Build Your Own Clone sells great kits for buiding your own pedals. I decided to give them a shot and was adventurous, so I bought three of the kits: The Large Beaver (Big Muff clone), Envelope Filter (DOD 440) and the Digital Delay (not necessarily a clone of any particular pedal).
Painting: I was nervous about finishing the enclosures, but I was impatient as well. A bad combination. I went with the Beavis Box Finish in a Day method. I went to the Home Depot, picked out my favorites of the Rustoleum colors they had on hand, got primer and clear coat. Since they didn’t have self-etching primer, I got a container of etch too. They sell a quart size that was less than $5 as I recall. I followed the directions for the etch, primed and painted. I used the toaster oven trick (use an old one – never to again to be used for food!!) and baked each coat. I found that I needed to keep the parts in the oven longer than Bevis recommends. It might have been due to the cold temps on the days I did it.
Labels: To save time I went with what I had in the house. I used clear stick on labels that can be printed on with any InkJet. I created a layout in Photoshop and came up with some names. Truth is that I was trying to think up names all along, but couldn’t come up with anything clever. When the painting was done I realized the green for the Large Beaver pedal could be used to play on the “Pi” variant of the Big Muff pedals, so I came up with “Key Lime Pi”. The other two weren’t so clever, but I decide to keep them all in the citrus family. For whatever reason. Oh, right, the labels…I printed the labels and cut them out as close as I dared, then stuck them on the pedals. I put two thin clear coats the pedals and let them dry without heat. I was afraid the labels would curl right up and I’d have to start over again. I did a couple of more clear coats with heat and they were fine. I sanded and clear coated two or three times to try to minimize the edge of the labels. I think it would take about two more rounds of sanding and clear coating to get the tops to be perfectly smooth. I thought they looked pretty good as-is.
Two things to watch for with these labels: First, keep them away from the edge. It’s hard to get the clear coat smooth if the label is right on the edge. Second, keep the stickers away from any place that you’ll be putting a washer or nut. If you look closely at the Lemon Drop Delay, you’ll see that there is a little bit of a bubble. When I tighened the nut for the footswitch the clear coat cracked a little (I suspect the sticker must have compressed a tiny bit) and the next day the bubble appeared.
Oh, and you’ll notice the sticker edges show up the worst on the orange pedal. I think that’s because it’s darker and the sticker definitely lightens the color a bit. That was also the first pedal I put the stickers on, so I didn’t have the technique down yet 
Key Lime Pi – Large Beaver fuzz
This is a fairly typical fuzz pedal from what I can tell. I’m not much of a fuzz user, but there are some fun sounds in here. The tone control has a nice range. The Sustain control gives it all the long, creamy sounding buzz you need. More than I ever need at least.
Sorry! No samples of the Key Lime Pi yet. It’s pretty typical Big Muff sound though. I had a problem with the original volume pot and had to replace it with a different one. A bit of a pain, but it worked out fine.
Lemon Drop Delay
This is a digital delay that is patterned after the older analog delay pedals. I used an Ibanez AD9 for many years and that is one of my favorties. It would be nice to have it here to compare. I think this pedal has a “digital sound” to it, but it sounds pretty good. Definitely usable, that’s for sure. I couldn’t quite get it to do the Pink Floyd “Run Like Hell” thing, but that’s probably asking a lot. Maybe I’ll try again when I’m playing better. I love the self oscillation silliness that it can get into. That was always one of my favorite things about the AD9.
Give the Lemon Drop a listen: Lemon Drop Sample 1 – Changing Delay time
Lemon Drop Sample 2 – Slap Back
Lemon Drop Sample 3 – Harmonizing (sound on sound)
Lemon Drop Sample 4 – Self Oscillation
The Lemon Drop gave up the ghost after a few weeks of playing with it. I was 99% sure it was the delay chip that went bad (don’t ask me why I thought that). I ordered 5 more of the chips for $5 off of ebay, and so far so good.
Funky Orange – Envelope Filter
I didn’t really know what to expect with this pedal. At first I wasn’t sure it was working properly. It’s controls are pretty interactive (changing one affects the other considerably) and it’s quite sensitive to the guitar settings and the pick attack. I found on my guitar that the bridge-middle pickup combination seemed to make the filter effect more pronounced. I’m really liking this pedal right now. Fun to play with.
Funky Orange Sample 1 – Sly Riff, no effect then with effect
Funky Orange Sample 2 – Slow Chords
Funky Orange Sample 3 – Faster chords
Funky Orange Sample 4 – With distortion
For reference sounds (straight guitar, same guitar, same amp, no effects) see the Walnut Strat page.
