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so my friend and I designed a distortion pedal today... some kids at school want to buy some... but what do you guys reccommend to try to get our bussiness up and running online...

TheAttackman wrote:so my friend and I designed a distortion pedal today... some kids at school want to buy some... but what do you guys reccommend to try to get our bussiness up and running online...

i guess the first thing to do is do some demos of the pedal and post it o forums

Well, first thing's first. You're not gonna make any money (or get any bitches) with your own designs.

You need to begin immediate, full scale production of these 3 pedals: Fuzz Face, Tubescreamer, and Range Master. They should be housed in Hammond bricks and have cleverly derivative names like "Five o'Clock Shadow", "Valve Blower", and "Treble Lord". There should be simple, colorful pictures all over the case.

Then you need a webpage. Make sure you can only accept non-Credit Card PayPal payments first. Post links to YouTube demoes you record yourself. No need to mic your Line 6 amp, the camera mic will pick it up fine. All pedals should be auditioned in front of already distorted amps.

Work on writing high-energy copy. Emphasize the words "True Bypass" repeatedly, allude to other manufacturers' pedals "Sucking Tone".


PUT SOME TEXT IN ALL CAPS AND BOLD!















Then have gratuitous amounts of open space for no reason.








Repeat over and over again that your pedals use only the finest hand-selected NOS parts. Make a nebulous reference to having disassembled several priceless vintage pedals to unlock their "tone secrets".

Make sure you have at least a dozen non-credited and non-substantiated customer testimonials saying that your pedals are "The Tone!!!" and "Nail the Jimi Voodoo!".

Finally, list a small batch of "prototypes" in The Gear Page classifieds. A 400% markup over the parts cost is the industry standard.

When all of this has succeeded, premiere your original distortion pedal. It should be marketed as a "recreation of a rare Japanese overdrive that was the secret weapon for a certain Texas blues God!"

5 star post.

Hahahaha! That should go into the wiki or at least some kind of guide for lost "boutique" pedal makers

Duo Sonic Boy is on fire.

DuoSonicBoy wrote:Then have gratuitous amounts of open space for no reason.

... customer testimonials saying that your pedals are "The Tone!!!" and "Nail the Jimi Voodoo!".

... should be marketed as a "recreation of a rare Japanese overdrive that was the secret weapon for a certain Texas blues God!"

Science

Brilliant

Youtube.

aen wrote:Youtube.

thanks for the (real) advice...

duosonic... good points... but we already made a SIX oclock shadow... (with boost)

duosonicboy's post cracked me up +1

For real, though, it's mostly about getting your stuff on YouTube and establishing a presence on the forums. Selling to your friends is good as well. Guitar players are constantly inundated with all these new fly-by-night boutique companies, so building legitimate word of mouth is your best bet.

There are also outlets (cough GEARWIRE cough) that do demos for their blogs. Don't be afraid to send out a few free units.

Thanks guys... we'll get a prototype built.... and duo sonic btw the only thing we're copying is a LED filled clipping section.

LEDs for clippers, always a favorite. Soft or Hard Clipping?

Op-amp based or discrete transistor? FET or Bipolar?

So you've designed it but not built a prototype yet? I'm confused. Have you breadboarded it or something?

Mike wrote:LEDs for clippers, always a favorite. Soft or Hard Clipping?

Op-amp based or discrete transistor? FET or Bipolar?

So you've designed it but not built a prototype yet? I'm confused. Have you breadboarded it or something?

opamp... its gonna be pretty heavy... ive breadboarded it with out knobs or the leds.. i just thought of that yesterday... thought it would make it a little special...

LEDs will make it sound very different. They will reduce the gain, increase the bass response a little bit, and reduce the compression. The volume will also be much higher since they don't conduct until ~1000mV as opposed to 600mV like Si Diodes, the character of the clipping is also different as a result of the different "knee" of the switch-on characteristics.

Mike wrote:LEDs will make it sound very different. They will reduce the gain, increase the bass response a little bit, and reduce the compression. The volume will also be much higher since they don't conduct until ~1000mV as opposed to 600mV like Si Diodes, the character of the clipping is also different as a result of the different "knee" of the switch-on characteristics.

well i like more bass in my stuff (i dream of owning a bogner or making it into a pedal using run off groove's idea)


I might up capacitor to compensate for the gain loss.... should the leds go before or after the op amp?

They would generally be used in the feedback loop or to ground on the output (the aforementioned soft or hard clipping arrangement)

Damn Dou that post was immensely filled with luls.

Mike wrote:They would generally be used in the feedback loop or to ground on the output (the aforementioned soft or hard clipping arrangement)

haha well i'll put em in the out put ground.. but mybe i'll surround the pedal with leds and throw on a feedback loop so when you turn it on it just goes crazy