Funny, I just took a look and found out I joined exactly 3 years ago. I only recently took the time to count how many pedal I had completed from the beginning and was impressed to find out I had done way more that I intended at first. Since last winter, I really stalled, it takes too much of my time and I find I could spend the extra money on a lot of things. I tend to dive deep in when I'm interested in something but need to find new interests quickly. Between new obsessions, I always seems to return to one thing, bicycle mechanic, I just love doing that. Right now I need to wire 3 pedals and then complete 2 more boards laying on my bench. Motivation is low. I'll finish those and might just take a break. I'll probably stay around and might get back into it at some point, there is a lot of stuff I want to try eventually and now have the tools and some inventory left. It's just that right now, I need to get rid of some of the pedal I built and don't use... but I need to have a look at some of those first builds first so I make sure everything is really working as it should. I need to take time to play the bass again, it's been sitting in it's corner for too long.
Where are you at in your pedal building journey?
- Thread starter Guardians of the analog
- Start date
drgonzo1969
Well-known member
I have really bad GAS. I should probably slow down. I use building as a way to procrastinate on guitar practice and my band’s album that’s 95% done.
I have way more than enough gear for whatever I want to do.
Joben Magooch
Well-known member
I'm kinda stagnant, but more or less neutral/ambivalent about it...
Probably the two next biggest steps or hurdles for me are things like enclosure finishing and then like circuit design, I guess.
I can fumble my way through a schematic okay. I have at least a basic understanding of what's doing what. I've never really bothered getting into breadboarding or messing with my own circuit tweaks/designs though, as I've pretty much always been reasonably happy with what's available to me. At least when it comes to the circuit itself, I've been pleased enough with the "off the shelf" offerings that I've never really felt super compelled to get into the weeds and change stuff up that much.
I don't really do much by way of finishing still. A lot of blank boxes or simple stamps, paint marker, etc for labeling. Part of me would like to learn how to make my own graphics and get stuff printed and whatnot, but at this point I just have a hard time finding the time for it. I have *extremely* limited experience with Illustrator (or similar) and pretty much only ever build one-offs, so learning the program and taking time to make a design and checking to get the print ordered right for a single pedal here and there just doesn't seem worth the effort/investment to me right now.
Basically, I pretty exclusively build as a hobby and it's fun for me. But I'm at a point too where I feel like I have enough obligations/responsibilities elsewhere that would make it so that putting in the time/energy/money/etc to learn to "further" my pedal-building would actually end up making the hobby less enjoyable, at least in the immediate future.... Maybe would be more rewarding long-term but just haven't really felt the drive to bother with it right now. I guess that kinda sounds lazy or something upon reading it back. Oh well, it is what it is
Probably the two next biggest steps or hurdles for me are things like enclosure finishing and then like circuit design, I guess.
I can fumble my way through a schematic okay. I have at least a basic understanding of what's doing what. I've never really bothered getting into breadboarding or messing with my own circuit tweaks/designs though, as I've pretty much always been reasonably happy with what's available to me. At least when it comes to the circuit itself, I've been pleased enough with the "off the shelf" offerings that I've never really felt super compelled to get into the weeds and change stuff up that much.
I don't really do much by way of finishing still. A lot of blank boxes or simple stamps, paint marker, etc for labeling. Part of me would like to learn how to make my own graphics and get stuff printed and whatnot, but at this point I just have a hard time finding the time for it. I have *extremely* limited experience with Illustrator (or similar) and pretty much only ever build one-offs, so learning the program and taking time to make a design and checking to get the print ordered right for a single pedal here and there just doesn't seem worth the effort/investment to me right now.
