ZVEX Super Hard On On Stripboard
June 20, 2024Time to build a ZVEX Super Hard On! The Super Hard On, or SHO, by ZVEX is a nice little boost pedal. It offers a fairly clean boost with only a little bit of clipping at higher gain levels. It’s also transparent, so all it’s doing is pushing your sound as far as it can, […]
Should I Make Guitar Pedals On Stripboard Or PCBs?
June 18, 2024Whether you’re new to making guitar pedals, or if you have a few builds already under your belt, you’re probably wondering about the best way to pursue the hobby. One easy way to start building guitar pedals is building then on PCBs (printed circuit boards). You can often get a guitar pedal PCB kit for […]
What Is Stripboard And How Do You Read Layouts?
June 13, 2024Also called Veroboard, stripboard was originally made for prototyping electronic circuits. It’s still called Veroboard a lot because it was originally made by a company called Vero Technologies, but a lot of people (like me) use the generic name stripboard. Stripboard is made of a non-conductive top layer where you place your components and a […]
What Is A PCB?
PCB stands for “printed circuit board,” and that’s pretty much what it is. Using special printers, all connections needed between components are created and the holes needed or each component are also put in place. In this way, all that’s needed to build a guitar pedal (or whatever you’re making) is to populate the PCB […]
Lovepedal Purple Plexi On Stripboard
June 12, 2024Let’s build a Purple Plexi by Lovepedal! Lovepedal’s Purple Plexi is designed to sound like an old Marshall guitar amp from the 60’s, 70’s, with a little bit of 80’s thrown in there for good measure. The “Plexi” name comes from the nickname of a line of Marshall amps that used Plexiglas panels. There’s a […]
Why You Should Build Your Own Guitar Pedals
June 11, 2024If you’re here, you’re probably thinking about taking up making guitar pedals as a hobby. Welcome! The world of guitar pedals is wide. Whether you’re looking for big distorted or fuzzy sounds, some modulation effects, or just a boost to your sound, there are a lot of pedals out there. Of course you can go […]
Big Guide To Debugging DIY Guitar Pedals
June 6, 2024So, you’ve finished building a new guitar pedal, you want to try it out so you plug it in and… it doesn’t work. If you’re built even only a single guitar pedal, you know that it’s pretty much the rule that something will be wrong the first time you plug it in. You won’t get […]
How To Wire 6.35mm (1/4″) Socket
June 4, 2024Before launching into this quick article on how to wire a 6.35 mm socket, I’m going to tare the band-aid off and talk vernacular. The thing pictured here goes by many names: 1/4 inch jack or socket if you live in the U.S.A. 6.35 mm jack or socket if you live anywhere else. Guitar jack […]
Escobedo Harmonic Jerculator On Stripboard
May 28, 2024The Escobedo Harmonic Jerculator is a wonderful little fuzz circuit that packs plenty of punch. This pedal is based on the classic fuzz pedal from Interfax called the Harmonic Percolator. The Harmonic Percolator isn’t made any more, and the geranium transistors used for it are hard to find these days, so the Harmonic Jerculator was […]
How To Read A Circuit Diagram
May 27, 2024Even if you’re just doing PCB kits or following strip board layouts, learning how to read a circuit diagram really comes in handy when building guitar pedals, or for electrons in general. So, if you stumbled onto this article with no interest in guitar pedals and just want to learn how to read circuit diagrams, […]
