Does anyone here sell their homemade boxes? If so, how much do you usually charge? Now that I can make effects and have lots of time as well as a lack of a job, and a bunch of guitarists in my area that dont' have time and like the sounds of what I make I am ready to sell. Just any help as to not rip people off, yet make a profit. Thanks
Ryan,
Good to be back
Quote from: cobainlives_05Does anyone here sell their homemade boxes? If so, how much do you usually charge? Now that I can make effects and have lots of time as well as a lack of a job, and a bunch of guitarists in my area that dont' have time and like the sounds of what I make I am ready to sell. Just any help as to not rip people off, yet make a profit. Thanks
Ryan,
Good to be back
i charge what it cost to make it ie all the parts and paint and logos and stuff, plus 10$ an hour for my time
that sounds reasonable
Ryan
I sell my stupid boxes for $125. Actually i sell them for less than that to the one dealer i have, and sell the 'blems' for $95.
The dealer chagers $125
I havent built enough of them to really know how much time goes in to them, but i know it's a lot. lets try to calculate....
parts about $35 or so pwer box.
i built 5 boxes at once, and i'm perty damn sure i have at least 10 hours, so that is 2 hours each. probably had more time in to it than that, but a lot of that was stuff that i screwed up, and had to redo.
125 - $35 for parts = $90
2 hours per box = $45/ hour.
Honnestly i dont know how many of these i'll sell, but i guarantee i would have to work a lot faster if i wanted to make a living at it.
If you do want to run it as a business eventually you would have to get to a point where you calculate your cost of parts, and labor (wheather you pay for it or not) and multiply it by 3, and have a lower price for dealers, but honestly it will probably take you years to get to that point. ZVEX didnt get rich over night, and i would bet he has some influencial friends somewhere that helped him get noticed.
Brian
Pardon me for asking for this clarification, but it does seem important to this discussion. When you all are talking about selling your own DIY boxes, do you mean selling your own original circuits or selling something that you built that someone else designed? I am not trying to invoke some huge post on ethics here or anything - just curious.
I know enough to attempt to throw a stompbox together and be happy with myself that the thing works. I made a fuzz for my brother for Christmas, and think I have found a new hobby. I don't know if that settles me in for a new career...
Anyway I was just checking
james t
Quote from: james tPardon me for asking for this clarification, but it does seem important to this discussion. When you all are talking about selling your own DIY boxes, do you mean selling your own original circuits or selling something that you built that someone else designed? I am not trying to invoke some huge post on ethics here or anything - just curious.
I know enough to attempt to throw a stompbox together and be happy with myself that the thing works. I made a fuzz for my brother for Christmas, and think I have found a new hobby. I don't know if that settles me in for a new career...
Anyway I was just checking
james t
i only sell my own stuff. but if i tweak soemthing out like for instance i made a loosely based clone of the yjm.. well its got the same freq respones and gain. but it is setup a different way and with a differnet chip. there fore i sell it as a clone. i dont' do production runs persay.
but everynow and then i do buidl soemthign usualy for my self or to educate myself on a paricular circuit and to see i fa mod will work then if i get bored with it i will usually sell it if someone asks , if i get hard ukp for money i might pawn it or post a forsale add on the forum or somewhere else.
for instance i built a couple of ts9 clones they are the same basic freq responses but they dont' have even half of the same components. but i build one and tweak it to what i like and someone usually hears it or asks me if i have soemthing along the lines of something like stompbox A andi i tell them what i got..
perfect example.. i built a firefly from doug hammonds site. i built it for my personal amplifier. my good friend decided he wanted to check it out, he did and wanted to use it for a live show. so long story short i was showing him the controls..(you all know i dont' make anything stock.) and showed him the tweaks of it so he could get his sounds out of it. and no soon er than i had just pulled this thing out some A**Hole starts in on me "what did you find that in a dumpster??? does that use batteries.??? is it going to blow up."
keeping in mind i had not boxed up the thing professionally and quite a bit of the wiring and stuff could be seen from the back. So anyway this guy sticks around while i hook it up and tell him to wait for it.
