Parts and Resources

What do you need to build your pedals and other electronic music devices? That’s a big question. For guitars pedals you can get started with some basic tools:

  • Soldering iron
  • Wire clippers
  • Needle node pliers
  • Small Wrench
  • Small Screwdriver

After tools you’ll need a PCB to hold all the parts and connect them together. You can get PCBs for all the classic effects and many of the current boutique pedals. Starting with a PCB will increase the chance of success by a wide margin.

Pre made PCBs

Here are my favorite PCB suppliers:

  • PedalPCB – Great stuff, well made and wide variety of options
  • Madbean – Good selection, great quality
  • AionFX – Great stuff, high quality, good selection, they also offer full kist for some projects

While many services provide PCB for many of the same classic effects, these boards are not always equal! get a board with the jacks and LED mounted to the board. This will cut your work down and make your build fast and foolproof.

Manufacture your own PCB

If you’re making your own PCBs I’ve tried these services and would recommend them:

  • PCBWay – Great quality good prices if you’re buying 5 or more boards
  • OSH Park – Great service, especially if you only want 3 or fewer boards

Parts

Now that you have a PCB you’ll need parts.

  • Mouser – Great service, lots to choose from, the web site can be intimidating.
  • Stompbox Parts – They have almost everything and great service.
  • Tayda Electronics – Great service has lots to choose from, cheap, shipping can be slow.
  • Small Bear Electronics – Great site with a good selection.

Knobs Enclosures and Switches

Once you’ve got your board built you’ll need to put it in an enclosure add some knobs.

  • Tayda Electronics – Has great prices on enclosures and knobs.
  • LoveMySwitches – Love My Switches has a great selection of knobs, they also sell enclosures, switches and jacks.

Eurorack parts

Comments

7 responses to “Parts and Resources”

  1. Bz nuts Avatar
    Bz nuts

    What up freq!

    I’m getting desperate with a debug, maybe you can help.

    Fellow fan of runoffgroove here, pioneers with JFET and CMOS. I’ve had great success with a lot of their stuff, but I’m hung up on the 22/7. I thought I’d be a badass and try the OG perf layout so I knew there might be trouble, but now I’m stuck. Haven’t found much in the usual fora and I remembered seeing your build on Reddit (old computer font really suits it I think).

    Any chance you still have a prototype around you can throw me some voltage measurements? IC in circuit, out of circuit, whatever you got. Another question: have you noticed any big differences in the two chips? If the 69 is a lot quieter I might stock up.

    Thanks,
    Bz

    1. admin Avatar
      admin

      I’ll take a look later and post some voltages.

      The 4049 and 4069 sound identical to me. Especially true in this case since there is so much clipping. The clipping really defines the sound.

    2. admin Avatar
      admin

      For the 4049 you should have about 9v at pin 1 and 0v ground at pin 8. The inverters don’t need a bias so the voltages at the other pins are less important.

      Make yourself an audio probe and use it to check the signal as it passes through each section of the circuit this will tell you where things are going wrong.

  2. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    Hey man, awesome site! Really appreciate all that has gone into it! Was wondering if you have drill guides for the 4069? I tried to use the guide on the build guides page, but can’t get it to print the right size.

    1. admin Avatar
      admin

      I can post a drilling guide. Which 4069 project were you looking at? I want to make sure I post the correct diagram.

  3. DJ Soulfeggio Avatar

    What’s up Super Freq –

    I happened to come upon a 21st Century Big Muff by Mic Tester v1.0.0 PCB

    Do you know where I can find the BOM for it?

    I tried the free stomp boxes forum post but it wasn’t clear. I can email you a photo of it – it’s green. If not I guess I’ll make a free stomp boxes login and try to hit up bigmic –

    I feel like it’s a little piece of history and I don’t want to mess it up!

    Cheers

    1. admin Avatar
      admin

      Sorry for the late reply! I have a schematic and BOM for this but didn’t make a post because I was unsatisfied with it.

      Give a couple days and I’ll put a post together.

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