Crazy Chicken Guitar Pedals

Various guitar pedal components on a work bench.Welcome!

Here’s my website about guitar pedals, mostly DIY guitar pedals/making your own guitar pedals, but we’ll also see where this adventure takes us.

I’ve made this site because I enjoy making my own guitar pedals and want to share my hobby with other people, give them some advice, and encourage them to take up the hobby of making their own guitar pedals as well.

I also find that having a website like this helps me learn more about making guitar pedals and electronics in general. You pick up a lot of random knowledge with this hobby, but sometimes forget to ask “why.” Let’s find out together.

Recent DIY Guitar Pedal Posts

  • What Are Decoupling Capacitors?

    What Are Decoupling Capacitors?

    While not as prominent in guitar pedals as coupling capacitors, decoupling capacitors are used in electronics and guitar pedals to help direct currents as needed. This is usually to smooth out DC electrical signals or prevent noise from AC signals. …Read More »
  • A Brief History Of Fuzz Pedals

    A Brief History Of Fuzz Pedals

    I love fuzz pedals. I love making fuzz pedals and I love playing guitar through fuzz pedals. Although different overdrives or distortions won’t sound the same, I find the variance in sound between these types of dirty pedal is much …Read More »
  • The Difference Between NPN And PNP Transistors

    The Difference Between NPN And PNP Transistors

    Transistors come in a lot of different types, but in this article, I’m only going to be talking about bipolar junction transistors (BJTs). Specifically, I’m going to be talking about NPN transistors and how they’re different from PNP transistors. A …Read More »
  • How Does A Drive, Gain, Or Distortion Knob Work?

    How Does A Drive, Gain, Or Distortion Knob Work?

    I’ve touched on this subject a lot, but I want to approach it differently now. Namely, from the perspective of the potentiometer that is controlling the gain in an overdrive, distortion, or fuzz pedal. When talking about this before, I’ve …Read More »
  • What Are Coupling Capacitors?

    What Are Coupling Capacitors?

    In guitar pedals and electronics in general, coupling capacitors are important to keep different parts of a circuit separate and to prevent DC power and other noise from moving from one sub-circuit to another. All in all, it’s quite simple, …Read More »
  • The Difference Between Silicon And Germanium Transistors

    The Difference Between Silicon And Germanium Transistors

    In the world of guitar pedals (and electronics in general), transistors are made from one of two materials: silicon and germanium. There’s a difference between these two materials and how they affect what a guitar pedal does, and it’s important …Read More »
  • What Do Guitar Pedals Do?

    What Do Guitar Pedals Do?

    It didn’t occur to me to write this article, but I noticed that people were coming to this site asking “what do guitar pedals do” and ending up on my how do guitar pedals work article, which doesn’t really answer …Read More »
  • What Is Gain (And How It’s Different From Volume)

    What Is Gain (And How It’s Different From Volume)

    This is going to be a fun article to write (not really), because the concept of gain is actually kind of elusive to define if you’re trying to be general. I’ve always understood the concept of gain as it pertains …Read More »
  • Greer Amps Green Giant On Stripboard

    Greer Amps Green Giant On Stripboard

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-muKTaGdx9E Here’s a kind of weird guitar pedal, but a fun build nonetheless and also a pretty simple guitar pedal build too. I had never heard of the Green Giant by Greer Amps before and I kind of just stumbled …Read More »
  • Transistor Saturation, Active, And Cutoff Region

    Transistor Saturation, Active, And Cutoff Region

    It’s time to get a little more in depth on transistors. If you haven’t read it yet, check out my guide to transistors for some background on how transistors work in guitar pedals and in general. This article builds on …Read More »