Why did you start building?

[irmcdermott]

I don't know if we have a thread like this yet.... but I'm curious about what got everybody started in this hobby/addiction.

I'll go first, and my apologies, as this will be long winded....

For me it was kind of out of necessity. I started playing guitar when I was 9 years old, and then picked up a bass in my freshman year of high school (story behind that one was that I wanted to play guitar in the school Jazz band, but was late for auditions and they already filled that spot. so the teacher handed me a bass and said "here, just remember All Cows Eat Grass for the bass clef and go for it"). Still focused on guitar, then went off to college.

Played guitar in a couple of bands while in college, until one day when all of my pedals, and my amp were all stolen from a rehearsal space that was on campus. Being a college kid, I had no money to replace the gear, nothing was insured, I was screwed. I borrowed gear from friends for a while and then that band disbanded. Around the same time some good friends of mine kicked their horrible guitar player out, their bassist moved to guitar (and is incredible), and they asked me to play bass for them. The band owned the whole bass rig, so it was no cost for me. Did that with those guys for 4 years, then left and moved to Nashville, now focusing on bass. At this time the zVex Woolly Mammoth was going for like $350, and I wanted one, but now I'm newly married, right out of college, living in Nashville, in a sketchy part of Nashville, painting apartments to barely pay my bills while pursuing music. Just didn't have the money.... but I had spent hours soldering cable in college for our schools recording studios, so I was just curious, "can I make one? maybe it'll be cheaper. worth a look."

Hop on Google to search for a schematic. I find one on analogguru's site. Then I discover DIYSB and smallbear and add everything to a cart, and it was like $35 with everything but a circuit board. I was floored. "That's all that it is? Holy..."

Attempted a vero layout based on analagguru's schematic.... fail. Find FSB and Brian's Sabertooth layout. He may not remember this, but I emailed him a ton of noob questions, multiple times, and he kindly replied every time and answered. Ordered some tiny drill bits, bought some PCB etchant and cooper clad from Radio Shack, grabbed a magazine and an iron, and etched my first board, and eventually built my first pedal. The rest, as they say, is history.

I love this hobby, not just for the money it has saved me in gear, but also for the sense of accomplishment I get each time I fire up a pedal, and really for allowing me to build my guitar rig back up and start playing my first love again. I'm forever grateful for this community.

I'd love to hear your story.

Cheers everyone.

Ian

[micromegas]

I only wanted a Zendrive....

Cool story btw. I've never been stolen an isntrument, but that has to feel like shit.

I have been playing classical guitar since I was 7,and when I started to play electric at 16 I only had an awful Behringer amp and a 70EUR Storm guitar that was really uncomfortable and didn't sound right. So I invested all (and I mean ALL) my savings in getting proper gear during the first years.

By the time I discovered what a pedal was I didn't have a cent My first pedal ever was my beloved Timefactor that my gf bought me in 2011. After that, I started to build the rest of my pedalboard, one pedal at a time.

[juansolo]

Always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Regretted not doing it when I was a kid. Bought a guitar, thought 'stompboxes look fun and I can solder', built a BYOC kit... Kind of forgot about learning to play the guitar and went on to build a couple of hundred pedals.

It all goes back to the fact that I like building stuff and the satisfaction of doing that. As a kid I made stuff out of Lego and Meccano. Advanced on to R/C cars and the like (enjoyed building them, never really did anything much with them afterwards, ran them a couple of times...). When I learned to drive my cars had little electronic projects in them. Then I discovered beer and going out, and that all went out of the window for a while. Got a job doing computer stuff that when it was technical and creative, I loved. As soon as it became procedural and dumbed down, I lost interest.

I discovered making effects probably around the same time my job started turning to shit. It was an outlet for my need to do build things, and I'm still there at the moment. I don't know why, but it just seems to suit me and I'm very comfortable/content with it.

Impressive, that's pretty much the Life of Juan aged 4 to 42.

[playpunk]

Bought a "boutique" pedal that had some problems. Opened it up and looked inside and thought "I can do this." Took a deep breath and ordered some boards from Brian, some parts from Mammoth, and gave it a shot.

I like knowing how stuff works, and I find it rewarding to actually make something. I like practicing, but a pedal is something you can start and finish and it is done, unlike music, which is a process.

[copachino]

Always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Regretted not doing it when I was a kid. Bought a guitar, thought 'stompboxes look fun and I can solder', built a BYOC kit... Kind of forgot about learning to play the guitar and went on to build a couple of hundred pedals.

It all goes back to the fact that I like building stuff and the satisfaction of doing that. As a kid I made stuff out of Lego and Meccano. Advanced on to R/C cars and the like (enjoyed building them, never really did anything much with them afterwards, ran them a couple of times...). When I learned to drive my cars had little electronic projects in them. Then I discovered beer and going out, and that all went out of the window for a while. Got a job doing computer stuff that when it was technical and creative, I loved. As soon as it became procedural and dumbed down, I lost interest.

I discovered making effects probably around the same time my job started turning to shit. It was an outlet for my need to do build things, and I'm still there at the moment. I don't know why, but it just seems to suit me and I'm very comfortable/content with it.

Impressive, that's pretty much the Life of Juan aged 4 to 42.

thats like pretty much my life so far, and yes i share the same, building stuff its amazing, i build pedals even if i have that pedal, but i need to build something when i see an a amazing layout, even if i dont need that pedal, i still build it, there its nothing better than build a pedal and make it sound.

