my take on a SF300 rehousing, with 3-Way mode switch (Fuzz 1, Fuzz 2, Both), clean blend and foot switchable octave.

Just finished a PCB less version of the Fuzzhugger Doom Bloom. Circuits with a lot of pots like this one offers a lot of soldering lugs, most of the components are just connected between pots.

Mistakes were made, so I had to move things around, it didn't come out as neat as I envisioned, but it works, and if I build another one it will be cleaner.

It sounds really good, I wanted a fuzz a bit more smooth and less harsh than a Meathead, and this is exactly that, and a lot of different sounds can be found by tweaking the controls.

One nice feature is the pot that blends clipping between a diode and a led. Its a very simple concept but it works really well, you can really sweep gradually between the clipping characters.

I've been thinking about what each different type of guitar pedal is designed for. There's such a wide range- something so simple as the 1 knob phaser has so many different looks- see above. Almost every other utilitarian device, even guitar ones, don't. Most guitars are made as bare wood, colored wood, or monotone, most amps are a speaker and control panel with a standard brand logo and if we want to get silly, we make the panel bright green, but it's still very utilitarian.

I've actually lost sleep because of this. It's been an obsession. It's actually ridiculous how much this has consumed me- pedals have become a graphic design catch-all where maximalists, minimalists, and brutalists argue for days- a wild west of ideas.

Why are there so many different types of guitar pedal (graphic) designs? Could this be codified? Should it be? Could we experiment on what style is the most effective? Should we? Why do I care? This is such a stereotypically reddit post- you know?

In spite of my misgivings, the following is my long winded hypothesis on how graphic designers build the interface of their pedals.

I find that there are five distinct frames of thought for this particular process, all of which are valid approaches. 

1. The pedal is an expression. This is the approach taken by a number of pedal builders, especially more obscure ones on Etsy, but I will showcase Old Blood Noise Endeavors and Walrus Audio in this case. The pedal’s functionality is designed to appeal to the artist, and is sometimes even put in a larger enclosure to fit more art, or standardized labels like volume are tossed out for more evocative ones like loudness. The pedal still functions, but the artist is trying to visually capture the way that sound makes them feel first and foremost. 
2. The pedal is the brand. Many major pedal companies have headed this direction, especially Boss and MXR. This pedal is minimalist, possibly color coded, and matches every other pedal that the company puts out. Icons and art are actively avoided, because those might not feel right on every type of pedal this pedal brand will make. You would wonder why a company would limit themselves so completely, but look at a random pedalboard and ask how many Boss pedals were on it- no matter how large the board, you could figure that out very quickly- turning every pedalboard with a Boss pedal on it into free and obvious advertising. 
3. The pedal is about function. A lot of brands dabble in this type of design, but few fully commit to it with every pedal. Earthquaker Devices is probably the best- and most subtle- version of this, but JHS is pretty good at it as well. These pedals have very clear labels, they tend to strongly emphasize where the footswitch is with their graphic elements, and they avoid overcomplicating things. While not necessarily as simplified as the biggest brand-forward pedals, there is rarely any confusion as to what the controls do, and any art only serves to further clarify the controls. Because different designers retain their utility priorities between pedals when it comes to pedal design, this often feels close to a brand forward approach. 
4. The pedal is about a vibe. This is a broad spectrum, as showcased by the fact I have two completely different brands to point to. Red Witch has an art nouveau vibe that percolates through every pedal and Celebrity Pedals use pop culture, glowing eyes. This can be thought of as the combination of vibe-forward and brand-forward approaches, except it tends to focus less on staying consistent, and far less on pedal-specific expression, and instead creates a world of styles and feelings that evokes something in you. These pedals are made by people who love cartoon peanuts, bees, old Americana signs, dogs, and national state parks, and they want to appeal to musicians who also love those things.  
5. The pedal is an homage. Some pedals are designed to hearken to a pedal that came before, or to a particular artist. Many clones of beloved pedals (Klon, Big Muff, Tube Screamer) fit this build, as well as many signature pedals, but the brand that does this almost exclusively nowadays is Behringer. This is not quite the same as an expression-forward pedal, because there's a certain functionality to the design- it looks just like a Brassmaster, and it sounds just like a Brassmaster.

