Please suggest a book to get me started...

[ultralinear]

I suppose I should introduce myself.

My name is Robin and I mainly play synths but also guitar and bass. I have a collection of 70s and 80s synths and own some lovely 70s amplifiers/equipment too. If anyone is interested further, simply ask!

Since about the age of 17, almost all my 'spare' cash has gone on pedals and other gear, as it should do 

I have some unique and probably overly-ambitious ideas of pedals I'd like to design/build. I am mainly interested in fuzz/overdrive/distortion effects. The main pedal I'd like to build would combine delay and modulation. I'm keen on learning synthesiser circuitry too.

I would love to get started by reading books. What would anyone suggest? My electronics knowledge stretches to what most components do, not what they do in the context of audio circuits.

I appreciate this is a pretty bizarre request but if anyone is able to school me on a one-to-one basis, simply through answering my silly questions, I would happily remunerate them for their time. Bear in mind that these questions may be difficult to answer/involve breadboard experimentation!

Thanks in advance

Robin

[deadastronaut]

The main pedal I'd like to build would combine delay and modulation.

Robin

hi robin welcome:

delay /modulation  build an 'echobase'. its a fantastic pedal by slacker (ian)

[ultralinear]

Thanks Rob.

I'll give that a go. I'd like to have a go at whatever I can in tandem with reading everything I can.

I should have got into this years ago!

[deadastronaut]

heres a demo of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ev8eaYSmY0&list=UUGP0eO8ADt0H9FY5UcHTf8A&index=7&feature=plcp

beware, its very addictive..

[Jdansti]

As for questions, just post them and I'm sure you'll receive plenty of replys.

[ultralinear]

I have looked at a few videos of the Echo Base and it covers some similar ground to what I want to achieve. Thanks 

John: I will be asking questions to everyone of course but I'd like close tutelage under a veteran builder also. My brother designs speaker cabinets and he receives calls on a daily basis, reaping free advice from him. It interrupts his work. This is why I'm more than happy to pay someone to answer my questions. Out of respect for their time/knowledge.

[ultralinear]

Bump.

Any book suggestions please?

[bluebunny]

Any book suggestions please?

www.geofex.com?  Not exactly a book, but I believe the collective wisdom around here is "read it all".  Twice.   

[bluebunny]

Actually, I learned quite a lot from this book too: Small Signal Audio Design, by Douglas Self.  It's not about stompboxes, per se, but from an audio electronics point of view, I found it a very satisfying and informative read.  (I read it from cover to cover within a weekend.)

[Resynthesis]

Actually, I learned quite a lot from this book too: Small Signal Audio Design, by Douglas Self. 

+1 for Douglas Self. A standard undergrad text (if you can afford it)  is Art of Electronics by Horowitz & Hill - don't be put off by its size, it's full of useful stuff and it's not too mathematical.

[Mark Hammer]

An often-overlooked book (perhaps because it contains no schematics) is Craig Anderton's "Guitar Gadgets" - http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Gadgets-Craig-Anderton/dp/0825622948

It marches through the various categories of effects, and describes the function and impact of various controls within each category.  I find it helpful for developing a kind of systems sensibility about guitar sound, that may be fairly compatible with how you might have come to think about synths.  That is, you don't think about a VCA, or transient generator, in isolation, but about the various modules required to produce a given category of sounds.

To be fair, it is a book of its time, and many of the controls we have come to take for granted now, were not in evidence 30 years ago.  But he provides broad coverage of a LOT of that era i pedals, including many that only the cogniscenti may have been familiar with at that time.

Definitely worth a browse.

[ultralinear]

Excellent, many thanks gentlemen.

[m4j0rbumm3r]

+1 for Douglas Self. A standard undergrad text (if you can afford it)  is Art of Electronics by Horowitz & Hill - don't be put off by its size, it's full of useful stuff and it's not too mathematical.

