one of the simplest circuit is the electro harmonix Lpb booster, that one also got a walk thru thread on diystompboxes, what components for what purposes etc. Just search round for it if you wann try that
simlim tower can find most of what your need. Its easier to go there coz everything is under one roof, just need patience to walk around the building and look thru shelves after shelves
most pot from simlim are cheapo pots at $1 to few bucks for those special type. Those if you just wanna do effect for fun, will be good enough. Quality wise, hehe, those at $1 per piece, cant be fussy. The value usually not consistent(usually less than the value stated at plus minus 5 to 10%, sometime much more), the shaft break easily if you overtighten etc. But then, at that price, cant be choosy
Another thing is most pot at SL tower are linear pot. If you wanna audio pot, gotta walk round the place and check. So far i found only 1 shop at the basement, almost hidden away from othe shops, near to staircase having some audio pots.
If you wanna be anal bout the parts, especially pots or other rare comonents which cant find there, reputable and reliable are these 2 foreign sites where most diy people order their stuff, small bear electronic and mouser. The pots they have are what most booteek maker uses and cost about 8-10 times more than the pots from simlim. If you order in bulk of several hundreds, then it will be cheaper, but definitely still more expensive than those cheapo pots. Quality is better for sure, from the build to the performance
pot does affect sound, but not in the sense of good tone and bad tone(imho that is, others might have thier own view). Do read up on the info on pots and how different value pots react when use in geetar as volume pots etc, what happen internally when you turn the pot etc
basically for all the info you can find, most of the time, the answer wont come to you straight away. Need to read, re read, do the circuit on bread board, re do, re connect, go back to reading more, connect even more, before the answer will slowly come to you. It can be frustrating, but theres lotsa fun when the circuit able to work.
For a start, if you wanna do the circuit for trial
you can get a 1 or 2 breadboard for the circuit connection/testing, some rolls of single strand jumper wire to interconnect components(red/black etc, red for signal, black for ground connection etc), some 3pdt toggle switch(to act as 3pdt stompswitch used for most pedals), some LEDS, some mono and stereo 1/4 phonejacks, power jack, battery snap etc. With those, basically you can simulate the whole circuit on breadboard, up to the effect switching, led toggling, plugging in the cable to power up the led etc.
other than that, go thru over some infos on how to wire truebypass for pedals, how to wire the power jack section and using a stereo jack as switch to power up led when plugging in cable, how does the switches(spdt/2pdt/3pdt/4pdt) works etc(sometime those switches can be used to do many magic to switch signal routing, different value components for different sound etc.
oh, and lastly, a multi meter to do continuity test. Heh, i love doing continuity test. Some problems can be solved just by doing it. But then, thats another thing.
Have fun going thru those forums mentioned in the thread. Its like having many many valuable treasure chests waiting for you..
doin your stuff !!
