OK, so Paia make some tasty gear, but I'd like to try my hand at building, say, a compressor, or a limiter, or maybe a mic pre, or even a reverb, or a delay...
Are there any other sites which offer paia-like drawings for compressors/delays etc? And of these sites, do any fabricate circuitboards and supply the requisite parts? [And ideally ship to the UK or have a UK-parts list?]
After all, there are 50 year old compressor designs, so the technology and the parts requirements must be do-able. Obviously tubes or Germanium or other "rare and obsolete" might be difficult to find, but there must be a way of sorting myself out a nice piece of unique outboard rack gear for less money than the ''analog and therefore high end' market...
If they make 'em today, then they must be make-able today?
Help me out!!!
New Year greetings to you all, think of those of us at work....
Dan
Outboard - a question for the DIY'ers
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- KVRian
- 732 posts since 4 Jun, 2005
www.hamptone.com
www.jlmaudio.com
www.seventhcircleaudio.com
A lot of wonderful stuff from those places, mostly preamps. Hamptone now has a very nice compressor too. Blacet offers modular synth kits, I've built lots of their stuff. I use JLM and Hamptone pres every time I record.
Also, great stompboxes at generalguitargadgets.com and tonepad.com
Here's the master list from the TapeOp messageboard
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=28101
www.jlmaudio.com
www.seventhcircleaudio.com
A lot of wonderful stuff from those places, mostly preamps. Hamptone now has a very nice compressor too. Blacet offers modular synth kits, I've built lots of their stuff. I use JLM and Hamptone pres every time I record.
Also, great stompboxes at generalguitargadgets.com and tonepad.com
Here's the master list from the TapeOp messageboard
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=28101
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- KVRist
- 427 posts since 26 Nov, 2000 from Gallifrey, The Capitol.
If you're just starting out I'd recommend a few things:
Buy a pre-drilled stompbox kit from somewhere like GGG (general guitar gadgets). Make something that's not super complicated, like a simple fuzz. Get something with a soldermask pcb. The PDFs JD provides are great to read and make assembly easy. If it works out for you then you know if you're going to be able to move on to things that are more complicated. If you don't have a guitar you might find you can use the pedal with other devices depending on the levels... Alternatively, give it away to a friend for their Birthday or something!
Don't necessarily think you will save money. Initially it'll be learning and a bit of frustration. If you have patience and are good at paying attention to details then DIY can be quite fun and you can produce things that you can't easily buy.
Sometimes you can save money....Eck gads! I went to a shop the other week and saw how much some pedals cost, and at least locally in some cases I can DIY for less. That being said, against USD prices I'd probably consider buying the real deal at times. It really depends on what you want from things.
If building a preamp you can get hold of the build instructions beforehand then do so. That way you can see if you understand what you need to do to get it together... Personally I hate playing with wire, so having a clear view of where everything goes first is of interest to me.
I recently put together a Fivefish preamp and it was quite easy to assemble (just have to finish off the wiring). If your time is precious having a kit like theirs with all the parts labelled and put in little bags for you is really beneficial.
Spratman
Buy a pre-drilled stompbox kit from somewhere like GGG (general guitar gadgets). Make something that's not super complicated, like a simple fuzz. Get something with a soldermask pcb. The PDFs JD provides are great to read and make assembly easy. If it works out for you then you know if you're going to be able to move on to things that are more complicated. If you don't have a guitar you might find you can use the pedal with other devices depending on the levels... Alternatively, give it away to a friend for their Birthday or something!
Don't necessarily think you will save money. Initially it'll be learning and a bit of frustration. If you have patience and are good at paying attention to details then DIY can be quite fun and you can produce things that you can't easily buy.
Sometimes you can save money....Eck gads! I went to a shop the other week and saw how much some pedals cost, and at least locally in some cases I can DIY for less. That being said, against USD prices I'd probably consider buying the real deal at times. It really depends on what you want from things.
If building a preamp you can get hold of the build instructions beforehand then do so. That way you can see if you understand what you need to do to get it together... Personally I hate playing with wire, so having a clear view of where everything goes first is of interest to me.