I just bought Electronic Principles by Malvino, which is another good undergrad text, probably quite similar to Art of Electronics by Horowitz & Hill. The nice thing is that (academically) obsolete editions can be bought dirt-cheap off amazon. I bought a a nineties hardcover edition in very decent condition from a university library for two or three pounds. For that kind of money, you can't go wrong with a 1000 pages of in-depth component and circuit knowledge.

check out current listings here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0028008456/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

[m4j0rbumm3r]

In university, I've taken courses on basic electromagnetism and on application of electric generators and actuators. Still, I knew next-to-nothing of small signal electronics or voltage amplification.

For musical instruments and effects applications, the chapters on diodes, transistors (types, biasing. etc) and opamps alone make Malvino's book well worth the few quid I spent.

I think you can probably (warning: n00b speaking) understand a lot of stompbox circuits once you understand and recognize: (1) singal amplification and biasing, (2) clipping, (3) tone control / frequency filtering, (4) in- and output impedance.
Complex effects will obviously contain more, but this is sort of where I'm at right now.

The only downside of generic uni textbooks, compared to stompbox cookbooks, is that they do not focus as much on abusing components outside their intended operating conditions, which is what stompbox builders do all the time. But then, cookbooks tend to show you cool circuits without explaining what's what, forcing you to take the monkey-see-monkey-do route. You'll probably want to use both types of books, mixed in with reading up on the interwebs, like this very page.

[artifus]

this is fun: http://www.nicolascollins.com/handmade.htm. ealier editions can be found online. pdf.

[twabelljr]

sound.westhost.com/articles.htm
Good information here also

[AudioEcstasy]

Unfortunately I don't have the link as it was in the bookmarks of a recently crashed computer, but I found a website that has almost every book worth reading on this subject in PDF form.

Electronic Projects for Musicians, all of the aforementioned here, and more. It seemed too good to be true but the only downside is that they're in PDF format. If I can resurrect that computer I'll post the link. Just dig through Google, it's there!

[reveal]

I'd recommend, Do-It-Yourself Projects for Guitarists and Electronic Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton [in that order] if you're adverse to scouring the web. They are specific to stomp box/guitar effects building.  There is a great beginner project on this site, there are some very good tutorials at www.smallbearelec.com under "how to" and "projects" in particular the bread boarding articles .     geofex and amzfx are also excellent.  Its easy to get lost in all the data on the web though.   The best and quickest way to learn is to start doing it.

[edvard]

Here's the short list of books I found influential and educational (amazon links for reference only, some of those books are 'spensive.

+1 for anything Craig Anderton; His books probably started more stompbox enthusiasts than you can shake a wah pedal at...
    Electronics Projects for Musicians
    35 Do-It-Yourself Projects for Guitarists
    Guitar Gadgets

These books also get my thumbs up:
Nicholas boscorelli - The Stompbox Cookbook
Radio Shack used to publish little "Engineers Mini-Notebook"s written by Forrest M. Mimms III that were chock-full of general circuits that I found indispensable in my early electronics education.
Great book on synth and audio manipulation circuit designs. Not much for schematics, but plenty in the way of theory:
Allen Strange - Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls

When you start itching for the ways of glass and high voltage, I've found these to be most indispensible discussing the ins and outs of classic tube amps, including schematics and mods:
Dan Torres - Inside Tube Amps: The Book on Tube Amps Technology
Jack Darr - Electric Guitar Amplifier Handbook
Aspen Pittman - The Tube Amp Book (many editions, up to 2003)

Last, but certainly not least, is our own Mr. Keen's wonderful book on laying out PCBs for all those effects you're gonna build:
R. G. Keen - PCB Layout for Musical Effects

[chromesphere]

Although not specically audio / stompbox electronics, a good, general, start from scratch book i have read in the past is "teach yourself electronics & electricity".  Starts at the very beginning.

http://www.futurlec.com/BooksElectronic.shtml

Paul