I Think I Have a Problem

[scimitar]

I don't often post on here but I thought I would share what this fantastic site has allowed me to do. I have dabbled in making guitar related electronics for years but never had much luck until finding this site, haven't had a single failure since. Here is my collection so far.

Thanks to all of you.

[alex.s]

That's one beautiful collection!

Do you use waterslide decals for the graphics?

[Muadzin]

Pff, amateur!

I got a whole big box overflowing with them pedals. And I'm pretty sure that's not even half of them as there's a whole pile of them next to it. And the pedals on my pedalboards of course. I keep on finding pedals I forgot whenever I clean up my room. Damn you Tayda with your cheap prices! Damn you to hell!

Seriously though, love the Wamplerish artwork though. Nicely done!

[Frank_NH]

Ha!  Excellent collection.  I store my dozen or so safely in a box while I keep on building...

These days I've become more selective about what I box up, and have a lot of completed circuits in bags for future use.  I have also scavenged an existing effect I wasn't using for it's enclosure for a new effect!

Question - which one is your current favorite?

Also - have others gone back through their collection and compared effects?  It's interesting - an overdrive I really liked at the time I built it can become second rate only because I have built more since then and my tastes have changed.   Still, it's fun to go back through a bunch of builds and compare them side by side...

[Luke51411]

Nice collection! I love the aesthetic! I've never been able to stick with the same look for more than 2 builds

[Luke51411]

Also, The only problem I'm seeing is not enough delays

[Muadzin]

Frank_NH wrote

Ha!  Excellent collection.  I store my dozen or so safely in a box while I keep on building...

These days I've become more selective about what I box up, and have a lot of completed circuits in bags for future use.  I have also scavenged an existing effect I wasn't using for it's enclosure for a new effect!

I never rock anything before I box. As a result I have almost no circuits whatsoever waiting to be boxed. A Flintlock flanger on a Lectric-FX board, but not because of lack of box but more because I'm a bit hesitant to hook everything up and do the biasing.

Question - which one is your current favorite?

Also - have others gone back through their collection and compared effects?  It's interesting - an overdrive I really liked at the time I built it can become second rate only because I have built more since then and my tastes have changed.   Still, it's fun to go back through a bunch of builds and compare them side by side...

Can't say I have any favorite. Except the ones on my pedalboard of course for obvious reasons. But I keep on adding new ones and removing old ones so that keeps on changing. If I have to pick a favorite its my custom loopers. I always have weird needs and routings in mind for my boards so they tend to be both unique and something I design instead of just clone. So therefore very personal.

As for going back through the collection, I recently dug up my old Tonepad version of the MXR envelope filter and was pleasantly surprised. Enough to order a new enclosure and knobs to rehouse it. What was I thinking back then? Sidemounted jacks? A battery snap? A red LED? Ewww! That won't do anymore.

[rocket88]

first off great job man. looks like they all belong together.

muadzin, i'm with you. i don't build anything that doesn't get boxed. so this means that i'm very picky in what i build for myself these days. kinda slows me down a lot, and now with etching my enclosures i spend so much time designing the enclosure before i build. its the one thing that sucks with the direction i've gone.

frank, there's actually a ton of builds i have that i loved when i first built them, but then played them later and ended up not being happy with them. so i just went back and made some corrections to get them where i like them. it could be due to a change in my taste, or just knowing more so i now know how to do what i wanted to in the first place. just got to say, it's why sockets are great.

[Ed Nice]

I have a problem too. That's finishing them! :) Anyway, I'm thinking about that as we speak, so hopefully I can have some pretty pedals soon, rather than a board full of slightly oxidised aluminium effects (although I do have a plan for a rat finish blemished patina enclosure...)

Anyway, my reason for building was originally just to build for something to do, then I decided to replace my digital stuff with analogue pedals, so I went with the five sisters of Chorus, Delay, [Auto]Wah, Overdrive and Boost (plus a reverb, but that is a different thing really). They all work, cool.

Now my thought is, I need to make the boxes look pretty, so, given I am also a lot better than I was when I started a few months ago, plus I'm using the stuff I have, I'll rebuild them all. Then I got to figure, I'll replace them all with shiny, painted pedals of the same type, but make different actual layouts. Woo hoo...

So I have 7 pedals I use on the board, 4 or 5 I don't and I've made a couple for peeps. I have also got a build list of 7 pedals, only three of which are intended to replace or give an alternative to what I use at the moment. These will all be finished properly (well, by the third one I'll probably have got something I don't need to throw in the river :)) and even if I ultimately prefer my current stuff, the new stuff can sub while I do some prettying up on the old stuff.

Someone has also asked me to build a Big Muff, so I might as well build one for myself too? Ths really does get ridiculous pretty quickly, doesn't it!

So in answer to the OP, yes, you do have a problem. I have one of a similar nature and magnitude, but compared with some peeps on here, we are absolute beginners! :)

Oh, and whilst rehearsing last night, I thought, I reckon this would sound cool if I had a phaser. So I'm adding a phaser to my build list which, now I look at it, now numbers 10 items...

