difference.

Cheers all.

[RaceDriver205]

Ok well, lets clarify how you want this.
Do you want to use PCBs or Perf?
PCBs require

• Copper board, Drill + 1mm & 0.8mm bits, Etchant, Press n Peel, Lazer Printer or Photocopier.

If you've got or have access to these, PCB is the way to go. More efficient, and less prone to error than perf board. Much much easier to build too once the board is made.
If you don't, you'll need to use perf, and its going to take much longer to build what you want.