I started this post quite a while ago, but am glad I left it to mature for a while as so much has happened / changed in the interim. Obviously we are right in the middle of a Pandemic and some people have a lot more time on their hands these days, while ironically I have rarely been busier.
The above pictured selection has changed markedly in just a few months as there are more and more mainstream brands seemingly getting involved with pedal kits of their own. It makes a lot of sense any way you wish to view it - as this offloads some of the build-work onto the customer, and like I say in the title gives the people another hobby to fill time while they’re off work. You also get to acquire said pedal at a significantly lower cost.
Readers may know that I actually own two of these pictured examples (BYOC Crown Jewel and PedalPCB Mini Heterodyne Receiver), but I certainly did not assemble those myself. In fact I’m still kind of waiting for DIY Pedals to get up to IKEA-levels of socketed snap-on design. As it is currently you need to use a soldering iron which can frequently be messy - and you will make mistakes, so it’s not as easy as re-adjusting Lego or furniture which I’m quite a dab hand at, but you have to unsolder, suck up the waste and redo again in a rather fiddly tweezers and pincers and confined spaces type of manner.
Diy Overdrive Guitar Pedal Kit
I’ve often entertained the thought of doing DIY pedals, but I personally don’t have a lot of spare time, and I find manipulating / threading tiny capacitors and resistors through circuitboards somewhat awkward and inconvenient, while it can be soothing therapy for others. As a gear-head / fan/atic - I would need to fully tool-up for the occasion with every assembly accessory known to mankind - and I would be consuming valuable resources which I would undoubtedly prefer to spend on another pedal or three!
I have included the following picture to illustrate in part my sort of perceived ideal working environment - which for me would include a high-quality temperature-controlled soldering iron, parts-tray, compartmented work mat, circuitboard holder, brass enclosure / brass wire tip cleaner, various alternative tips, pliers, tools, accessories - and of course a classy multimeter - oh and some of those jewellers magnifying goggles! Stew Mac does a pretty cool ’Guitar Electronics Deluxe Tool Set’ (c$250) - I feel the various Amazon electronics kits aren’t fully up to scratch. So in any case - if I ever went down this road - I would likely buy up all those components individually - to ensure I get the very best quality for everything and at the right price! I may do a follow-up post with the equipment I would myself seek out for such an exercise.
For now, I'm happier to have someone more finessed and adept at this than I - to do higher quality assembly for me. There are various outfits out there who do fantastic assembly-work - including Alchemy Audio, Geargas/Geargasstore and Flint Amplification who can all be found on Reverb.com and whom I've all done business with - in fact the Crown Jewel came from Geargas, and the PedalPCB Mini Heterodyne Receiver PLL came from Flint Amplification!
Pedalshield Due Guitar Pedal Kit
In the top visual we feature examples from Aion Electronics, All-Pedal, Anasounds / FX Teacher, BYOC, Distortion Limited, Lawrence Petross Design, Mythos Pedals, PedalPCB, and JHS for StewMac. BYOC / Build Your Own Custom is probably the MacDaddy of all those DIY brands - and I have a few assembled editions from BYOC of course in my own collection.
There have been interesting videos from Rhett Shull and Jackson Brooksby and others on this subject - which I include below. Not all of these kits are created equal - some come fully parts-sourced, while for others you need to acquire the various smaller components yourself from the provided parts list. Some of these pedals come very raw and unfinished - in fact I've added some graphics to 4 of the above pedals for brand-referencing / identification purposes. A lot of the time with DIY pedals you need to apply the finish and graphics yourself. Also - some kits are better thought-out and supported than others and include a couple of extras in the bag to cover obvious likely mistakes. Many a time have I read that someone had to buy additional parts during the build - because of some form of misadventure. Companies like IKEA and Lego obviously have all that figured out and make accommodations for such, but it is not necessarily the same for pedal assembly kits - which often just come with literally the bare essentials.
Many will really love and relish this kind of experience and feel they have struck a bargain via the lower cost. While others will calculate their own hourly wages in terms of build time, and rationalise against build quality etc. - and then choose to order in pre-assembled! Currently I am in the latter category - I by and large tend to favour slightly more complicated / feature-rich pedals in any case which are not always well suited to this particular medium.
Premium Quality Diy Guitar Effects Pedal Kits
There do exist very simple one-knob kits out there which I really don't see any point in doing necessarily - possibly just to get some practice or get your eye in. I'm also one of those with an almost forever-memory - so I remember my mistakes and it can ongoingly mar and taint my experience of the finished article if I know it conceals some flaws! Which is the same reason that has put me off Crimson Guitars thus far - although I would really quite like to try my hand at some luthiery one day.
In any case I'm sharing this featured selection as I'm sure at least some of you will enjoy doing this sort of things! Here follow a few more details on each brand and kit pedal featured :
RJ Ronquillo actually introduced me to this brand as he has demo'd quite a few of their pedals - including the Helios - as above! This is a really high quality kit which comes with all components included, and exceptional instructions as far I can see - including guidance on Tools Needed and Component Identification. The instructions appear exceedingly clear and thorough to me - and you get a fully finished enclosure here too - so this is really as good as it gets! Aion also mention Alchemy Audio in their descriptions - if you would rather someone else assemble your pedal for you - which I'm obviously onboard for. This is a great example of extended range Rat style circuit - albeit not using the classic LM308 OpAmp. Aion have a selection of 10 kits - featuring mostly well-known drive/distoriton/fuzz clones and a Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay alternative. They also have a more expansive collection of nearly 80 PCB's - where you need to source all your own components otherwise.
