Anyone building these to sell?

Started by realizewhoitis, November 05, 2009, 08:50:35 PM

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realizewhoitis

Im looking for some helpful info about building our much beloved DIY boxes and selling them.  I need to make some extra cash while im in college and I would really like to make them more affordable than what musicians around here are having to pay.  Any advice is appreciated.

jacobyjd

Warsaw, Indiana's poetic love rock band: http://www.bellwethermusic.net

John Lyons

Well worn subject round here. Sad to say.

Basic Audio Pedals
www.basicaudio.net/

realizewhoitis

sorry new to the board...guessing i can just search it out

jacobyjd

Quote from: realizewhoitis on November 05, 2009, 09:35:31 PM
sorry new to the board...guessing i can just search it out

Definitely. I just wanted to post a nicer flower picture than most people do :)

Bottom line, once you get past all the intellectual property, yet-another-tube-screamer howling match, the reality is that it's really hard to actually make any money, unless you're willing to market a good name for yourself in a less flooded marked than every other builder, and you're already a good enough businessman to sell your builds at high enough prices to be worth it.

Really, the only market that's worth it anymore is the true custom market, but then you need to be in the right location (near lots of artists who have lots of money for custom gear), and have plenty of time (something college students usually lack).

That about summarizes every conclusion it all comes to, I think :) No matter, whether you're able to make a buck or not, welcome, and enjoy the ridiculous amount of knowledge to be had here!
Warsaw, Indiana's poetic love rock band: http://www.bellwethermusic.net

soggybag

You can always make something that looks good and sounds good and schlep it by the local music store. I wouldn't count on making money at this. But, it you sold one or two, someone else might see one and ask about it. You might be able to make beer money and learn something.

Making a business out of this is not really worth the effort. It takes a lot of effort and the cost of parts is high. It's next to impossible to compete with the big names for price/quality.

trjones1

I've given a bunch of pedals to a friend who's a recording engineer (out of the kindness of my heart, no ulterior motive) and he occasionally sends a guitarist my way who wants a pedal.  After selling a few this way I've come to the conclusion that there's really no money to made in it.  At best I'm making a couple bucks an hour making the pedals to sell.  I don't mind cause I like doing it and would be building something anyway, but as a plan to have a steady source of income, I'd say you're better off in food service, or a paper route, or just about anything else that actually pays close to minimum wage.

sean k

Theres always room for more stuff on the market but you've got to have a look at where theres room to move. Some areas are so saturated with stuff and the prices are cheap and sometimes this is a good place to work because it's reasonably easy to hold your head up above the rest with something expensive for the few who want to be seen to be beyond the hoi polloi... That said whatever you make better be heads and shoulders above the rest... prestige wise, or else you'll just look silly. Let others break open the markets and get the punters aware... then come in all guns blazing.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Http://artyone.bolgtown.co.nz/

anchovie

You'd be better off getting an evening job that guarantees you a certain amount of money per hour. I've been doing one or two builds a month for local musicians and to be honest what I get out of it is the buzz of seeing something I made being used on stage as part of someone's sound. If I buy a couple of drinks while I'm at their show then that's my "profit" gone already!
Bringing you yesterday's technology tomorrow.

solderman

Hi

I've read you're wishing to become a boutique pedal manufacturer. I don't want to shred your dreams but I agree with the others that this is a "do and die" business. But I have an idée on how you could earn money from your hobby. If you, as you say, have actually made your own builds then you probably have more knowledge in this, and maby a bit about low voltage analog audio designing, than most. So earn money by spreading you're knowledge to the ever growing DIY stomp box cooking community instead of on you're soldering labor. Here's what you should do:

1. Start an education company that gives evening courses in effect design and building.

2 put together a plan for a 2-4 times 2hours lessen (over 2-4 weeks) evening course and charge $150 a pp and say you can have a 15 pp/class. That will earn you $2250 for aprox 12 hours work, not that bad. Of cause you have to throw in some starting hours to make and copy some studying material and planning but that goes for all enterprising.

