your first DIY effect, what did you do with it?

[rikkards]

Just ripped my first one apart last week which was the beginners project from here. Replaced it with a Mayqueen. Not really proud of my soldering job on the new one as previously I have used the PCB boards that have 5 hole strips and decided this time to use a PCB where none of the holes are connected to each other. The advantage with this is that I can make the PCB denser and more flexibility with how I lay it out. The reason I don't like the soldering job? I realized about halfway through that the board I bought from TheSource (Radio Shack to you non-canadians) has pads that if you leave the tip on too long will come off or if you move a component. So I had to minimize the contact time  of the soldering iron on the board. Even with this it still sounds pretty good.

My first build was a about two years before I seriously started building, in the meantime I built no pedals at all. The first one was a GGG Tycobrahe Octavia. Ordered the pcb from GGG and the transformer from mouser. The rest of the stuff I got from a local electronics shop.
It never worked and I gave up after like 1 h our of debugging. I still have it laying around, now I can easily see why it doesn't work.. cold joints.. nothing but. I might redo it one day, but I do not like octave pedals at all so it's probably destined for destruction.
When I picked it up again I did a SHO and then a Vanishing point and Idiot wah combi.

[bean]

Mine was a mosfet boost and it is embarrassing. Actually, I pulled it apart last week to bring it back to life, so I'm going to do a build report on it soon.

[GibsonGM]

My VERY first was a fuzz face, built off of the Geofx technology of...page.  I tried to do it with Si vs. Ge trannies, and it sucked (of course)!  )  It sat for a year and a half, and I didn't do anything else.  So I cannibalized it later on, when I found this forum and learned how to do better things.   

My first real pedal was an MXR Dist+, that I had much better results with.  Played a wedding gig with the thing on 10, I loved it, but it was pretty shrill.  Man, it seemed so hard to get that right, and the switch wiring was NUTS!   Ha ha.   Luckily it got much easier as time went on, and the quality of my projects increased exponentially.   Seems like a long time ago, but it was only 2 years....

[nooneknows]

My first one was a fuzz face clone with ac128s, back in '97. I boxed it in a ugly thin aluminum case, hammond boxes were practically unavailable 10 years ago here.
I gave it to my best friend a year later as a birthday gift, he liked it very much. He still uses it today and I know he recorded several bands with it (he's a sound engineer), I'm pretty sure here in Italy a lot of people heard it

[ezanker]

My first project was the ROG MayQueen



I built it on a breadboard, then I made my own perf layout, and finally built it with minimal problems.  After that I was hooked 

I don't use it too much, but I still like the sound of it and I still like the way the box graphic turned out.
Erik

[nooneknows]

No, no, no, no, wrong!! Now I remember! It' wasn't the fuzz face the first one!!
I built a "Nuova Elettronica" Kit (an italian electronic magazine) back in '87/'88 !! It was a distorsion pedal and, if I remember correctly, it was similiar to what I now recognise as a Boss overdrive, with asymmetrical clip.
I remember I housed it in a coke can (..yes!), no pedal switch, a simple on off lever.
(How did I forget it?)

[PeterJ]

My first active build was the Fetzer Valve -- I'm still using it on my board. Great boost! My first non-active was a simple A/B box, which I use for silent tuning.

[Mark Hammer]

I'm not absolutely certain, because it has been so long (circa 1978 or so), but I think my very first DIY build was either an E-H Hot Tubes clone or else a PAiA Phlanger.  After that came a band mixer and PA system.  I still have the populated boards but they've been popped from their chassis long ago.

[Valoosj]

My first project was the ROG MayQueen



I built it on a breadboard, then I made my own perf layout, and finally built it with minimal problems.  After that I was hooked 

I don't use it too much, but I still like the sound of it and I still like the way the box graphic turned out.
Erik

This is a cool one 

[bumblebee]

mine was a feedback and effects looper i drew up myself,i opened it up just 10 months later and was shocked at the wiring,it was a nightmare.i re-wired it and am happy with it even now.
but the first "effect" was a ff, i opened that up  some time later as well, ripped out the pcb and threw it in the bin!
first effects are rarely impressive, although i've seen a couple here in the picture thread, a RAT rings a bell, the guy even etched his own PCB for it!