I recently put together a Fivefish preamp and it was quite easy to assemble (just have to finish off the wiring). If your time is precious having a kit like theirs with all the parts labelled and put in little bags for you is really beneficial.
Spratman
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- KVRist
- 375 posts since 26 Feb, 2005 from Glasgow/Edinburgh
http://www.diystompboxes.com/
is good, go to the forum, have a look at the gallery
http://www.storm-software.co.yu/diy/ind ... ct=layouts
loads of layouts for perf/stripboard/pcb, just download the software to view - free
I've made about 20 or so diy stompboxes for the guitar. They are of a high enough quality that I don't need nor desire any commercial pedals, although they don't look as nice
A couple of simple buffers should take care of any impedance problems if you want to use line levels for other instruments, and maybe some mods to the input and output caps would be needed.
inverseroom menitioned GGG and tonepad, both ship to the uk and I've used GGG before, great service and JD will answer any questions you want. The instructions are easy to follow - I had only soldered a couple of pots on my guitar before making my first pedal, it worked great in the end.
some suggestions for nice pedals - I've only used these with guitar
4ms phasuer fluer - good versatile phaser, not much of the "classic" phase sound but does some nice watery chorusing and ring mod stuff
flatline compressor - very simple and good sounding optical compressor, can really squash
EA tremolo - vintage tremolo sounds, can make a nice preamp with the depth turned off and the volume up
rebote delay - useful little delay
fuzz - there are hundreds of fuzz designs out there, lots of different sounds to be had
next up for me is a ross phaser, you can get this from tonepad and they also sell extra boards so you can add extra phase stages.
for parts from the uk
farnell.com
rapidonline.com
US
http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok
smallbear is great for effects specific and discontinued parts.
And on the cost aspect that spratman mentioned, you can figure about £40 a pedal/effect all in - if you can use a cheap enclosure, cheaper switch instead of a footswitch and use perf/stripboard for the circuit then you can knock off another £15 at least. The real cost is in time, but I find it a rewarding hobby.
is good, go to the forum, have a look at the gallery
http://www.storm-software.co.yu/diy/ind ... ct=layouts
loads of layouts for perf/stripboard/pcb, just download the software to view - free
I've made about 20 or so diy stompboxes for the guitar. They are of a high enough quality that I don't need nor desire any commercial pedals, although they don't look as nice
A couple of simple buffers should take care of any impedance problems if you want to use line levels for other instruments, and maybe some mods to the input and output caps would be needed.
inverseroom menitioned GGG and tonepad, both ship to the uk and I've used GGG before, great service and JD will answer any questions you want. The instructions are easy to follow - I had only soldered a couple of pots on my guitar before making my first pedal, it worked great in the end.
some suggestions for nice pedals - I've only used these with guitar
4ms phasuer fluer - good versatile phaser, not much of the "classic" phase sound but does some nice watery chorusing and ring mod stuff
flatline compressor - very simple and good sounding optical compressor, can really squash
EA tremolo - vintage tremolo sounds, can make a nice preamp with the depth turned off and the volume up
rebote delay - useful little delay
fuzz - there are hundreds of fuzz designs out there, lots of different sounds to be had
next up for me is a ross phaser, you can get this from tonepad and they also sell extra boards so you can add extra phase stages.
for parts from the uk
farnell.com
rapidonline.com
US
http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok
smallbear is great for effects specific and discontinued parts.
And on the cost aspect that spratman mentioned, you can figure about £40 a pedal/effect all in - if you can use a cheap enclosure, cheaper switch instead of a footswitch and use perf/stripboard for the circuit then you can knock off another £15 at least. The real cost is in time, but I find it a rewarding hobby.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1185 posts since 2 Jan, 2004 from England
thanks very much! I'm not new to soldering or electronics, but these look OK, and look like they're worth the effort!
11, 418th in line to the KVR throne
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- KVRian
- 743 posts since 14 Apr, 2004
Hey, what about this?? I'm seriously thinking to build a pair of units:
http://www.homestudioguide.com/DIYBuild ... essor.aspx
http://www.homestudioguide.com/DIYBuild ... essor.aspx