If you also put together a couple of pedal kits and sell them as mandatory practicing material (self cost as you advertise) with all components and pre drilled enclosures and all, and if you by the stuff in reasonable big quantities you should be able to do 10-50% on the material. Lets say you put together a two knob distortion and sell it for $40 (the same type of kit at generalguitargadgets is around $50) you will do about $20 times 15 witch gives you an additional $300 on this sale. You have just earned yore self $2550 on aprox 40h of work. That's about $64 an hour. Not bad ehy for a hobby

Of course you have to chip in some starting money for baying 15 sets of soldering irons, pliers and cutters etc. and rent a classroom but that's a deductible cost in the book keeping. :-)

The upside is that you can pack your gear in a bag get your but on a flight to Los Angeles and conduct courses there too and, that way, work your self around the globe as a traveling stomp box designer/manufacturer teacher. Who knows, maybe some day you'll be as famous as Aron, R.G, and the other giants.

Keep up and let us know when you plan a course on Bali or the Samoa isles, I'll book one then. ;)
The only bad sounding stomp box is an unbuilt stomp box. ;-)
//Take Care and build with passion

www.soldersound.com
xSolderman@soldersound.com (exlude x to mail)

markeebee

An education company....what a good idea....if only I was confident that I would know more than the students!!

I have an idea for the ONLY sure way to make money out of stompboxes:

1.  Take a Hammond enclosure
2.  Fill it with sand so it's good and heavy
3.  Throw it through the window of a jewellery shop
4.  Take everything you can fit in your pockets
5.  Run, realizewhoitis, run


jacobyjd

Quote from: markeebee on November 06, 2009, 06:06:02 AM
An education company....what a good idea....if only I was confident that I would know more than the students!!

I have an idea for the ONLY sure way to make money out of stompboxes:

1.  Take a Hammond enclosure
2.  Fill it with sand so it's good and heavy
3.  Throw it through the window of a jewellery shop
4.  Take everything you can fit in your pockets
5.  Run, realizewhoitis, run



Now, is that NOS sand? because I'm sure NOS sand would have a better resonant filtering quality that would give you more haunting mids from the breaking glass--it should muffle the sound (let's say, to the level of warm/analog) long enough to allow slower runners like me to get away.
Warsaw, Indiana's poetic love rock band: http://www.bellwethermusic.net

darron

i wouldn't want to tell you not to do it. if you think it's something that you'll enjoy then go and do it. BUT you'd better really like it as a hobby as that's almost all it's going to be. if you don't mind getting paid minimally for long hours, and you wouldn't rather do any other mindless cash earning job then it's alright.

you'd seriousy need several hundred to around a thousand dollars in overheard before it starts becoming worth while. this will be money that you DON'T NEED and can send off maybe never to come back. kind of defeats the purpose of a small 'get me through university' job. why? because making one pedal at a time will kill you. think about it, you sand an enclosure, you mark it for drilling. go through many drill bit changes, you prepare the enclosure finish and artwork. you make a circuit board. you drill/prep the board. you put in your already neatly organised parts. how much electricity have you used so far? a spray can of paint or two maybe as well? you fire up your soldering iron and working light, more electricity. you spill some acid in your sink. you spend a while making it and measuring all the leads to make them perfect and presentable. you test it (got a good bench supply, scope, function generator? $$$) you put it on eBay and nobody has heard of it yet and it goes for about 70% of what you wanted. you pay the ebay fees and the paypal fees (>$10 easilly). you DRIVE down to the post office and back. you drove to pick up all the parts or paid money to get them delivered to you.

hey! you got lucky! you made $13.00 swish.

make 5 at once... you make almost as much money but you probably do it +50% faster.

make 20 at once. now your costs are down quite a bit. you are buying your components cheaper at the first price break point. your wire lengths are all measured and and there's stuff you are steamlining. IE. one drill bit does all 20 enclosures and you're not picking up the chuck key every 5 secs. you etched several circuit boards at once. ah but how much did that cost to do 20? the enclosure cost alone. any components on the board cost over $1 and there's lots of them. overheads cover solder and wire and stuff which you don't always need all at once but you need to keep lots of for when it runs out.


write up a cost sheet in a spreadsheet program detailing EVERY little cost you can think of. seriously, let yourself know what you are working for. you may feel like you need to earn the money only because you've been spending it.