i launched into for the love of god on the ibanez 570 with the new pickps i had installed. meanwhile my buddy being a good guitar player that he is. grabs his spare and starts playing the sitar part. and the rest of the band comes in and for like 7 minutes i get to play through nothing but the gutiar the amp my boost pedal the wah pedal and an old roland sde3000.
needless to say when i got done the guy offers to buy the amp as is. i sold it to him for the cost of parts that i had in it. and the length of time it took me to make it.
plus i also refered him to DOugs site. and told him where to get started in diy himself.
right now i only make one thing. Just the Stupid Box so far. Simple circuit. I try to make them look as good as they sound. This forum has been really helpful in that regard.
I'm not sure how i feel about selling other peoples diy designs. I know i wouldnt do it, but i know there are a few guys selling jack orman treble booster clones. That doesnt seem right to me.
I know even if i tried building one i would probably change something anyways.
Lately i have been wanting to build some stuff that i dont understand just to learn a thing or two, but i dont want to clone for money, it just seems wrong. I suppose if somthing is old like a fuzz face, or TS808 then i wouldnt have a problem with it, but i dont want to be known as a cloner.
Making money at limited sales is almost impossible.
Let's take Brian's figures of $35 in parts and 2 hours labor per unit with a wholesale of $125.
In order to make $50K annually after taxes, figuring a generic 34% for income tax, figuring deductions for all your parts, and figuring you're reinvesting 20% of the profit for growth and emergency expenses..... you would need to sell at least 80 pedals per month requiring 160 work hours to start. I'm sure the time would go down quickly to something more like 45-60 min per unit.
80 pedals a month..... Not an easy task.
The actual tax rate changes things, but at 24% (California corporation tax) you still need to sell 70 and at 40% you would need to sell 90 to make that same $50K. In Nevada, with no state income tax, the figure goes down to 60 pedals. That's almost enough to get me to move to Lake Tahoe.
Take care,
-Peter
hey peter s. yeah i know what i said before so sue me.. :) anyway did you ever have time to do that calculator thing you were talkin about. the one that shows how to calculate what your profits would be and need to be if you did this for a living. i think that was you wasnt' it.???
edited from previous post.
i got to thinkin and i was wondering how much it woudl cost me per pedal. so i drew up a list
box-------7.00 individual $3.50 if i get in bulk
board-----5.00 until i get setup paid then its 2$ ea
pots------3.00
jacks-----2.00 switchcraft
chips-----1.00
resistor--0.25 1/4 to 1/8 watt
caps------1.00 film
wire/solder------1.00 i have aprox 10lbs of silver wire.
switch----7.00
paint------.20
sandpaper--.50
sand-------free
$26.95
2 hours @ 10$ an hour.
46.95$ to build my pedal.
dealer buys 6 or more @ 95$ ea
dealer sells for $149.95
total profit. 48.05$ each from dealer or $103.00 from individuals
I built an LM386 headphone amp in a small plastic box for myself and there's some people at school asking if I'd make one for them. The thing itself costs about 25 euros to make so I'll be asking 35 - 40 euros, but I'll only sell 2 of them or so and use the money to build more stompboxes :P
you sound like an addict!!! :roll:
Brian, I am an addict ;) :twisted:
what i would be selling is someone else's design, but i modified the componets to fit my disired sound. Would it be ok to sell them then?
Ryan
I *will* be selling my designs through NSFX. There's going to be a parallel universe run pretty soon, later a whole "line".
-Colin
These questions about building someone elses design need to be taken into perspective.
I would compare some of these pedals to cookies. Fuzz pedals for instance are like chocolate chip cookies. Everyone makes them. Some might use more vanilla, or more chocolate, but the basic recipe is the same.
Also, if you are going to make a bunch of for instance Jack Orman pedals and sell them, maybe you could talk to Jack first and offer him a small cut? It would be like liscensing the design. That is just an example.
