Why did you start to build?

[LaceSensor]

I saw a thread on Cheap and Easy DIY SHO over at a Telecaster forum.
Decided to give it a go and was hooked from there. This was January this year.

Ive gone on to do stuff I never even dreamed possible, and save for overtly complex and/or digital effects, I dont think ill buy another stomp box again. Far more satisfying to build one yourself.

[jkokura]

I started as a sort of experiment.

I had done tonnes of DIY stuff for my guitars in the past - tuning guitars, changing out speakers, simple mods on pedals, etc. I also had a fairly large Pedalboard I had built for myself full of pedals that you could call workhorses, or perhaps bang for buck.

I had at one time had an 82 tubescreamer that I just loved, but at one point I wasn't using it and sold if (making a tidy profit I might add) but soon regretted. I looked into the Fulldrive a couple years later but couldn't afford it.

Then one day I stumbled across General Guitar Gadgets. I thought I might be able to take the Tubescreamer project they had and mod it to build the fulldrive, but as I was researching this I discovered Tonepad and BYOC. I ordered a few boards from Tonepad, then got some BYOC kits, and joined up at DIYStompboxes when I couldn't make a couple of my Tonepad boards work. I got very involved over there for quite a while, I think I hit 1000 posts within a year or so.

It was at DIYStompboxes I was first introduced to madbean, in the form of the original PCB service Brian was doing. I remember him submitting a layout for the Silverfox/Barber LTD Silver just after Dave generously supplied that Schematic to the forum. I got in contact with Brian about some other projects, and then began to check into his website for updates on his projects, then when he launched up I was one of the early customers. I joined the Forum, and slowly migrated from DIYSB to here as my primary forum.

I love this stuff. DIY pedals has replaced playing for me really. I like to use these boxes, but it's as much if not more fun to actually be building and designing. Lord knows I spend many, many more times on the DIY stuff than I do on playing.

Jacob