Building: – The BYOC kits arrive in a plastic bag packed in a box. All the parts are there and not much else. The instructions for each pedal are on their website. Luckily, the instructions are really straight-forward. Just as backgound, I have some experience building homebrew pedals, but I’m really not all that good at it. I’ve done a couple from Craig Anderton’s book, and I’ve done a number of things like A/B switches. Simple things. Things that don’t require too much close-quarter soldering. I’ve replaced plenty of electronics on my guitars, but that’s a different sort of soldering.
I just tried to be as careful and methodical as possible. I verified that all the parts were there, laid them out, double and triple checked before I placed a component on the PCB. Checked all the solder joints before I moved on to the next. I started with what I thought would be the easiest kit (based on the density of the PCB), and saved the hardest (Digital Delay) for last. All three kits were nearly identical to put together except for the number and type of components. The boards are very clear and well laid out. A few parts on the Digital Delay made me nervous because of how close they are, but it all worked out.
I only came across a couple of little things. First, when it came time to connect the populated PCB to the hardware I had mounted in the enclosure, I wasn’t sure if I should put the wires in from the top or from the bottom. I ended up trying different ways from each pedal.
For the Envelope Filter I soldered all of the wires to the parts in the enclosure and then looped the wires from the pots over the top of the PCB. It worked fine, although there seems to be a fine balance between trying to keep the wires short and having enough to maneuver the PCB around. Here’s the inside of the Envelope Filter:
Notice how the white wires go down into the PCB.
For the Large Beaver, I did the opposite. I connected all the wires to the PCB, then connected them to the pots, switch and jacks. Although I think this might allow for shorter wires (if done properly by someone other than myself), I didn’t like this method for two reasons: First, you have to move the PCB around a lot in order to get the wires in position to solder them. I was always worried a wire or a solder joint would break. Neither happened, luckily. The second problem is that once I had everything done I had a much harder time positioning the PCB in the case. I didn’t get any of the three pedals perfect, but this one is the most off. Here’s a pic of the inside of the Envelope Filter:
It’s a little hard to see, but the wires are inserted in the PCB from underneath.
On the Digital Delay I did a mix. I decided to install the wires from the top of the PCB, but I did a mix. I soldered the wires to the pots first, and did others however seemed comfortable. I had a little trouble with the footswitch. It’s awfully tight in there. I think I was lucky with the first two, but the third took several tries to get the wires in there relatively cleanly. Here’s the inside of the Digital Delay:
The PCB is cockeyed, but it works!
Results: All three pedals worked right after completion, but the Large Beaver had an intermittent problem with the volume control. I poked around and eventually narrowed down the problem – a bad volume pot. Once I replaced that everything was fine. The other two pedals seem to be functioning 100% – listen to the samples. All-in-all, great kits and I’m hoping I get the chance to put together a few more before too long.
Another project guitar – my third (I sold the first). I got the body from ebay – a nice two-piece walnut body.
It was built by somebody “known”, but I can’t recall who. It’s signed in the neck pocket, but I can’t read it.
The first neck I used I got from someone locally. It was solid rosewood with stainless steel frets – a real beauty. I could never get used to the 1 5/8″ nut width though.
I got a used Mighty Mite neck off of ebay and that neck has made all the difference. I know it’s a lower quality neck, but it is really comfortable. I love playing that guitar now. So much so, that I took the Kinman pickups out of my Fender American Strat and put them in this guitar. I also put in a ’59 Jr. in the bridge instead of the Hot Rails. Originally I put a hot wound set of GFS pickups, which actually sounded really good.
When I got the body it had a pretty thick, gloppy finish on it. I’m not sure what type. I was going to strip it off. When I began sanding it, the body started looking real nice. Not factory gloss nice, but very natural nice. I ended up sanding just enough to thin out the finish and get the drips and such out and I think it looks great. I thought putting a “relic” pickguard and controls on this guy would look good, so I tried to figure out how to do that.
I took the pickguard (a new inexpensive one), pickup covers and knobs and follow some directions I found on the internet. I soaked them in super-strong coffee for two or three days. Don’t try that. It’s a waste of time. As soon as I wiped the parts the brown patina came right off. I used a 3M pad (or is it Scotch??) to scuff the parts up a bit and tried again. Not much better. I tried tea next. Slightly better, but still not what I wanted. I tried coffee grounds directly on the parts. Nope. Finally, I got an old basin from the garage that had who knows what in it. I poured in a little Minwax wood stain and I let it sit for a day or two. The basin had dirt in it and remnants of many other projects that hadn’t been cleaned out. The parts were kind of sticky when I took them out, but the color was great. I let them dry out and then wiped them down and this time it kept looking pretty good. I used the 3M pad to put some “wear” into the parts and to my eye it looked every bit as authentic as most relics I’ve seen. Let me just say – the idea of paying extra for a fake relic is insane to me. Just my opinion.
Notice the color difference between the white paper towel and the pickguard. When I started the pickguard was just as white as the paper towel.