[culturejam]

Mostly it was just sheer curiosity. I was never a pedal guy. Rackmount stuff was popular when I was learning to play. My guitar teacher discouraged me from using effects at all. His advice to me was "Focus on getting good at guitar. Then you can worry about pedals." So I followed that advice for a long time.

Then I happened to hear about BYOC, and that was all it took.

[jkokura]

I started modding before building, but I started building because I couldn't afford to buy the pedals I wanted to have. So, in reverse logic, I sold what I did have to pay for what I needed to build stuff to replace and add. Didn't go well, but I recovered and began to build more and more. Now I have so many pedals I look like I'm insane.

Jacob

[Cortexturizer]

I wanted a zvex machine, I couldn't afford one, ten I asked somebody for a clone and they offered a price that in hindsight hadn't been that high but pretty reasonable, so I reckoned I'll have some fun and try do it on my own. That was the only time that I have used the breadboard. I remember it driving me insane. Lately I've been having thoughts of returning to it some, because I wanna start doing things in Eagle/Diptrace

[GermanCdn]

I was always a pedal guy.  In 2008 I think I ordered a couple of GGG kits, cause I thought it would be cool to build a Keeley TS-9 and a Bluesbreaker.

When I moved to Germany in 2010, I needed a hobby that didn't occupy a lot of space.  Originally brought my fly tying kit with me, but there's only so many hundred fish hooks you can tie without actually going fishing, so that got a little old.  I found musikding kits on the web (for a ridiculously low price, like half of the of the GGG price), built myself a Zen Drive and an optical tremolo, was pretty happy with that.  Got kind of bored with the selection from musikding, so I did some searching and found MB. 

Ordered a pile of boards to save on the shipping, and the rest is a haze of solder fumes.

[midwayfair]

"Huh, that sounds mildly interesting."

[Luke51411]

I played the game of buying a lot of cheaper (boss mostly) pedals on ebay and selling the ones I didn't want. I saw a few listings with mods done to them, keely, monte allums, and others. I looked into it and got a Monte Allums kit coming. Did the mod and was so surprised when the pedal fired right up when I was finished and the weak buzzy sounding DS1 was now a Monster! I was hooked from there, I probably did 5-10 mod kits on boss pedals when I discovered GGG. I did a few of their kits, most worked a couple didn't. That was back in probably 2007-08 before I met my now wife. I had a long hiatus from pedals and I didn't play much guitar either. Then a little over a year ago I decided to get back into it as I had more time on my hands. I found DIYSB and then MB and off I went.
I thought... Hey I could sell all my commercial pedals and make a few bucks for what I can build new ones for... haha that worked for a couple months... Now I seem to have the need order so many new pcbs and then inevitable I don't have a component or two so I make an order for a bunch of components because... I gotta have stock so I don't have to do this next time. It's a vicious cycle... I love every minute of it and it has helped get me through some tough times.

[cooder]

I always have been into making things, building mechano kits and the like, hammering nails into tree huts etc.
My older brother brought a  beat up guitar home one day that a frined gave him as a thanks for help where my brother didn't want to accept payment.
He never took it up, I grabbed it and loved it straight away.
Bought a crappy electric guitar and amp in high school, got a few class mates together on a Monday, four nights practise, and on the following Saturday we played the first terrible but awesome fun gig on a party. Man did we think we were cool... 
Anyway, as I like to make things works against the odds I built an overdrive, I think out of Craig Anderton's book (that was the days before the internet... yes they existed...!).
Later hacked together guitars out of chunks of wood and learned A LOT by trial and error and also to improvise when the official expensive tools wasn't at reach.
It feels good to be able to do things, even when sometimes you've got one that goes in the not so brilliant box. It's still a win, somewhat, better than not having tried I think.
Years later getting back into it, with the power of the net there's so much info and help out there, amazing what quantum leaps pedal building has made in the last years.... I only got back into pedals and electronics a few years ago, felt good to have pedals that sound equal or better than the few production ones I had, feels good to play your handmade guitar through it. So next step of temptation was building an amp to make the chain complete. The first time I fired the Weber kit amp up that I built first I immediately afterwards sold my Fender HRD...
By now on amp number 11...
Fun fun fun...

[irmcdermott]

Love all these stories, keep 'em coming.

[jimilee]

I really wanted a good compressor and didn't have the good money to spend on one, bought a byoc opticomp, and here I am!


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[TNblueshawk]

Well, I didn't really know what a guitar pedal was before 2010. I was practicing acoustic guitar and while I had an electric I didn't do much with it. Finally I decided I wanted to do something with it. Big Gilmour fan so I said I wonder what his rig looks like, let me copy it because I didn't know what else to do and I landed on Bjorn's Gilmourish.com. So I'm diggin the info, I buy a Small Stone, EHX DMM, Rat, Electric Mistress etc... I even put a Weber Thames in my Fender HRD.

So I then read where Bjorn is talking about a BYOC Muff. Now, I knew what a muff was  but not in pedal form and what is BYOC? Google. Thought wow this is cool. What exactly is a resistor and a capacitor. Clueless but I built a BYOC British Blues OD and then built another 6 pedals, sold my production pedals and off I went.

So basically I started building because I could and I enjoyed it. I've always built things (not electronics) so it was in me.