Where are you at in your pedal building journey?

Guardians of the analog

Guardians of the analog

Papi Fuego
For the past 8 or 9 years since I got back into repairing/building gear, I have been ever expanding my knowledge, components and gear collection. I've built partscasters, amps and countless pedals of all types. Modded lots of stuff and saved some cool gear. But more than ever I feel like the sun is setting on my iron and my days are coming to an end of melting solder.

So it got me thinking, where are you guys in your building journey? Just getting started? Reaching the plateau? Are you at the end like me? What's got you there? Here are my reasons: I feel like I'm out of things to build, rising costs, and since I found my ideal rig I realized that most of the things I liked or wanted are not in my wheelhouse. I think burnout is also a large factor and playing is more therapeutic than building right now. I'm also extremely OCD and it has made the past year or so of building feel more like a chore.

I noticed that I see lots of boards and components in the mailbox thread but a real slowdown of build reports. It got me wondering if people are building less, sharing less, or both. Maybe some interesting new modulation and delay pedals or some clean build reports would help me get motivated again.
 
I'm kind of with you on that. I'm not really out of stuff to build nor am I anywhere close to the peak of knowledge and skill but I've already built the things I was most excited about. Thus, I'm building at a much slower pace and more easily drawn into non pedal projects. Bittersweet victory, I guess. When you're a tinkerer the worst case scenario can be rig satisfaction.
 
I’ve slowed down a lot for a variety of reasons. The past two years I’ve been bogged down with school stuff and financial hurdles. Just last week I graduated so I in theory should have more time to build, but the uncertainty tariff situation has me unmotivated to finalize my UV designs or order parts, and the end of my student health insurance means I need to search for a job with benefits, so who knows when finances, politics, and free time will all align to let me put a dent in my backlog. I’d love to be doing more, and frankly it depresses me that I can’t.
 
I'm not done building by any means, now that I have the ability to cook up my own designs and experiment a lot I feel a bit more encouraged than just doing the usual clones. I definitely want to try amp building, never taken that leap yet.

Also I'm moving into an apartment in july so my rig will have to change. The 2x15 cab will be furniture for now. :ROFLMAO:
 
I’m about a year and a half in. I’ve built about 90 pedals, and have a lot of ideas.

My kids are not little anymore, and I’ve been doing the corporate grind for a while. So a little more time, a little more money.

While my knowledge of electronics has huge gaps in the fundamentals, I’ve slowly come to have an understanding of circuit design. Mostly thanks to the amazing collection of knowledge in these forums.

Part of why I build is to have a large “tone library”, if you will. I build pedals that I may never put on a board, just to understand that sound more. To nerd out on the history and evolution of guitar pedals. It also gives me something to focus on. I like solving problems.

I have a main board that I use with my band and that doesn’t change a lot. But I also do casual jams with other people that have different styles. Part of my ritual is to assemble a mini-board just for that jam, pulling pedals from the library. I really like putting together a rig.

I’m moving on to more custom stuff. I have projects planned that are analog w/ midi control. I’m a programmer by trade, so it wasn’t a big leap to start experimenting with daisy seed. I’m wanting to make my own reverb and then some other unusual effects.

I started a tweed amp build- not done yet. Then I have a PCB for pink taco style build in queue after that.

I’ve started learning KiCad too, so that’s yet another aspect that I can dive into.
 
I can share with you that I’ve also built partscasters, tube amps, and hundreds of pedals, mostly from this site. There’s always something new to try to move on to a new challenge. There are hundreds of projects here. I love that! The thing I’ve learned is there are certain components that make the pedals that appeal to me the most. That’s something I’ve learned for myself over time. For example, there’s something special about the LM741 that I’ve learned really appeals to me in a build.

I’m just getting into pickup winding.

I’ve enjoyed expanding my pedal building lately into making 2-in-1 dual overdrives, drive and chorus, drive and delay, etc. i’ve not tried point to point pedals, and I’ve never breadboarded. Maybe someday. Just this morning I ordered an Angry Charles and Bootleg overdrive that I’m planning to use for a Sweet Tea clone 2-in-1. There’s always something new to move on to.
 
