pedal building/desinging/creating question

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:49 pm

i wanna make my own overdrive pedal in the first instance and then be able to look at making my own "range" of pedals. not necesarily to market as such but if i get em up to scratch and working well i would consider selling them to musicians, friends, colleagues etc

so my question is where do the boundarys of "my own pedal" lie????

i know their are plenty of people that take a well known, over priced circuit (tubescreamer "cough cough") already in circulation, mod it sufficiently, call it whatever and hey presto its a new pedal.

is this acceptable or do you need to completely build your own circuit to be able to sell it?

im currently reading as much online info as poss to try and expand my feeble knowledge (reading schematics, veroboard layouts etc) and i think modding is definately something that i'll look at first but ideally id love to be able to just to knock my own stuff up.

dont want this to come accross as me trying to make a few quid-quick-scheme i just want to be able to say "yeah this is MY pedal that I designed and built" and not "yeah this is a tubescreamer circuit with a new ????? in it"

cheers guys

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:03 pm

Make some pedals first. Have fun with it. If you're any good at it the rest will take care of itself and your business/hobby will grow organically.

If you 'start a pedal company' without being able to make pedals well (insert loads of examples here) your first fifty pedals will be crap and your name will be mud.

Post by **Doog** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:52 pm

How are Physcho Fuzz Corp doing nowadays?

George · Post by **George** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:03 pm

Googled Psycho Fuzz Corp and found this. Too funny.

http://www.shortscale.org/wiki/index.ph ... n_Pequesso

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:10 pm

thank you tim

I make no excuses I am a complete and utter beginner (a quick check back thru my posts will confirm that!!)

It's more of a personal pride thing.

Where do you draw the line between modded circuit and original creation

If that makes sense

and can anybody recommend any other resources online or otherwise regarding

Circuit building/planning, soldering in general (I'm getting with practice!) understanding schematics, transferring schematics to veroboard etc

SGJarrod · Post by **SGJarrod** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:15 pm

as Tim said, I think ur getting ahead of yourself...... u need to build and work off others work untill u can really be "good" at this type of thing.... I'm not saying copy others work but build Clones off schemes and research why things do what they do.... Enjoy the ride and when ur ready to start ur own designs with your acquired knowledge it will happen....

check out freestompboxes.org.... AMZ... DIYstompboxes.... ect....

avj · Post by **avj** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:55 pm

timhulio wrote:Make some pedals first. Have fun with it. If you're any good at it the rest will take care of itself and your business/hobby will grow organically.

If you 'start a pedal company' without being able to make pedals well (insert loads of examples here) your first fifty pedals will be crap and your name will be mud.

Agree. Teach yourself the basic principles of circuit design, breadboard some of the classic designs to learn and understand them (or how to improve or destroy them) and you'll be well on your way to being a pro. Knowing the rules and how to effectively break them is great.

As for the original/clone issue goes, I believe a circuit as an idea cannot be copyrighted -- only the layout. This doesn't account for personal ethics, however.

If you wanted to -- for example -- take a Tube Screamer circuit and do something interesting to it, you don't have to sell it as a modified Tube Screamer. A lot of stupid Tube Screamer clones/mods exist because that's the market a lot of the copies are aiming for: people who want a custom Tube Screamer. There are plenty of TS derivatives that aren't painted green and don't have any other obvious connection other than they may share the same clipping stage or something; they're not aiming for the same market. There's plenty of room to be innovative without being a complete hack and a thief.

Here's something to think about later. If you want to make this more than a personal hobby, the question you should be asking yourself is, "Can I make a genuine improvement on X or build and sell it in a more interesting way than Company Y or Person Z?" I think the market for puke-green Tube Screamer clones in a 1590B enclosure from a guy they've never heard of is fairly small. Determine a reason why a consumer would want to choose you over their many other options in a fairly saturated market, and then fucking own it!

Benmurray85 · Post by **Benmurray85** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 7:49 pm

thanks to all above but more specifically avj

completely understood what i was getting at. thanks, those words will be heeded as i start my journey!

cheers again guys

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:54 pm

Good answer AVJ.

There really is no line for clones. Really just a personal ethics line.

A circuit can be patented and the PCB is considered artwork and falls under that copyright so you wouldn't want to copy someones PCB and market it unless they give you permission.

You are kind of jumping the gun a little though as others have said. There is a lot to know about PROPER circuit design. Understanding impedance, buffers or lack of, how an IC, transistor, filters, etc. all work. There's tons to know. I've been doing this for over 10 years and I still learn something new almost everyday.

On another note, the Tubescreamer is a good starting point for learning though as tons of "designs" are based of this architecture. Google "technology of the tubescreamer" there's a good article.

Creating something interesting that isn't readily available from the masses is what I try to do. You won't find any modified TS's in any of my pedals! There are enough of them out there already. The Fuzz Face is another one that has been cloned and modified to death but is a very good place for learning.

I do, however, make some clones of older pedals that aren't in production anymore.