And [yes, there is more randomness...] despite warnings and counselling and all the public information films advising against such activities, I've been reading about Germanium stuff. So I guess I'll be looking for something to do with Ge bits? :(

I must admit though, I reckon crack cocaine or meth would be less addictive?

   

[Luke51411]

The addiction can be bad. If you get into building on PCBs and hang out over at madbean it seems like someone is coming out with a new have to have pcb at least once or twice a week, then you receive said pcb and realize you don't have the right pots or something... well you can't just order pots might as well restock some other stuff... oh and while I'm ordering I've been thinking about building X circuit so I might as well order stuff for that. Am I going to have enough enclosures/footswitches?

[Ed Nice]

Ha ha. I'm glad it's not just me Luke!

I had a few days in bed last week (unfortunately due to illness rather than an abundance of nubile prostitutes) and I spent a lot of time doing exactly what you said.

Well, I only need one A100K, but it'd be handy to have a stock... Checkout... £150! I reckon ebay shares went up 3 points because of my flu. Next time I'm ill, I think it will be cheaper if I do just rent 3 hookers at day rate [yep, you can do that at the place near me.... errr, so I overheard someone in the pub say...] and get them to dress as nurses? :)

I've not yet got round to even thinking about PCBs or etching or anything further than Vero, build, box, paint... Please stop tempting me with new stuff to go and drool over... :(

[Luke51411]

Hopefully the illness wasn't contracted from said prostitutes...
I'm currently working on a populating a couple new phaser pcbs. One of which is a mutron ii that will fit in a 1590B and the other is a Bad Stone from Lectric-FX you should check those out also some really cool stuff going on with pt2399 delay designs

[Ed Nice]

Luke, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..............

...ok, yes, I'll have a look :)

[Frank_NH]

I feel that one reason this hobby is addictive is that the sound shaping these devices provide is almost infinite.  And once you've heard a REALLY great effect that you've built and tuned yourself, it's hard imagine using anything less or tolerating effects that sound "just OK".

BTW - a good reason to have a collection of effects is for recording.  I anyone here records tracks onto a DAW, you probably know that sometimes you need a certain guitar or bass sound to go with song.  With an effects collection, you may try out that old one knob fuzz you built five years ago and find it works perfectly!  

[scimitar]

The ironic thing is that despite having built all those effect plus 3 guitars and a couple of amps I still can barely play the guitar but I just love the sounds you can get out of them.

The graphics are just inkjet printed waterslide transfers which are clear coated, as spotted the influence is definitely Wampler as I like the simplicity and clarity, I then just raid the free font sites to pick something appropriate. I have consciously tried to stick with a theme, although not really sure why.

As for favourites, its hard to say, the Plexi Drive was my first favourite but currently I am enjoying the various boosts, in particular dare I say it the Klon - even though I almost wanted to hate it. The boosts make you appreciate that your amp has more to give.

I do have a couple not boxed yet - a Univibe and a ROG Brittania - but only because Tayda had sold out of 1590bb boxes when  I made my last order. I still have a Thunderbird and a Sabbra Cadabbra to build, after that I will stop honestly... Well for a week or 2 at least.

[IvIark]

Great collection there scimitar

[motterpaul]

You do excellent graphics - that is the next thing I need to learn how to do. Frankly I am amazed at how well most of you guys do it.  What are you using?

[motterpaul]

Frank_NH wrote

I feel that one reason this hobby is addictive is that the sound shaping
these devices provide is almost infinite.  And once you've heard a REALLY
great effect that you've built and tuned yourself, it's hard imagine using
anything less or tolerating effects that sound "just OK".

BTW - a good reason to have a collection of effects is for recording.  I
anyone here records tracks onto a DAW, you probably know that sometimes you
need a certain guitar or bass sound to go with song.  With an effects
collection, you may try out that old one knob fuzz you built five years ago
and find it works perfectly!  

This is my new "thing" - instead of using my test amp directly, I now plug the speaker out into an Iso-box (Rivera Silent Sister) which I mic with an sm57 plugged into a Zoom R24 recording interface. Then I listen through my Studio Monitors.

This shows me exactly how a pedal will sound when being recorded - and I am really happy with the sounds I have been getting, especially on amp-in-a-box pedals and other overdrives. I mean they sound better than playing right into the amp's high gain channel because you get a bigger variety of tone.

[scimitar]

All done in Inkscape based on some templates i downloaded (sorry I can't remember where from). One big advantage of a common theme is that it is a lot quicker to design new graphics since I now have a basic layout for every pot/switch combination you can have.

[motterpaul]

When you create decals or color pictures - do you print them on regular paper, or transparent stock? Either way - do you lay them down and cover with clear coat, allow clear coat to dry and then drill holes? Or is there a different sequence?

Sorry to ask such basic questions, or what may be trade secrets - but I have never been the handy type. The fact that I can even build a working pedal now just amazes me, and my internal wiring is actually getting pretty good.