Pedalspice

[wampcat]

With proper updates it might have had a chance if it wasn't a web based app locked behind a subscription. Nothing belongs to you, not even your own projects. I can still load schematics I made in LTspice 10 years ago. There's no guarantee this will still exist in a few years from now. Why would I base my work on some app I have absolutely no control over?

I can understand where you're coming from. If I put years of work into something, I would want to know I could still get to it later.

You can get your work out of PedalSpice. You can save any circuit as a file, a PDF of the schematic, a parts list, or the SPICE netlist. You can also send it to KiCad. That part is still in beta. If you stop paying, you don't lose anything you already made.

Here is why it costs money. Look at how free tools do over many years. LTspice is free because Analog Devices pays for it to sell their chips, so it's built around what they need, not around pedal builders. And how long did it take for them to half ass make something decent for a Mac?? LiveSPICE is free too. It came out in 2013. It is still called a preview, and no one has changed the code in over a year. That is what usually happens when one person makes something for free in his spare time. No one is paying for the next ten years of work. PedalSpice costs money so that someone is. It has had three or four major customer facing updates this month - not including backend etc uodates.

I made PedalSpice because I always wanted it. I have designed pedals for over twenty years. I had the same two choices as everyone else. I could build an idea on a breadboard just to see if it was worth it. Or I could fight with a simulator that was made for engineers. I kept wishing someone would make one just for pedals that did everything I ever wanted circuit software to do, and then keep working on it. No one did, so I made it.

For me, it's quicker, so I get more done, and it has the most accurate models, so I trust what I'm seeing. The circuit calculators let me change a tone stack or gain stage and watch the curve change right away, then put it in my drawing. I can make as many of my own circuit blocks as I want and reuse them over and over, so I'm not drawing the same gain stage or tone stack every time I start something new. I can take a snapshot of a result and compare my next idea against it, or try several values at once on one graph. Pots work like real pots - and I includes double gang, the parts pedals use are already in it, and the voltage at every point shows up right on the drawing. I can play a real guitar through the circuit into an amp and hear it.

When a circuit is done, it goes straight to KiCad if I want. It runs in a web browser on any computer, so there's nothing to install. There's a lot more in it than that, but that's some of what I use it for.

 

[owlexifry]

I can play a real guitar through the circuit into an amp and hear it.

real circuit or or pretend simulation?

 

[wampcat]

I have no problems with Wampler (love his pedals and thankful for the knowledge he's shared freely over the years), and not even necessarily with vibe-coded software (but that's a whole other thread).
My main problem is that he wants to charge $20 / month for it (the free tier is limited to 3 knobs per pedal, can only store 10 pedals), when its pretty clear its the work of a few weekends with AI (even though he said he's spent months on it).
How do I know? Because I vibe-coded one in a weekend, and hey, with absolutely no prompting or pointing to his work, my vibe-coded trash looks very similar to his.

All that said, at the free tier - if you're OK with the limitations - then PedalSpice is probably fine, as are most of the other free alternatives. If you really want a pedal-focused spice alternative, I'll set up a GitHub and you can use my vibe-coded trash for free in perpetuity.

I can understand where you're coming from, and thanks for the kind words about the pedals. You're right that a basic version of something like this can be put together in a weekend or so now, and I'd guess a lot of people could get something that looks close on the surface with Claude code or codex . Getting it to where it actually works the way it should was a different story though. PedalSpice took about three months of work, and around three weeks of that went into nothing but locking down security, all day every day, to protect people's accounts and circuits and everything else that goes with making any sort of consumer product. The rest of that time went into going through the whole thing piece by piece. We checked the part models over and over until they matched how the real parts behave, and made sure every part of the app worked exactly the way it should. We built every one of the circuit blocks and every one of the calculators, and every update runs through automated tests before it goes out. None of that shows up in a screenshot, but it takes a shit ton of time.

The reason it's paid is so it keeps getting worked on. It gets three or four updates every month that you can actually see in the app, and that's not counting all the work that happens behind the scenes. Other free options usually don't hold up that way over the years, which is what tends to happen when one person builds something for free in his spare time. The free plan is there for anyone who wants to use it, and Pro works out to about $19 a month if you pay for the year.

 

[ICTRock]

real circuit or or pretend simulation?

I think we're past that mattering anymore.

 

[owlexifry]

I think we're past that mattering anymore.

lol ok

 

[ICTRock]

lol ok
View attachment 125861

 

[FiveseveN]

We

Who is "we", if you don't mind?

 

[MetalHeart]

@wampcat tbh I'm more mad about the subscription trend that mostly Adobe has normalized in the industry in the past 10 or so years. I get it it's the surest way to provide steady revenue to developers but I will always find it anti-consumer. I would consider buying it if your app offered a perpetual license option with limited update eligibility (like 1 or 2 years). But maybe that's just me.

 

[eroots]

The reason it's paid is so it keeps getting worked on. It gets three or four updates every month that you can actually see in the app, and that's not counting all the work that happens behind the scenes. Other free options usually don't hold up that way over the years, which is what tends to happen when one person builds something for free in his spare time. The free plan is there for anyone who wants to use it, and Pro works out to about $19 a month if you pay for the year.

I 100% get this, but also I feel like whatever market research you did to come up with the pricing scheme didn't work out.
To me, it seems like you've got the relatively new hobbyists on one end of the spectrum, who will use the free tier. On the other side you've the diehards and actual pedal businesses, who will care that the op-amps are simulated correctly, but are probably already pretty comfortable with LTSpice and the like.
Then in the middle (probably 90% of your target user base), you've got me and the rest of the DIYers who build enough pedals to want a decent simulation engine (and for whom a 3 knob and 10 schematic limit are a hard pass), but are definitely not willing to shell out $240 a year ($340 for us Canadians) to make sure that the slew rate on the JRC4558 is simulated accurately down to the microsecond.
I have no doubt that your product is (or has the potential to be) better and more accurate than anything I can make in a weekend, because I know AI tools are only as good as the user (and I don't even really know what the 'slew rate' does). But there is an canyon of space between between being slightly annoyed that I can't find the right JFET in LTSpice and ready to pay $1000 over 3 years for a product and some updates. Especially when the middle option is $20 and a few weekends of work for an app that's 80% there.

As others have said above, I don't think people are opposed to paying for a good product, but we're all sick of subscription pricing. That said, I bet you could get a lot more users if there was a middle tier that was pay-what-you-can between like 1$ and 10$ a month or something, or a much cheaper yearly option as MetalHeart said. Or maybe I'm totally off and your target audience is actually just the top cut of really hardcore DIYers and boutique shops, and the few folks in the middle with more dollars than sense.

 

[DDad]

@wampcat tbh I'm more mad about the subscription trend that mostly Adobe has normalized in the industry in the past 10 or so years. I get it it's the surest way to provide steady revenue to developers but I will always find it anti-consumer. I would consider buying it if your app offered a perpetual license option with limited update eligibility (like 1 or 2 years). But maybe that's just me.

The subscription model is bad for many of us because of all the other subscription models out there - this isn't the only subscription. Subscription models are not good for the average consumer. And on top of that I'm a senior transitioning to fixed income. Too pricey. But I would pay a one-time fee.

 

[ICTRock]

tbh I think the pricing is about spot on for a pro version of what's being offered. There's not really a pro-sumer tier in circuit simulation software to compare it to so you're left looking at what's already free instead of what offerings from National Instruments or Cadence cost. In case you're wondering how licensing works on a business level, about the only time you get a perpetual license these days is if it's the software that comes with the hardware (pick and place, stencil printer, oven, laser engraver)