Basically, I pretty exclusively build as a hobby and it's fun for me. But I'm at a point too where I feel like I have enough obligations/responsibilities elsewhere that would make it so that putting in the time/energy/money/etc to learn to "further" my pedal-building would actually end up making the hobby less enjoyable, at least in the immediate future.... Maybe would be more rewarding long-term but just haven't really felt the drive to bother with it right now. I guess that kinda sounds lazy or something upon reading it back. Oh well, it is what it is
BuddytheReow
Moderator
I think it's about time to thrown my hat in the ring on this one. Like most of you, once I got into this hobby it became my obsession. Soldering, stripboards, breadboards, "New release" PCBs. Eventually it didn't become "fun" anymore and I realized I have pretty much what I wanted. That was pretty much the beginning of 2024. My focus since then has been playing/practicing with a sprinkling of a build or two thrown in there for kicks mostly. When I say practice I actually mean practice (exercises, metronome, no "noodling").
Life has a way of coming in waves. I mean, check out the "Test Kitchen" and all those tutorials I put up there during 2021-2023. Now, i'm nearly at a dead stop with breadboarding. I'm not worried since I'll eventually get the itch to prototype something soon.
That being said I do have some unfinished builds I am slowly working on. Boards are populated, but the enclosures aren't finished. More to come on that.
Life has a way of coming in waves. I mean, check out the "Test Kitchen" and all those tutorials I put up there during 2021-2023. Now, i'm nearly at a dead stop with breadboarding. I'm not worried since I'll eventually get the itch to prototype something soon.
That being said I do have some unfinished builds I am slowly working on. Boards are populated, but the enclosures aren't finished. More to come on that.
EisengesisFX
Well-known member
I'm still very much at the beginning, almost exactly a year in. Between this board, my incredibly generous engineer/musician cousin's guidance, and Photoshop stuff I learned over two decades ago in high school I'm really hooked on the successive dopamine rushes of getting a circuit working, designing/applying/curing a graphic and then using the final product. We'll see if and when I reach breadboarding/PCB designing, but for now there's still so much more out there to build for myself or, as of very recently, friends.
My wife is hoping that I can keep finding things I want to build. She's worried about what might happen when I've built everything I want. As my long time business kinda ran out of gas I'm pretty much retired. Suits me - my business was great while it lasted but I don't miss all the BS. So I make pedals instead. Along this process of trying out loads of circuits I have discovered that I don't actually use many pedals! I have no use for most fuzz pedals, any modulation, ring modulation, or synth stuff. I don't even use as much delay as I used to. These days it's generally guitar into a home-built amp with a little dirt. Although I do like a good reverb pedal - I just haven't bonded with any I have made.
I can't afford to build amps as much as I used to any more which is a shame but I have a couple of wonderful amps I've built in the past few years which cover any bases I need. So I'm messing about with simple OD circuits and coming up with stuff I like. There aren't many ODs on the market I want to use in their stock form. Partly it's because I know I can usually make them suit me better with a few simple mods but partly it's because I think OD manufacturers would go broke making something I would like because nobody else would! We all have things we like in a sound and i figure that if I can make something sound better to me why not?
So while I still like to try something I think might suit me I'm happy to mess about with simple dirt pedals. Most of the dirt pedals I have built with three or more ICs sound like a mess to me so simpler is better. A dirt pedal to me is a way of making a guitar go from singing sweetly to screaming - and if I can get all of that out of one pedal I'm good! It's too hard to do that with just an amp because of volume issues and I'm perfectly happy with a good pedal.
I can't afford to build amps as much as I used to any more which is a shame but I have a couple of wonderful amps I've built in the past few years which cover any bases I need. So I'm messing about with simple OD circuits and coming up with stuff I like. There aren't many ODs on the market I want to use in their stock form. Partly it's because I know I can usually make them suit me better with a few simple mods but partly it's because I think OD manufacturers would go broke making something I would like because nobody else would! We all have things we like in a sound and i figure that if I can make something sound better to me why not?
So while I still like to try something I think might suit me I'm happy to mess about with simple dirt pedals. Most of the dirt pedals I have built with three or more ICs sound like a mess to me so simpler is better. A dirt pedal to me is a way of making a guitar go from singing sweetly to screaming - and if I can get all of that out of one pedal I'm good! It's too hard to do that with just an amp because of volume issues and I'm perfectly happy with a good pedal.