I'm getting better technically but I still do not have a great grasp on schematics and what they are doing.. I'm starting to get it and see the similarities in schematics on how things flow.... I have tried to do some light breadboarding but ussually get stumped on how to lay the parts out and usually give up when I cant get it to work..lol.. so far I'm a glorified paint by numbers guy that does a pretty neat job wiring and cleaning up after myself.. I have learned how to trace signal pretty well with a probe now...
 
A couple things happened simultaneously for me. I put too many expectations on myself for pedal graphics beyond my skill set and it sucked the fun out, and my personal life took a hard and unexpected turn that left me with effectively zero time to work on anything or play music at all.
 
I take year long hiatuses from time to time. I’ve been doing this for a good 12 years now, maybe longer. I get burned out and then jump back in. Don’t let it get to you and don’t just quit and sell everything, you’ll get the bug again. In the meantime, enjoy other things.

I don’t do build reports like the new guys do. Too many words for my attention span.

My wife does want me to put more effort into enclosure design and stop using spray paint and a white posca pen though.
 
Harry Klippton said:
A couple things happened simultaneously for me. I put too many expectations on myself for pedal graphics beyond my skill set and it sucked the fun out, and my personal life took a hard and unexpected turn that left me with effectively zero time to work on anything or play music at all.
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This kind of happened to me with lutherie. I did the acoustic class at the American School of Lutherie. Suddenly my knowledge outclassed my tool/jig collection and I went into "tool acquisition mode." 12 years later and I still haven't bought that damn thickness sander... I have acquired a lot of things I'm not using though (scowls at the unused Fox side bending machine in the corner of the garage).
 
Mentaltossflycoon said:
This kind of happened to me with lutherie. I did the acoustic class at the American School of Lutherie. Suddenly my knowledge outclassed my tool/jig collection and I went into "tool acquisition mode." 12 years later and I still haven't bought that damn thickness sander... I have acquired a lot of things I'm not using though (scowls at the unused Fox side bending machine in the corner of the garage).
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At this point I'm afraid to start any kind of project cuz I know I'll have to abandon it before it's finished
 
I've been building for 12-ish years now and am still enjoying it; I have a huge backlog and am at the point where I have to force myself not to purchase boards for projects I am interested in or start something I can't devote time to. I haven't built anything or engaged at all with this hobby outside of chatting on this forum for months though just because of life circumstances; I have soft-started a new job while also trying to finish my PhD (which I've already been in for too long) and my entire existence seems to be in a perpetual state of transitional period, so I pretty much have zero time for anything but work. I am hoping that once I finish the degree and settle into the job that I will be able to allot more time to myself and get back into building and playing!
 
I've slowed down--at the peak (covid) I used to get one a month done, but now it's a few a year. This new pace is actually nice though--I hardly play most of them, so it's not like I need to keep making 'em. I do enjoy the build process though--I think slowing down helped make it more enjoyable when I do.

I never kept a huge backlog, instead buying small batches of 3 or 4 and then waiting until I complete to get more. But since I slowed I actually accumulated a queue. Right now I have 15 14 waiting (I've seen some of you folks post your stash, so I know this small in comparisoin, but for me it's quite large).

I just finished something and came here to post a build report.
 
I spent the last couple years trying to make projects that don't exist for the pedals I wanted to make. There are only a couple left and I feel like I'm out of gas. Part of it is that building two amps made building pedals feel inadequate 😂. I think I'm just gonna box up my scope, iron and other stuff and clear off my bench for just string changes🤡🤡🤡
 
Guardians of the analog said:
I spent the last couple years trying to make projects that don't exist for the pedals I wanted to make. There are only a couple left and I feel like I'm out of gas. Part of it is that building two amps made building pedals feel inadequate 😂. I think I'm just gonna box up my scope, iron and other stuff and clear off my bench for just string changes🤡🤡🤡
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I'm trying to think of good "dare build" pcb to send you just to keep your iron in play.


Who wants to go in on a set of defx Pompeii boards for Chris to build purely out of peer pressure? He's gonna hate it!
 
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