Building your own pedal

doober314 · Post by **doober314** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:33 pm

I've been trying to get a bunch of parts together to build my own pedal. Seeing as how a lot of parts are now "obsolete" or full of poison according to environmentalists, I was wondering if I could sub in similar parts with similar specs (minus the obsolete bit and the poison) and go from there.

I'm thinking it would work, but would the sound be any different?

gaybear · Post by **gaybear** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:45 pm

you might wanna specify what bits

doober314 · Post by **doober314** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:05 pm

Well I was going down a parts list and all the resistors were turning up to be obsolete and therefore out of stock. I'm sure a bunch of the other things might turn up the same, like the capacitors or transistors.

Thought I should ask before moving on.

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:28 pm

Are far as pedals are concerned, there are no obsolete resistors or capacitors. Just buy them from somewhere else.

What are you trying to build?

doober314 · Post by **doober314** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:27 pm

I'm trying to throw a Vox Tonebender together and get everything off the parts list from Mouser using the part numbers:

Vox Tonebender

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:22 am

You should be able to get all the caps and resistors from Mouser and they will have lead free ones. The transistors are going to probably have to come from Smallbear like the document states. You can probably find some PNP transistor that might work in there ok from Mouser but I would just get them from Smallbear and be done with it. Actually, SB should have all the parts you need if you want to do one order and save a little on two shipping costs. .

doober314 · Post by **doober314** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:55 am

Cool. I'll probably go down the list again and tryto grab everything I can off of Smallbear.

I personally don't care if the parts have lead in them or not, just wondering if it would effect the sound of the pedal.

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 7:51 am

What Bill said. Also, because this is a positive ground circuit, be careful with the orientation of your capacitors - the long leg/anode/side-without-the-stripe to ground. You'd best socket your transistors too, at least until you've got it working!

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:10 pm

doober314 wrote:Cool. I'll probably go down the list again and tryto grab everything I can off of Smallbear.

I personally don't care if the parts have lead in them or not, just wondering if it would effect the sound of the pedal.

I thought you were worried about lead when you mentioned parts that were full of poision.

doober314 · Post by **doober314** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 4:44 pm

Bill Oakley wrote:
I thought you were worried about lead when you mentioned parts that were full of poision.

I meant I couldn't find the old parts on a website because they only had the lead free variety.

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:36 pm

Oh, gotcha.

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:42 pm

If you really can't get hold of a part, it is stupidly expensive (I'm thinking of ICs that may or may not have been in Tube Screamers) there is usually something else that will work. My policy regarding transistors is a 5088 will probably do!