your pedalboard: diy vs store bought

[Philippe]

looking down at my pedalboard (8 fxs) 7 are diy & 1 is store-bought. the purchased effect is an analog delay (mxr carbon copy) while the others (despite some tonal & textural overlaps) consists of a diy OS/Ross bi-compressor/DOD 440 auto-wah/axis-silicon FF/phase 45/ts-808/triangle BMP/amz mini-booster. the BMP is the least used effect & could probably be eliminated along with the amz mini-booster by the FF & ts-808. *curious* how many of your guitar fxs are home-built (diy) vs purchased? and perhaps most importantly...while we all enjoy building stuff, what's the least amount of fxs you could get by with on your pedalboard?

[vigilante397]

Out of my board of 13 pedals, 9 are DIY and 4 are storebought:

Crybaby Wah - technically store bought but modded to perfection
Korg Pitchblack tuner - saw a project for a DIY tuner, definitely not worth it
EHX Soulfood - cheap and easy Klon swapped out the diodes for Ge though
TC Ditto - also saw a DIY looper, also definitely not worth it

[nickbungus]

I love the diy pedals and you can't beat the buzz from plugging in your own built stuff but I have zero of my own on my board.

I'm in a covers band and although I have a few stock sounds like a clean, overdrive and heavy distortion, a few songs require something specialist or wacky.  Unfortunately, the best solution to this is a digital multi effects unit.  Especially with having to take all the gear around and travel.

Boo.  I can hear you all now.

[vigilante397]

Boo.  I can hear you all now.

I'm trying not to judge

[LightSoundGeometry]

I have four store bought and two hand made - I am in the process of making my final two to complete the set up - one day I would like to get a nice univibe or a delay and would be looking to get a custom one from one of the diy community as I think that would be so much cooler than a store bought, assembly line, cookie cutter pedal.

question is, who is making my uni vibe and who is making my delay ?



I can get by with none because the skill level and style I play - I would love to always have at least a wahwah and a dirt box to go clean and dirty. so two. but a delay/reverb or a rotary/uni vibe and a octave are essential to some good music across genres   - so I   need 5! I cant get by without at least  five...six counting my tuner!

this order for me:

guitar/tuner/octave/uni/wah/dirt/delay/amp

I wired a buffer.preamp inside my guitar cavity with a batter snap extended out and taped on back..with an led lol

[blackieNYC]

I've watched a couple "Rig Rundown" videos.  I seem to recall them being fairly interesting (j Mascis, radio head guy, others) but lately all I see is some rockstar walking you thru his fine guitars, and then they all introduce this all-in-one thing.  I forget what it's called.  Big square midi controller with display.  The (rack mount, just below the backup wireless, always) box does everything. Not your father's Boss ME-8. They all have this thing. Metal bands with awesome amps.  Dweezil, even!  Borrrrrr-innnnnggg.  And they all have this crybaby product that allows them to have several wahs all over the stage, so they can headbang over here, over there...,
That said, I hear ya Nick Bungus.  Band mates get tired of hearing us say "scuse me while I rebias my fuzz face in accordance with its internal thermometer reading I see on my IPhone".  I'm sure the multi-pedal is hard to resist - for your situation. But Rock Stars have roadies and techs to do all the work, and posses hoards of priceless vintage and custom pedals at home.  If they're going to pay top dollar for every Tonebender they can get your hands on, taking them off the market or out of my price range, can I at least hear them when you tour fer god's sake?
I'm trying to whittle the store bought pedals down to stuff I won't do.  Pitch shifters.  Or stuff I can't beat- boss stereo panner, or boring stuff- dod noise gate.  
Will the Engineer's Thumb ever replace my MXR custom comp?  We shall see.

[madboy]

I have a couple of pedal boards at the moment... one for each band. The Pedaltrain mini has 7 pedals, 6 of which are DIY, the 7th being a Ditto. The other board is a Pedaltrain 2, and of the 13, 9 are DIY. Store boughts include a tuner (Boss), Crybaby, trem (another Boss... but I have a PCB for a trem, so that should change soon) and EHX Stereo Memory Man. And the only reason I have that one is a screaming deal I found on Craigslist. I have a DIY delay on my other board, but I can't imagine building one that has all the features of the Memory Man.

As for bare minimum, a dirt, a fuzz/distortion, a modulation pedal of some sort, and a tuner. Then maybe a wah... I think it depends a great deal on the material being played...

[vigilante397]

question is, who is making my uni vibe and who is making my delay ?

I've never made a Uni Vibe, but I think I've made enough Rebotes to say that I am making your delay.

[LightSoundGeometry]

question is, who is making my uni vibe and who is making my delay ?

I've never made a Uni Vibe, but I think I've made enough Rebotes to say that I am making your delay.

you got it my brother !  I am not in the market atm because of bills and stuff but definitely around christmas time - my birthday is combined with xmas

I am leaning to purchasing a real lesie, I see them on CL once in while around 400-1000 and some hand made ones to ..but they are for home/studio only

the Drybell Vibe Machine looks freaking awesome and worth every penny from what I can tell.

[slacker]

My board's a 50/50 split 6 DIY, all my own designs and 6 bought pedals, 5 from the big boys and one boutique, which you could argue falls into the DIY category. It's all just mostly for making stupid noises round the house though, I gigged for years
with just a TS9 or some other dirt box and a DD3 and probably wouldn't take much more now.

[LightSoundGeometry]

youre not too far away in idaho either, so shipping would be cheap lol

[graylensman]

My board is also a rough 50:50 split. Right now the DIY stuff is 3 fuzzes, a boost, and a trem; the store-stuff are a pair of phasers, a flanger, and a Boss tuner. Oh yeah, there's a crappy wah I picked up for $25US on Craigslist. Unfortunately, I haven't yet gotten a chance to put the DIY throught their paces, as my band imploded about six months ago.

[Keppy]

Minimum is guitar, cable, & amp with a channel footswitch. I spent a lot of time playing that way in high school & college.

My pedalboard is about half and half. 3 dirt boxes and a compressor are DIY, while the tuner, noise gate, chorus, delay, and wah/volume are store bought. I could replace the wah/volume, but I'd need two DIY pedals to replace both functions. I use delay presets, so I'm not going to make something that beats out the commercial product. I have no particular improvements to make to the noise gate or tuner. The chorus I just haven't bothered replacing since I don't use much chorus. And I forgot, I just got a reverb pedal. I plan to try a DIY reverb in the future, but don't know if BBD/2399 stuff can beat out a commercial, digital unit. I'll find out, I guess.

[vigilante397]

I plan to try a DIY reverb in the future, but don't know if BBD/2399 stuff can beat out a commercial, digital unit. I'll find out, I guess.

I'm a big advocate of BTDR reverb bricks. The spring reverb on my amp has become unreliable at best, so I've been using nothing but BTDR-based reverb for the past year. Since the BTDR is basically just 3 PT2399s you can get great sounding reverb stringing a few of those together (check out merlin's Equinox reverb, super cool).