What Happens When A Pro Pedal Builder Builds a DIY Pedal Kit?

What Happens When a Pro Pedal Builder Builds a DIY Pedal Kit? If you ever wanted to know what a professional pedal builder would do differently with a DIY pedal kit compared to most others, or if you're into DIY pedal building yourself, you’ll love this. I’ll be using the StewMac Screamer kit and showing you just what I personally do if I buy a DIY “build your own pedal” type kit, how I approach the circuit, and just why I rarely, if ever, follow the exact instructions and instead I completely change it into something personalized, unique, and inspiring to play.

First, I’m going to get the schematic from the kit documents and decide just what I want to do differently. I’ll use a breadboard for circuit experimentation to do this.
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We’ll discuss how to recognize circuit blocks in order to do these types of changes. We'll look at examples like the Tube Screamer, Boss SD-1, LovePedal Eternity, and Earthquaker Devices Plumes for examples of 4 pedals with similar topologies that all sound completely different. We’ll also compare not only the circuitry of these pedals but also play them side by side for a sound comparison.

Then, it’s time to make the magic happen! I’ll start building the pedal and get to the end, but guess what? IT DOESN’T WORK! 🤦‍♂️That’s ok though - it’s a great chance to walk through troubleshooting the pedal and get it working.

Lastly, the play test! How does it sound compared to the breadboarded Prototype version?

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Do you want to win this pedal? Here’s how to do that:
Update July 2024, contest is closed: Congrats to Carl Floyd for winning the pedal!


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Learn how to do what I’m doing in this video! Go to my course here:
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Don't miss out on this DIY pedal course—use the discount code! Plus, enter our giveaway for a chance to win the custom pedal. Comment below with your questions and subscribe for more DIY pedal content!
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LINKS:
Stew mac link: https://www.stewmac.com/kits-and-proj...
Pedalpcb link for the circuitboard only: https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/lgsm/
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Circuitlab schematic links
Tubescreamer: https://www.circuitlab.com/circuit/n5...
My Version in this video:: https://www.circuitlab.com/circuit/5k...
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Stew mac schematic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-69p...
Screamer PCB layout:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KYif...




Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:48 Overview of the Beginner's Guide Course, this will help!
02:45 Tubescreamer circuit walkthrough
03:17 Comparing Tube Screamer and Boss SD-1
03:57 Comparing Tube Screamer and LovePedal Eternity
04:39 Comparing Tube Screamer and Earthquaker Devices Plumes
05:34 Tubescreamer, Plumes, SD-1, Eternity sound comparison
06:39 My custom version of a Tube Screamer circuit
07:08 Stock TS9 compared to my version sound comparison
08:15 Stew Mac Screamer circuit walkthrough
09:26 How are we going to do this?
11:40 Why buy a more expensive pedal kit?
12:19 How to modify a DIY pedal kit?
20:45 Other mods we can do to this type of circuit
22:22 Circuit Analysis Graphs of these circuits
23:42 Building our circuit with the kit, tips and tricks
27:27 It doesn’t work. How to fix it?
29:40 It works! Let’s put it all together
30:48 Naming it: The Not-A-Screamer ;)
31:17 Built Pedal Comparison with Breadboard
34:08 Contest/Giveaway Details and coupon code
35:24 Why would anyone do this?