Looking at Peter's numbers, I do have to say, that damn, if I could make 50K a year at *anything*I'd be pretty damn happy. But then I start looking - okay, I've never made more than like 32K before taxes (welcome to the wonderful world of factory employment - kids, stay in school) but I start looking, and the other thing you have to consider is who's going to pay for yr dentist visits? What if all that solder fume gives you cancer? There's no benefits or life insurance being self-employed. You don't get sick days or vacation time unless yr willing to take that hit yrself. So that 50K you figured on making after taxes isn't going to go as far 50K under a regular employer. And once you become self-employed, yr taxes (at least in my state) become about 4 times as complex as you'd expect, so yr going to want to start looking at having a good tax preparer and things like that. And then you've got to figure out costs like shipping and advertising and all of that . . . I guess I'm not really adding anything, I just started thinking though . . .much more respect to the folks who are doing it on their own full time
You bring up some really good points SFR. I think it adds quite a bit.
You mention the dentist, and that's the bind I'm in right now. :(
I used $50K because where I live, it gets tough to live on a whole lot less.
-Peter
look :shock: i'll tell yah one thing , selling pedals does not pay all the bills . i run a bizz and i make little money for the amount of time i put into it.
i also do other mod's and it works out to $10 to15 bucks an hour. in money or trade. most of my clients become great friends and i'll build a device as a gift. i'm friends w/ some of the most gifted player's that are pro or semi pro.
but if i get a device that someone want's me to fix or restore it's $15
bucks an hour 2 hour min.
if you want to do one off's, it's a labor of love not money. making a living doing what you really like doing is or can be the key to happiness. :P
sooooooooooooooooooooooooo,
if you want to sell your diy pedals,charge what you feel you need to.
the more devices you make the more you learn. so if you don't make the money you'd like to of made, just remember ...... did you learn something , it can be a curse or therapy!
peace and best wishes,
- tom
Quote from: cobainlives_05what i would be selling is someone else's design, but i modified the componets to fit my disired sound. Would it be ok to sell them then?
Ryan
The fact that you even need to ask probably means no (otherwise you'd be doing it already) , but I doubt anyone would 'find out', and even then the only thing you'd be risking would be your reputation as a straight-up and honest person around here. It depends on how much that is worth to you - it's a moral question, not a business question.
I suspect that if you contacted whoever did the design, they would likely entertain some sort of licensing propositition - surely that person is entitled to a little recognition and $$$ if it is their work? Changing a few parts values just seems to be a way 'around' the moral issue. I would never do such a thing, as it's worth more to me to be able to feel good about myself than any amount of $$$.
Have you done your own PCB layout? That's another point - if you take someone's layout and use that in pedals you sell for profit, you're making money off their labour, and that doesn't seem right (to me); in fact, I believe the layout is protected by copyright, so in this case you'd be breaking a 'real' law.
Cheers
Mike
I hear ya, sfr. All I can find is temp work, and I *did* go to college, and got a bachelor's degree in science, no less! And "temp work" = "skilled work, but we won't give you any benefits". I'm not in debt, but I certainly make and sell stuff more for fun than for a living... :)
I sell tshirts/books/misc. at my art site (www.toothpastefordinner.com) and more recently have started selling kits for recording compressors at my electronics site. (www.drewtronics.com) Unfortunately, the pedal "market" is so crowded right now that it's impossible to get in unless you make something that is either extremely versatile/great sounding (zvex) or beautiful (tone czar comes to mind)! I mean, how many "boutique" pedal makers are selling fuzz faces with little tweaks? Twenty? Thirty? Easily...
FWIW, I've worked in factories before, I was impressed with some of the old-timers making $50-60k/yr, and thought, "Hey, this wouldn't be so bad..." ....before I learned that they pulled huge amounts of overtime! :)
drew
www.toothpastefordinner.com
I live in a small town and am on pretty good terms with a guy who sells a VERY expensive TS808 clone (it's identical to it except for 4 parts changes which I'm sure numerous builders on this site have done on their own already)... it goes for 100,000 yen on the japanese market (around $970 US) and they can't get enough of them. The domestic market is kind of drying up for him but they go for outrageous prices elsewhere.
