Inspiration to build guitar pedals and circuits in my shed

Inspiration to build guitar pedals and circuits in my shed

Where did it all begin? It happened a few years ago when I was looking into buying an expression pedal for my Line 6 M9 unit. Having owned some expression pedals before I was already aware that their basic functionality was, well, basic. Their make up was basic. Their composition was basic. What was happening in their guts was basic.

The stock price at the time for the Line 6 EX-1 expression pedal was about £40. Hang on, I thought. That was quite a bit for what was essentially a plastic housing containing a few wires, a treadle mechanism and a potentiometer.

The brain started to tick - why not make one of these myself. Surely it cant be that difficult or complex? And you know what, it wasnt.

I could save myself a bit of money on the outlay for the official Line 6 product, learn something about basic guitar pedal circuits and give myself some satisfaction for having planned something out and built it with my own hands.

And thats what I did, and that, as they say, was the first day of the rest of my guitar pedal building life.

I now have a space in my shed where I take DIY circuit designs and make pedals. Although Ive been doing this for a couple of years, I still consider myself to be very much an amateur in this hobby and Im still learning plenty day after day. I certainly dont profess to be an electronics or circuit design genius - almost all of the time Im building pedals based on pre-fabbed or home-made boards using other peoples instruction kits. But its a start, and Im hooked!

The aim of this blog is to inspire others to take a fresh look at their guitar pedals, what goes into them and how simple it is to make them yourself if you have some basic skills and tools at your disposal. Its also a great way for me to share the few bits of knowledge, ideas and resources I have gathered since I started.

Inspiration to build guitar pedals and circuits in my shed