Ultimately, I swapped out the “relic’d” parts when I swapped pickups. The main reason is that I was not about to relic a set of Kinman Pickups. They are way too expensive. I could have swapped the pickup covers, but the ’59 Jr would still have been bright white and would have looked weird. By then I also had an old MOTS pickguard that had been naturally aged by smokey bars, so I used that.
I put the same switching system in that I had in my American Strat – a Mega Switch from Stew-Mac wired so the middle position is neck-bridge instead of the usual middle pickup only. I love the neck-bridge combination, and most strats don’t have it. The Mega switch lets you do that without changing how the guitar works or looks – no extra switches and no push-pull pots, which I’ve never been too keen on. Here are some sound samples:
Walnut Guitar – Neck Pickup (Kinman AVn Blues)
Walnut Guitar – Neck & Middle Pickup (Both Kinman AVn Blues)
Walnut Guitar – Neck & Bridge (Kinman AVn Blues and Seymour Duncan ’59 Jr.)
Walnut Guitar – Middle & Bridge Pickup (Kinman AVn Blues and Seymour Duncan ’59 Jr.)
Walnut Guitar – Bridge Pickup (Seymour Duncan ’59 Jr.)
The Dysfunctional Tele was my second home built project guitar. I bought the body and neck from a guy in Texas who builds his own parts. The neck is wider than normal – about 1 3/4″ at the nut. That makes it really nice for fingerstyle things. The body is real nice two-piece ash, and the neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard.
I decided to do something kind of wacky with the finish. I used a piece of material that has a “Dysfunctional Family” comic pattern designed by Michael Miller. Here’s how I finished the body:
- After sanding and sealing the body I finished it in white primer
- I used a Pearl finish spray from Michael’s Art store. That gave the body a slight sheen, and it turned the color into a cream sort of color
- I washed the material, ironed it and then used 3M Adhesive Spray to attach the material to the top of the body
- Once it was completely dry I trimmed around the edge of the body with an exacto knife
- I sprayed the entire body with a glitter spray, also from Michael’s
- I sealed the body with several coats of Minwax Water-based Polyurethane, with the usual sanding in between
The pickups are from GFS and sound pretty good. Here are some pics:
A while back Danelectro starting selling pedals for under $20 each. I sprung for a distortion and and overdrive pedal that were $15 each. They are cheap plastic, and the parts on the inside are so tiny that…I don’t know. They’re just tiny. The thing is – these pedals sound very good! Remarkably good considering the price. If you see them, snag one or two. I’ve gigged with them a couple of times. I don’t like them as much as my Fulldrive or GT-2, but for $15 each…
The PowerScreamer is another TS-808 based pedal that falls into the “Overdrive” category. I use this pedal regularly, swapping it with my Fulltone Fulldrive from time to time, and sometimes using them in tandem. It has a unique switching system that (I believe) swaps which diodes are used to create the overdrive. That gives it quite a bit of range. It can distort more than the Fulldrive, but it’s not really a distortion pedal. Very solid. I plan on holding on to this one for a while.
Once again, I found a Fender Standard (MIM) Strat for a good price and snapped it up. As with the first MIM Strat I got, this guitar has a super comfortable neck and plays really well. The frets are medium sized, as opposed to the jumbo frets on my main home made strat. The pickups aren’t bad at all. They definitely have that Strat snap to them, but they are less full sounding and weaker than the Kinmans that I have in the neck and middle position of my main guitar. That makes sense though.
As of right now I use this guitar for recording, and it’s my back up for gigging. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to hold on to this one or not.
Somebody locally was selling this guitar for a good price. It was very used. A veteran of the weekend warrior scene. This guitar sounded great and played great. Easily as good as my American strat. The neck is identical in size and feel. I ended up parting this guitar out (even though I hate that) because the frets were so worn. A fret job would have cost about the same as I paid for the guitar, so I didn’t think it was worth it. I probably would have done it if it were a combination I liked better, but the body had dulled to a less than attractive metallic red color.
I got the Powerhouse Strat used because it looked cool. One of my favorite colors – Candy Apple Red. This guitar wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It was like new when I got it. Fret ends were very sharp, the sounds were ok. The Powerhouse electronics use a battery and allow you to go from standard single coil sounds to thicker, more humbucker-like sounds. I was going to gut the electronics and put in something I liked better, but I decided it just wasn’t worth it and sold it again.
Distortion is the most difficult effect for me. I think it’s because I’ve grown to not like the sound of distortion all that much – or at least most distortion. I don’t like buzz, and I don’t like mud, and I don’t like distortion where the bottom end is loose and almost indistinct. So I’ve gone through a number of distortion units at this point, and I can’t say I’m completely satisfied.
