Dunno how you guys do it. Size matters.

[Willybomb]

Seriously, I've built a couple of pedals now, but I have a couple of fairly ambitious multi builds that I want to box coming up.  I've previous put an SHO and a 1 knob fuzz in a BB, and that was fairly easy, but I'm looking at the DD and going ".... man, I just don't know.  It's starting to look a a little small".

I don't have that much going into it, really - just 5 knobs for a comp, fuzz, preamp, and a balanced out, but I think it's still going to be tight....

[alanp]

Have a go, and if it doesn't fit, chalk it up as a learning experience.

If you're a decal kinda person (like Juan, as opposed to a lazy, bare-metal person like me), you can always drill new holes later and cover the old ones up with a flashy decal.

[Droogie]

Planning, planning and more planning. Tight is okay—figure out which wires need to go around pots, allow for other obstructions etc. Start with overly long wires so you have extra length to work with if needed. Try to remember not to drill the box backwards—or at least make up a plausible excuse when you do. 

As with anything, your skills improve with experience. My first multi was an obscene mass of spaghetti, but it worked. Each one gets better in some way. Repeat the process enough times and it can look like something approaching the builds you see the really accomplished guys create. That is how they got to be so good at it.

[pickdropper]

Yeah, planning is key.

- Figure out where you generally want the individual effects to go in the box.
- Mock it up with hardware to make sure nothing interferes
- Drill the box, or emulate the box with a piece of cardboard or wood
- Mount the circuits and measure out the wire runs one at a time.

It really helps if you go slow and plan.  I suspect that I build slower than most folks, so there are obviously faster ways of doing it that still yield good results.

[juansolo]

What they've all said. I do loads of planning in Photoshop. I try and get scale print outs of the PCBs and move them around. I experiment, print out, see how it works with the actual boards in the box, and when I'm sure, only then do I drill.

The planning takes by far the longest amount of time with multi builds. But it will make the actual construction of the effect much, much, much easier if you know how it all goes together before even touching the box.

My first ever multis (the Alice's) aren't the prettiest things inside. But they were planned... I'm just better at it now.

[Willybomb]

Well, I've certainly been doing plenty of planning in photoshop.  I got the hardware libraries and and went nuts.  It actually started out as a 1590B and got larger as I decided to add more bits... anyway, I like the idea of measuring up the veros.  Maybe I should do that too...