How Does A Drive, Gain, Or Distortion Knob Work?
September 17, 2024I’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 mostly gone through how clipping diodes work in guitar pedals and how they cause clipping […]
What Do Guitar Pedals Do?
September 10, 2024It 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 the question. So I decided to answer the question in order to help! All of […]
How Do Guitar Pedal (And Guitar) Volume Knobs Work?
August 21, 2024Hopefully this article is going to be short and sweet, as the concept of volume knobs in guitar pedals (and guitars for that matter) is quite simple. This explanation should hold for volume control on analogue devices, however, I’m not sure if it holds for digital volume control; it probably does in a general sense, […]
Is It Expensive To Make Your Own Guitar Pedals?
July 25, 2024If you’re looking to get into making DIY guitar pedals, you’re probably wondering if it’s an expensive hobby. After all, guitar pedals made by major manufacturers can be 100’s of dollars, with pedals made by boutique builders can be even more… The short answer is no, making your own guitar pedals isn’t that expensive, especially when […]
How To Wire Guitar Pedal Enclosures
July 5, 2024So you’ve finished soldering your guitar pedal circuit, you’ve debugged it and it’s working, so it’s time to put it into an enclosure. Well done. Wiring up a guitar pedal enclosure can be a daunting task. It seems like the easy part after getting a pedal’s circuit working, but getting a pedal enclosure wired well […]
How To Wire A Guitar Pedal DC Power Jack
June 26, 2024Although it’s important to correctly place and solder in every guitar pedal component, at the end of any pedal build, perhaps the most important thing to get right is wiring the power supply. Sure, there are passive pedals out there that don’t require a power supply, but most of what you’re building is going to […]
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 […]
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, […]