I had read good things about Robert Keeley and the mods he does on the Boss DS-1, turning it into the “Seeing Eye”. I had been looking for a “third” sound for my Blue Angel – something to give me a good high gain boost for the “over the top” EVH/Ritchie Sambora/whoever else type of leads. Something that makes the amp scream and lets the harmonics and squeals ring out. Well, sorry to say this guy didn’t do it for me.
I found that with the Strat there was a very fine point where I got a pretty good sound with it, but if the knobs are the least bit off I either got not enough drive, or total buzz. This pedal was more useful for rythm sounds, but I was already happy with my sound in that department. In order to get the harmonics to jump out for leads, I needed the tone knob turned fairly high, but then I lost all bottom end – not good. It was different with the Les Paul, but it tended to drive into buzz land much quicker, so that wasn’t great either.
I ended up selling this pedal and the Mr. Ed. In the end neither of those worked as well as the Tech 21 GT-2 for me.
I bought the Boss GT-3 Multi-effect unit to replace my DigiTech rackmount that finally died. I had to do research because effects had come a long way since I had last looked into them. I went for this box over the Korg AX1000 (I think that was it) and the equivalent DigiTech unit at the time for a couple of reasons. I found the Korg harder to use right out of the box. I have no patience for fiddling with these sorts of things. The Korg was also more expensive as I recall, and I wasn’t entirely committed to this multieffect idea. The DigiTech sounded good to my ear and was similar to use, but I just had a DigiTech unit die (even if it was ancient), and had never owned a Boss product, even though they’ve long been the best selling units. Besides the GT-3 was a pretty good deal at the time, probably because the GT-5 had just been put out.
So, I went with Boss. This is a frustrating gadget in some ways because it has so much potential, but there are some areas where it just doesn’t come through for me. It does do what I need it to, which is to add effects to the guitar sound. That’s really all I bought it for, and I have gotten much more than that.
It’s great because doing cover tunes means that there will be sounds and effects in songs the band does that I can’t possibly know ahead of time. So, when that happens I go through the patches in the GT-3, or I build a patch myself, or I search the internet and install a new patch. So far, I’ve been able to at least come close to matching sounds on the songs we cover. That’s what this box is there for. Sure, it’s not going to absolutely nail the sound every time, and the sound quality isn’t going to be as good as the latest handmade, point-to-point wired class “A” hydro-reticulated-germanium-based-weezle-whacker out there, but that’s ok. Our customers and listeners don’t know that. They can’t hear that difference. And I would never use the weezle-whacker for anything other than that one cover song anyway, so I don’t really want to buy one.
This box has been good at the basic chrorus/delay/leslie/wah/harmonizer/etc. type effects, and I have been able to combine them into useful patches to get a simulated Talk Box (to cover Bon Jovi), a string section (to cover Drops of Jupiter), as well as reverse sounds (for Everything She Wants and Pinch Me). Every so often I take it out and just fabricate wacky sounds to see what I can come up with. It’s sort of like owning a dozen or so boxes and setting them all different ways to see what happens.
And there’s also one of the big drawbacks to me: This unit invites fiddling. You tweak and switch and try different settings and next thing you know you’ve blown an hour and haven’t played a damn thing yet! It can suck up time if you’re not careful.
Other downsides: First, I really, really don’t like the distortions and preamp models in this unit. Maybe because it’s Roland/Boss COSM system. I’ve got a Roland UA100 AudioCanvas on my PC that has a COSM amp modeler and it’s awful sounding too. It’s just not my thing. I’ve read about using different methods to use your real amps preamp in the loop of the GT-3, etc. and I’ve even tried some of those setups in my basement, all with less than satisfactory results. One of the big problems is that the OD and preamp sections seem to “take over” in that the sound of your guitar is lost for the most part. I’ve tried side by side plugging in the strat, the Les Paul and the Carvin and on many of the settings there is absolutely no difference in the sound that comes out. That’s not right! I’m sorry, nothing in this box sounds as good as plugging into a real amp. So I skip those parts of the unit unless I’m practicing through headphones – it’s fine for that.
Another thing is the seemingly wacky level settings. I build patches at home, and I’ll even try them out and tweak them more in the basement through an amp, but when at practice and again when playing out I find the relative levels between patches is often totally screwy. I try to balance the levels as much as possible, and all of a sudden one will be exceptionally loud or too quiet.
As a flexible effects box with lots of sounds it works well, and I’ll continue to use it.
Still…most of the time I’m playing it’s turned off. There’s just something about a guitar right into an amp that works best.
After having this unit for quite a while – close to 15 years at this point I think – the LCD display on the unit is shot. I can see some of it, but most of it is hidden. I’ve mostly retired the GT-3, although I bring it out if certain songs are in the set list for the night. I’ve had to move the four patches I use most into the first slot so I can cycle through them without having to read the LCD… since I can’t read it any more. It’s lived a long, useful life. Considering the banging around, the beer spilled directly on it, and the stomping it takes, I think it held up fairly well. No regrets.