i've started building pedals about 3-4 years ago, but have since stopped for about 1 year. In total, i think i've "built" about 10 odd boxes.
I say "built" because I *just* follow a schematic, either on a perf/veroboard or on a premade (some by myself) pcb. Along the way I try to under stand the principles of operation of the electronics (which is most probably the hardest part to understand !). (I have not designed a stompbox from scratch all these while, although i have always wanted to design a ultimate modulator pedal, say polychorus meets memory man meets TZF, by putting together different pieces of the schematics together...)
Soon I realized that how much of the stuff that I've seen are just marketing hype. So called carbon film resistors / silver mica "tone" capacitors/ JRC4558 opamps or even 1% resistors, don't "sound" different to me.
Anyway, what I mean to say is that, DIY-ing will most probably expose you to much technical knowledge about the electronics involved, and after which, you can make an informed choice about your sonic pursuits. For me, its simple: If i can't hear the difference, Its not worth it.
Building a pedal also takes so much time, that I calculated, if all the parts add up (including a 3pdt stompswitch for truebypass + led switching and a aluminium diecast box) to about $50, and lets say one charges $10 bucks an hour for the labour cost, the cost price of the pedal will already sky rocket because just to sand/drill/paint/label/finish a box will take a couple of hours, and soldering on a perfboard will take another few hours (pcb will take less time, but well unless u'r mass producing pcbs, its hardly worth the effort to etch a board). Add time taken debugging the pedal, and you're easily in the 10+hr region, resulting in a cost price of say $150+ bucks.
And this is considering a $10buck per hour labour cost.
Of course in reality, it can hardly be called "labour" if one enjoys the work.
I've stopped building pedals for about 1 year now, cause of time constraints and all. Another reason is that the rise of the "dark side" of effects, the digital multi-effects. Especially bargain buys like behringer make me wonder why am I still bothering with analogue effects.
I'll most probably be slaughtered by most pursist when i say this, but digital effects is the future in my opinion. Sad to say the international digital diy stompbox hasn't taken off yet (at least as far as i know !) and I'm at a lost as how to start all by myself (an Electrical Engineer would be in a better position to do such Digital Signal Processing). Imagine changing the charactor of a chorus or reverb just by changing a few lines of code, certainly beats breadboarding an analogue circuit !
And so, I would recommend you folks that are interested to learn about how the sound is transformed by things like transistors/diodes/capacitors and all to pick up your soldering iron, and start diying. Be prepared to give it alot of time though ! You'll learn not only these, but also how "not-worth-it" some of the pedals on are market are ! (of course you'll also be able to spot great ones !)
[note: lets not turn this into a digital vs analogue war ! but one exploring the nature of diy pedals, the cost/effort put into it, and what can be gained from it]
Han