Boost Guitar Pedal Diy Complete Kit
This is another high quality kit with a highly detailed painted enclosure and all parts included. I can't see the manual for one of these without purchase - so I can't say whether it reaches the lofty heights of the Aion / StewMac etc. instructions. This nevertheless looks to be a very decent kit - and you don't typically see that many overdrives with 3-Band EQ. Note that the pricing here though is significantly higher than the Aion - sure the enclosure has quite a bit more detail on it, but I'm not sure that overall the content and substance of this kit is justified at a price point near twice that of the Aion Helios above. All-Pedal is mostly a turn-key manufacturing facility / resource for pedal brands, and to date has only a couple of Kit pedals - the Slamurai Overdrive and Galactavise Compressor.
Alex Ernandez and his Nice-based businesses - Anasounds and FX Teacher look set to make him the Effects Pedal equivalent of Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars fame. Initially known for their wood-facia boutique Anasounds pedals, the operation launched their first FX Teacher Pedal Kit - the Ego Driver Overdrive (a highly customisable TS808 style circuit) late last year. And in the wake of that introduce a series of pedal-building masterclasses backed by an extensive tool store (on Anadsounds.com) - which enables you to buy everything you need to assemble one of these pedal kits. First came the Ego Driver Overdrive Kit - €79 (assembled = €129), and now we have the even more impressive digitally-controlled Sliver Optical Tap-Tempo Tremolo. It's quite evident that Anasounds / FX Teacher are serious about this medium, and these are really beautiful kits with fairly unusual enclosure details for this market. They held a masterclass at the fairly recent Birmingham Guitar Show, and have done a couple of online masterclasses too (in French and per the above). Actually Pladask Elektronisk do something similar in Norway - where that
There do exist very simple one-knob kits out there which I really don't see any point in doing necessarily - possibly just to get some practice or get your eye in. I'm also one of those with an almost forever-memory - so I remember my mistakes and it can ongoingly mar and taint my experience of the finished article if I know it conceals some flaws! Which is the same reason that has put me off Crimson Guitars thus far - although I would really quite like to try my hand at some luthiery one day.
In any case I'm sharing this featured selection as I'm sure at least some of you will enjoy doing this sort of things! Here follow a few more details on each brand and kit pedal featured :
RJ Ronquillo actually introduced me to this brand as he has demo'd quite a few of their pedals - including the Helios - as above! This is a really high quality kit which comes with all components included, and exceptional instructions as far I can see - including guidance on Tools Needed and Component Identification. The instructions appear exceedingly clear and thorough to me - and you get a fully finished enclosure here too - so this is really as good as it gets! Aion also mention Alchemy Audio in their descriptions - if you would rather someone else assemble your pedal for you - which I'm obviously onboard for. This is a great example of extended range Rat style circuit - albeit not using the classic LM308 OpAmp. Aion have a selection of 10 kits - featuring mostly well-known drive/distoriton/fuzz clones and a Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay alternative. They also have a more expansive collection of nearly 80 PCB's - where you need to source all your own components otherwise.
Boost Guitar Pedal Diy Complete Kit
This is another high quality kit with a highly detailed painted enclosure and all parts included. I can't see the manual for one of these without purchase - so I can't say whether it reaches the lofty heights of the Aion / StewMac etc. instructions. This nevertheless looks to be a very decent kit - and you don't typically see that many overdrives with 3-Band EQ. Note that the pricing here though is significantly higher than the Aion - sure the enclosure has quite a bit more detail on it, but I'm not sure that overall the content and substance of this kit is justified at a price point near twice that of the Aion Helios above. All-Pedal is mostly a turn-key manufacturing facility / resource for pedal brands, and to date has only a couple of Kit pedals - the Slamurai Overdrive and Galactavise Compressor.
Alex Ernandez and his Nice-based businesses - Anasounds and FX Teacher look set to make him the Effects Pedal equivalent of Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars fame. Initially known for their wood-facia boutique Anasounds pedals, the operation launched their first FX Teacher Pedal Kit - the Ego Driver Overdrive (a highly customisable TS808 style circuit) late last year. And in the wake of that introduce a series of pedal-building masterclasses backed by an extensive tool store (on Anadsounds.com) - which enables you to buy everything you need to assemble one of these pedal kits. First came the Ego Driver Overdrive Kit - €79 (assembled = €129), and now we have the even more impressive digitally-controlled Sliver Optical Tap-Tempo Tremolo. It's quite evident that Anasounds / FX Teacher are serious about this medium, and these are really beautiful kits with fairly unusual enclosure details for this market. They held a masterclass at the fairly recent Birmingham Guitar Show, and have done a couple of online masterclasses too (in French and per the above). Actually Pladask Elektronisk do something similar in Norway - where that
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