Question One and Question Two...

[Philippe]

After building an effect & fine-tuning it to the best of your abilities, sometimes a particular pedal 'doesn't quite cut it' in terms of one's expectations and/or practical use. Just curious how many builders simply toss the effect into a pile of others vs tearing it down & salvaging the hardware for other conceptual projects. I tend to be of the latter.

Opinion(s) of the AMZ Mini-Booster...built one just to kill some time figuring it might come in handy further down the line. While it does everything it's supposed to do, it's certainly not the most dynamic effect I've ever encountered. It seems to work better as a secondary boost/gain stage for overdrive as well as a 'thickener' for those occasions when one is forced to use a transistorized power amp with something like a fuzz. On its own, it's no match for a Tubescreamer or a Fuzz Face running clean (or even with the gain on those effects turned upwards). From an audible as well as practical perspective, the SHO & Beano seem to offer better tone shaping capacities and as an end-of-chain booster effect, the Mini-Booster even at unity gain tends to impart a bit too much of its inherent tonal personality to effectively serve this purpose.  Just me or was I expecting too much from a legendary design?

[mth5044]

Never tried the AMZ booster, but I try to always find something useful out of a pedal. Even if it may be a mirage, I find that if I put the time, money and work into building it, I always get some kind of gradification out of the sound that it produces. That being said, I always do a lot of research on what pedal I want to build, so I know close to what I'm going to get out of it before it's done.

[Brymus]

I too never tried it.
But I breadboard everything and tweak and test it then decide if I want to box it up.
Regardless of the outcome I learn something each time,not always what I thought I would learn but something useful.
I think part of the AMZ mini booster was making an easy project for newcomers that was useful,that they could learn from the experience and have something to use when needed,not creating the worlds greatest booster.
But yeah I recycle my stuff when its served its purpose and isnt used anymore.

[petemoore]

  Responses to which discussions are tasked to describe can be very conditional.
  This is similar to the quandry of 'it', and the way 'it' sounds.
  "It" doesn't actually even sound quite often, it only outputs signal which can be detected by other equipment, then ears.
  What goezinta and what Come-soutta, soundwise are directly related to the way 'it' operates. With effects, and amplifiers and guitars, and control knobs, and speakers, 'it' can be anything, or many different things in the signal chain most of the time.
  The MB kind of surprized me, not knowing what to expect.
  Treble control and pregain...and...buncha other stuff with similar controls and voicing sprinkled throughout..it's not that much like a BSIAB [which derives much from the Mu as 'distortion engines'] with my FF or DIST+ driving it, it driving the tube amp..some similarities I suppose. @@Rate yeah, the Mu Amp is pretty versatile here, and really helps out on the leads/boost, it like makes a well voiced for boosting cutting blade a touch longer and vibrating slightly, the Mu Volume control gets twisted by my right sole.

[Top Top]

Usually if I don't like something about an effect, I try to see if I can mod it to get it to sound a little better, but so far, I have only generally built effects that I have heard sound samples of or am otherwise pretty confident I will like.

If I built something that worked but that I was disappointed with, I would probably eventually salvage the parts from it, but it would likely sit for a while until I ran into another effect that needed the parts on it and I didn't have any extras.

[Skruffyhound]

I kept my total beginner projects (mostly un-boxed) because I guess one day they will sound good in combination with something else I make. Well OK, maybe I steal a pot or two and an IC but I keep the boards, mostly.
The things I boxed that don't work as I would like are a constant thorn in my side, it takes me a long time to get around to the enclosure and when something isn't satisfactory I'm pretty well tired of it, so it goes on the shelf for a while. I have two projects that I'm working up the energy to post a build report on here so some one can point out the idiot mistake I've made.

Still I'm not the only one who doesn't get around to the enclosure, check out Mark Hammers "shame"
http://hammer.ampage.org/files/unfinished_business.jpg

[punkin]

I've only had a couple that I really didn't like. Parts are cheap so, after I've butchered up a perfboard and trimmed the legs off the components, I'll either give the thing away or pull of the expensive/worthwhile parts like the pots and jacks...of course any socketed components come out too. Like a previous poster said, I too build projects that I have a lot of confidence in.

Experiments and trials are done on the bread board...if you don't have one, it's a great idea IMHO.