I KNOW i'm ranting... maybe you didn't even read my whole post or brushed over it. it sounds negative but if you consider everything i say and are cool with it then all the better! i say deal as much with the public as possible. make a website and advertise on ebay. ebay will get people curious enough to look you up and find your website. hit up some local shops but don't expect too much. they will want to retail your product, meaning you can offer it to them around HALF the price that you want the public to be buying it from you for. can you provide that? will the public pay it if you put your prices up? try to find some 'swap shop's. they take low commission on consignment. stuff doesn't move anywhere near as fast as online though.


have something REALLY bloody special. there's NO point in entering doing exactly what everyone else does, IMHO anyway.



if you did want some beer money i suggest brewing some beer instead. that's a whole new hobby too (:
Blood, Sweat & Flux. Pedals made with lasers and real wires!

petemoore

  Not that all musicians fancy 29 dollar Phasers and 15 dollar Fuzzers, but these inexpensive boxes give a pretty good barometer reading of what it's like 'out there', and you'll be pitted directly adjacent competition such as this.
  ...Unless you can figure some niche', or other avenue that is open.
  Basically the main pipeline is primed, online is a fast pace, many a tough competitor.
   
Convention creates following, following creates convention.

liquids

Ask this guy:  http://noc3effects.com/

My contact with him (pre-DIY) made it clear that he was a college student as well and was doing this for profit on the side to support his education.

He's got a site, some pretty good stuff and I rarely see his name mentioned amongst pedal-hungry guitarist.  He might have some insight for you. 

Actually, a lot of lesser known pedal builders I've read/e-mailed (PaulC, Penny Pedals, Noc3, etc) seem to be doing it as a 'second job,' for 'extra cash,' which should tell you something.  One local guy I know is a master with tube stuff, but he just can't get anywhere close to doing it full time, and he is VERY reasonably priced.  Oftentime he can't even pay attention to labor hours involed, he just has to look at it as "I made an extra $100 I wouldn't have had."

I think doing it simultaneous with an education is much harder than doing it simultaneous with a strict 40 hour a week job, due to the time involved in education.  I think if money is the goal, there's 'more efficient' ways, sure.  I think if you like the idea of getting some occasional dough for building pedals over any other (stable, regular, hourly paying) job, it makes sense, so long as you don't do the math...

My concern is that your marketing strategy is to come in as a 'budget' alternative for local guys.  Realistically, theres tons of great affordable danelectro, boss, ibanez pedals out there (have you seen the cool cats?!) for great prices you can't compete with and make a profit.   That's a HUGE percentage of the market.   People that want cheap have an option.  To most people, those pedals sound just fine, you know.

People that want affordable step up have options--barber, for one, even fultone, and of course USED.

People that want tone at any cost, or custom...well, they have others...maybe you.  But you wnat to be budget.  Nobody that wants the 'best' goes to the 'budget' guy, I hope you realize...people like paying a lot and bragging about it...helps them think they got the best.

Anyhow, as for profit level - there are loads of DIYers that insist no one should charge more than $200 for a great looking, reliable, durable, great sounding pedal, because they know how much parts cost.  And as a consumer, I hate that some homebrew pedals cost $250-400.  But if you want to make a small assembly line business out of it to the level of a 'real job,' that's probably the price range you need to start with to make any efficient profit, until you have a steady stream of customers....and once you did, I doubt you'd lower your prices.  ;)

It's hard to read, and to type such 'pessimistic' replies, but you asked.  More so, I think, in the long run, people often get into things they can't handle, or didn't count the cost in advance, or things just couldn't go there way.  This is a supportive forum, and those who've been around see that it's not an easy buisness...those who make it and make a lot of money at it full time are the exceptional 5% maybe 1%.  Many small and very good operations have closed along the years...

