Probably a bit of a kill joy, but this pedal building, while it is a great endeavor in many respects and satisfying to be creating something that works along with your musical interests, it can tend to get a little to much heading down the wrong path sometimes,, with obsessing over having and building the latest greatest funkiest out there pedal, while neglecting your true passion for playing the music.
Just saying, this interest to a lot of us came about years earlier, when there were not a lot of commercial available pedals at affordable prices to a young person, so the way to get the gear together at that time was to build them yourself from whatever flimsy resources you could scrape up and a magazine schematic.
It was good at the time, but as with most things letting the interest get out of hand and becoming an unbalanced part of life it can become an obsession, distracting from a lot of the main aims in life, and potentially with the focus more on pedal building than the music, it can be the detriment to an otherwise potentially talented musician.
With the amount of affordable commercial pedals out there this day and age, I believe in hindsight, I would approach my interest in playing and learning guitar differently, by just purchasing a few or more affordable versatile fx pedals and focusing more on the playing and learning side of the music interest. I am sure that along with a lot of others I might well of made a better musician of myself.
Then again who knows, sometimes you just cant take away the creative passion in some who feel the need to tinker.
Then there are some who can balance the 2 interests well and do well in both areas. Take Joe Walsh for instance, he was an early effects pedal and electronics buff all the while at the same time honing his musical talent, and never did his musical prowess any harm it seems.
Well there it is, another 2 cents worth from me. Cheers