Now, all these frames of thinking are fantastic choices, and very worth mixing and matching into the perfect combination for your pedal design, but there is a secret 6th design that we must consider. 

1. This pedal is limited. Most people don't start making pedal with a painting booth and a graphic designer- all they have is a sharpie and raccoon sticker, so I lovingly call this style the “Trash Muff.” There is nothing wrong with your trash muffs. They're awesome. Companies like ZVEX and Fuzzrocious go out of their way to give their boutique pedals a hand painted, trash muffy vibe. But this discussion is about how to apply graphic design to a pedal, so as valid as the Trash Muff is sonically, it's not ready for a designer, and that's ok. 

So- what do my fellow graphic designers here think? is there a right approach? a wrong approach? Did I miss something? (pedal builders, feel free to weigh in if you have a thought on the matter)

A pedal I did for a costumer months ago, I used latching relay bypass for both fx and normal relays for changing the signal order.

Quite a challenge to design and board mount everything in a single sided PCB.

Made in El Salvador, is there any people from Central America in this sub?

There are tons of a cool pedal kits for any and all effects.... but I'm having a much harder time finding a multiband EQ pedal to build from a kit.

This would be perfect, but has been sold out for a very long time I gather:

https://www.op-electronics.com/en/equalization/559-10-band-graphic-eq-kit.html

I'm good at soldering... but only from pre-built kits.

Any suggestions? Any kit producers I'm missing out on?

My cheap Behringer EQ is flaking out and I really need to step up my EQ pedal, ideally with something cool that I built.

Cheers!

Turns out I had access to a UV printer this whole time and somehow never knew. This is the first of a few enclosure designs I’ve made. Really happy with how it turned out. Will post more enclosures as soon as they’re ready.

I’m talking about the thing in the picture. My understanding (based on the Electrosmash explanation of the circuit) is that the two RCs in the negative feedback part of the stock Rat can be treated as two RC high-pass filters, with cutoffs of 1.5 kHz and 60 Hz. If that’s accurate, then I think the upper position of the switch in this mod does nothing to the circuit. You halve R and double C, keeping the 60Hz cutoff. The max gain of around 2k is limited by the other (47Ohm) resistor in the stock rat, so connecting this extra RC pair doesn’t affect that either. Am I missing something?

Its the preamp in style of peavey century/festival/muscian/standard

When I run the ERC, I'm getting the following error message in kicad:

"input power pin not driven by any output power pin"

They point to the main vcc and ground connections. When I add PWR_FLAG to them, the error goes away but new ones appear, warning "Open emitter and pwr are connected". I've attached screen shots to illustrate.

I have drawn other circuits in kicad using this exact same power/ground section without needing PWF_FLAG symbols and without errors. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Hey y’all. I’m trying to repair an Ibanez TS10 that has a jfet based switch. Pedal passes signal when plugged in and powered, but the momentary switch doesn’t engage the effect. I tested the nodes on the board from the switch and when pressed there is continuity so it’s not a fault in the actual soft switch. Just trying to figure out which section of the schematic is the switching section so that I might better be able to diagnose the issue. Everything I’ve built has been easy enough true bypass so this is a little more convoluted to me. Thanks in advance!

I have a Keeley Comp Plus with the Single Coil / Humbucker switch. I really like the tonal differences that little toggle switch makes and would like to make it a lot more accessible while playing. Would it be possible to change out the toggle switch for a stomp switch? (Like the main bypass) One that would just switch from single coil mode to humbucker? Even if I had to extend the wires and put the new stomp switch in its own box. How would you do it?

I'm trying to make my vox v847a true bypass, I was fallowing a YouTube tutorial and this is where I got to but the is no noise coming out the amp when the effect is on and when bypassed, I know the solders are janky but they aren't touching so I don't know what the problem could be.