Actually, the number of failed businesses is always staggering to me. I hear that even in good times, 4 out of 5 restaurants in nNw York City fail just in the first year!  Still, peolpe think they can do it, take the chance...    It's good to have a sober outlook, so you don't get in over your head, and so that if you do 'choose in' you know what you are getting into, no turning back.



A strategy that many guys start with is MODS.  Offer mods...rats, boss, tube screamers ( ::)), existing pedals etc.  Offer to take a cool cat and re-house it for guys so it's reliable, looks nice, and or is gigable.  It may be booring, but it's a service.  It's been done before, but handing it to a local guy, and getting a consultation is always nicer than shipping it to some other guy.  And it gets your name out there.    You should have a stock of resistors and caps.  Guy's don't know what they cost, and to them, it's like they're getting a new pedal, so charging $40 for simple, 'not so subtle' mod is a deal, to some, and it actually is reasonable for a few parts and an hour or two of 'work.'  That's affordable for the consumer and reasonable for the worker.  Mods are often quick work in terms of labor hours to charge for.  From there, you'll probably get custom build requests.  If not, you didn't do anything crazy, if so, it's a launchpad for growth..start small. 

And/or, find the guys that want that custom pedal, and charge them up the wazoo ($300), promising them lots of mods and consultations.  Some guys will pay for that--it's like insurance for them, if they can always get the tweaks they want by bringing it back to you, the creator, to tweak and mod your own work.   

Hope those ideas are helpful.  Most of all, good luck, whatever you decide to do, and more so, the education!  :)
Breadboard it!

space_ryerson

I normally view this a hobby, but I was recently talking to a friend of mine who knew someone who had paid $1000 to have Death By Audio build him a custom pedal. It made me scratch my head for sure! People are a bit nutty for 'custom pedals' here in Brooklyn. I have another friend who goes to shows, and specifically likes looking at the pedalboards. He tells me he really likes guitar pedals, but he doesn't play guitar, nor have any interest in it! Pedals are a lot more fun when you get to use them :P

Top Top

My lady has seen my builds and has asked when I am going to start selling my stuff to make money from it, but personally know I could not make enough money off of it for it to be worth it. It takes a long time to build stuff, and when you build it for other people, it has to be reliable.

When one of the pedals I build has a wire come loose, that's fine, I just open it up and resolder it. But other people expect it to work and work for a long time, and they don't want to pay much money for it.

The only way I could see it working personally for me would be to make really specialized unique sounding pedals... there are just so many overdrives, fuzzes, phasers, etc out there... I would think you would need a really unique sounding effect, maybe combo of other effects.

Or otherwise to make things that might not function much differently, but looked really cool... for example small battery powered practice amps that have something novel about them - a unique design to them or custom paint/covering, or in a unique enclosure... etc...

realizewhoitis

Quote from: Top Top on November 06, 2009, 01:45:03 PM
My lady has seen my builds and has asked when I am going to start selling my stuff to make money from it, but personally know I could not make enough money off of it for it to be worth it. It takes a long time to build stuff, and when you build it for other people, it has to be reliable.

When one of the pedals I build has a wire come loose, that's fine, I just open it up and resolder it. But other people expect it to work and work for a long time, and they don't want to pay much money for it.

The only way I could see it working personally for me would be to make really specialized unique sounding pedals... there are just so many overdrives, fuzzes, phasers, etc out there... I would think you would need a really unique sounding effect, maybe combo of other effects.

Or otherwise to make things that might not function much differently, but looked really cool... for example small battery powered practice amps that have something novel about them - a unique design to them or custom paint/covering, or in a unique enclosure... etc...

Great idea about the micro amps!

Mark Hammer

1) If you have to ask, you aren't ready.

2) You are paying for college to learn things.  Whatever you have to do on the side to make money should NOT take time from your studies.

3) Modding, if you choose to do it, will take much less investment on your part.  It requires precious little inventory, doesn't need a spray booth, better ventilation than they might have in residence, or a drill press and bench to sit it on.

Gus

#19
Things to read up on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive
and all the other stuff you need to know to run a business.

one "good thing" about effects you don't have to do any design work just copy away and market it to sell.