It's a good pedal I'm sure but it seems more like just pressing the right emotional buttons to create a buzz . Getting to the big time seems more about creating the buzz. Once the buzz gets going it takes on a life of it's own. How do you get the buzz going?
Other than salesmanship e.g.
"I only use silver solder and carbon comps"...
"My components are better than the other guys"...
"God has blessed me with an ability to hear things that an ordinary person can't hear" (I kid you you not - this is what he says)
...it just seems like dumb luck.
The pedal gets into the hands of some session guy who holds it up during an interview, the thing gets printed, people read what their hero uses and off it goes. The BBs spread the word. More buzz. Big name players catch on, order 20 of them etc. More buzz. More orders. More buzz. More money
So a guy goes from pouring concrete at a construction site to building TS clones for arena headlining guitar gods. It can be done. I've seen it with my own eyes. The elusive dream can be realized.
One thing about this has always left wondering. Why doesn't the Guitar God have a tech around who says "Hey, _____ ... it's just a TS808 with 4 parts changed."
As for myself... I've been an air traffic controller for 20 years and it's too late to do anything else. I'll stick it out and just keep pedal building as a cruel hobby; I'll be happy just to get Aron's NPN booster working :wink:
I have a webpage floating in cyberspace that occasionally someone stumbles across. It has descriptions, pictures, and sound clips, and prices.
I don't try to tap into the $300 boutique market. I'm going for the Sam Ash level buyer and offering most of them for about $100, a little more than a boss pedal but for handmade pedals in some really unique enclosures (i'm using an old civil defense geiger counter for my latest) people get a cool lookin pedal along with a good sounding pedal.
I don't build circuits that are direct ripoffs from schematics, whether mass market or from you guys. I will sometimes start with a basic design but by the time i'm done with it, it is a whole other animal so i really don't feel like i'm ripping anyone off since i've put a ton of r+d into the circuit.
My cheapest pedal is only $60 but that is a very simple pedal with only a pot, jacks, switch, and capacitor. However, materials are about $30-$35 with the enclosure, knobs, and by the time you figure in paint, graphics, etc it's really not much of a margin.
My deal is that i make guitar pedals, but i play bass. So what am i going to do with all of them?? :)
Hi. Mystory is still evolving. I've made about 20 pedals for myself (distortions, compressors, octaves, ring modulators, an envelope filter, a phaser, a noise gate). Then I took a couple of pedals into the local music shop to show them what I do. I was surprised to find that they wanted to sell my pedals. Anyway, I've built 4 that are in the shop and I'm making another 4 at the moment. But I'm finding out that *it's a LOT less fun making pedals for other people*. Starts to seem like work. And when I calculate the profit, it's dismal. Maybe $50 per box for 2 to 3 hours work. I get paid more than that for my easy desk job (which I'm supposed to be doing right now!). I think once I've made enough for a new guitar (say $500) I'll give this up.
Anyway, the shop doesn't seem to be selling too many of my pedals (none so far!), so I guess I needn't worry about the workload and how to spend the excess money.
The moral to this story is not to go looking for a job if what you really want is a good hobby.
HI,
this is an interesting discussion.
I build a Rangemaster as my first selled Pedal. I build it for myself but
i cant use the Sound for me - its to sharp for my taste.
I sold it on Ebay for 35.- Euro (with 20.- Euro Parts and about 2 hours of work its not much, but was ok)
In my opinion cloning or not is difficult to go trough, its like writing a song.
Some notes and chords can be similar to other songs, or the rythm.
You cant forge the wheel new but you can tweak it :D
And if someone says, that cloning is bad - look to Fulltone.
The Fulldrive is a Tubescreamer (OK with few other parts, but i can do that too and call it my coin)
The DejaVibe is likely to the UniVibe i think..
The Soulbender Fuzz is Copy of the Colorsound Tonebender :wink:
and so on
And think about the Fulltones FAT Boost :)
So i salve my conscience and make existing circuits more versatile
and tweak them a little bit and think thats OK.
Sell ON!
Oliver