Is the golden age over?

[Willybomb]

I have a stack of pedal ideas to finish up, but I'm beginning to think the golden age of building is probably over compared to the earlier twothousandteens.  Tagboard don't put out very many layouts anymore, every man and his dog is putting out PCBs of the classics and the better known pedals, and I've probably built all the clones of whatever I find interesting.

So, maybe it's just me.  I can certainly sympathise with the guys who are hanging up the soldering irons.

My next step would be to learn how to breadboard and come up with something I think is awesome, but I really don't have time.  Well, I probably do, but there's plenty of other things that I want/need to do, like put more time into the two bands I'm supposed to be in, work, be a good dad to my noisemaker, maybe get back into archery one day.

Interestingly, I have a couple of custom pedals ordered to work on.  Still, things aren't the same.  I'm certainly happy with the progress I've made in the last 9 years or so.

[thesmokingman]

I suppose those always pushing the learning curve will eventually hit a level where they've done it all.
I suppose those who just want to build the pedals they want will eventually hit a place where they've got all they want.
I suppose those who thought they were saving money have figured out they're getting their clocks cleaned with time costs and the increasing cost of a dwindling supply of raw materials.
If endless gear acquisition is your game, you will eventually run out of space.
I think the golden age is over for me because I'm some mixture of all of the above. It isn't as "exciting" anymore. I learn less each build. I'm comfortable with what I've got.
I think someone just entering diy is spoiled. They're certainly entering a golden age. There's more vendors, options, and knowledge out there than 10 years ago when I first started modding pedals and amps.

[chromesphere]

From a retail perceptive on the 'industry' i would actually disagree.  I cant talk about other stores, but I personally have never been busier.  Part of the reason im not on the forum as much these days, just trying to keep up with it all...

I agree, there are more pcb designers these days then 10 years ago, but i think thats more to do with the ease of fabrication and cheap cost to fabricate prototypes etc and accessibility more then anything.  Infact, it kind of confirms the hobby isnt slowing down.

Lastly, i recall seeing a thread on another forum, approximately 10 years ago, also announcing the end of the golden age (he used the same term).  But, we're still here

Just my 2 cents.

[Strassercaster]

10 years ago everyone was saying pedals are on the way out. then the boutique business exploded. It probably you /. I got into building 6 years ago I have made and sold a total of 270 pedals. last year I got burnt out . I only made 10 pedals the whole year and  turned down work . I am back into it now. I have a couple designs that are selling well. Its as much about the graphics these days as the tones. Joyo can clone the classics for 40 bucks or less and they are just as good in reality . its just a phase for you. there are some great new pedals to make. the pussy melter the new revv pedals.

i agree most stuff is a clone of a classic but there are still new designs coming out. playing more guitar is always a good idea. I have let my chops rust the last 6 years using the guitar time to make and sell pedals. take a break . I also wish i had time to waste breadboarding. i would love to make the first half od a shredmaster into the second half of a few dif  pedals just to experiment. Time flys ...part of this obsession with building pedals is chasing the tone. if you found the tone then play. I found several tones i could live with. I really love the pussy melter and the zendrive. i still have my old board with a boss SD1 sometimes i use it and im contenet that was my tone for 20 years

[EBK]

Through-hole parts are slowly disappearing as product manufacturers try to build ever-smaller gadgets.

Digital is becoming so cheap that is makes less and less sense to design new analog stuff.  For a small business, digital is cost prohibitive from a regulatory testing point of view.  (I hate to mention this as we all would very much like to pretend it doesn't exist)

The market is saturated with clones of clones of clones.  Even designs marketed as original are just tweaked clones of something.

Joyo can make anything cheaply and of acceptable quality. 

Once you factor in a reasonable monetary value of your design work and labor, pedal building becomes clearly unfeasible as a business. 

Note that none of the above statements are 100% true, strictly speaking, but there is enough truth to shape the reality of the world we build in.

Maybe the golden age is over, or maybe it isn't.  I think it's more of a very gradual, ongoing decline -- still a somewhat depressing thought.

I enjoy the hobby of building pedals by looking at everything else (mainly soft values).

Examples (just a personal list; not meant to suggest that these things should/could motivate everyone):

DIY allows you to be in charge of what mods and tweaks you do.

There is value in art (the thing that absolutely drives me the most).  This can be enclosure design and graphics, pedal naming, making beautiful PCBs, unique control schemes, making crazy non-musical sounds, growing chia plants on a pedal (just saying). 

There is satisfaction in building things from scratch.

There is value in learning how/why things work. 

There is value in being able to teach others.

There are many as of yet undiscovered pedal ideas out there (especially once you stop thinking in terms of fuzz, overdrive, etc.)

I can't think of a good way to end my rambling.   

[aion]

From a retail perceptive on the 'industry' i would actually disagree.  I cant talk about other stores, but I personally have never been busier.  Part of the reason im not on the forum as much these days, just trying to keep up with it all...

I agree, there are more pcb designers these days then 10 years ago, but i think thats more to do with the ease of fabrication and cheap cost to fabricate prototypes etc and accessibility more then anything.  Infact, it kind of confirms the hobby isnt slowing down.

Lastly, i recall seeing a thread on another forum, approximately 10 years ago, also announcing the end of the golden age (he used the same term).  But, we're still here

Just my 2 cents.

Same boat here. I've grown about 40-50% each of the past couple of years and am almost to the point where I can do this full time - which means the floodgates will open for tons more interesting & complex projects. I've never been more excited to be doing this.

It could just be more that the demographics are changing - perhaps people are using Facebook and Instagram more than DIY-specific forums like this one. And today there is much better documentation for DIY projects than 10 years ago when you may have had little more than a veroboard layout to go off of.

So perhaps beginners have fewer questions, I don't know. But most of the time beginners will end up on forums trying to get a question answered - and then they'll get hooked and stay for the community. Fewer questions = less community.

[lars]

Yes, the golden age is over. You no longer can go onto parts sites and purchase vintage components for any reasonable amount. You can't go to flea markets or thrift stores and find anything electronics vintage, because people freak out and put big price tags on them thinking they have gold. Often times, the "boutique" version of something is about the same price as the original.
And then there is the never-ending "new" overdrives that sound exactly like the old overdrives with a different EQ setting. Maybe just buy an EQ pedal instead?

[mozz]

You have to look at this too, there are antique radio forums where the guys still find, restore, collect radios that are 100 years old now. There's new people joining yet a lot of the guys are in their 70's, a bit older than me being 57. So maybe we are good until 2065.

I don't know where you're at with the flea markets, but they are the most productive for old stuff for me here in PA. I just got some old medical equipment, some handmade engineering test stuff, some other odds and ends, some full of tubes,  some germanium, others was loaded with 100 LF356 and TL074's.

Back close to 20 years ago i was collecting wooden tube radios, now they are getting scarcer and of course the price is gone up. I think many flea market sellers don't care to investigate deeply what they are selling as electronics and that stuff is way over their heads. They want to bring home a few extra dollars and a cabinet full of resistors or caps is worth selling for $10 so they don't have to lug it there next weekend. Sometimes it's overpriced.

I myself have been tempted to have pcb's made in China for old designs. Of all the ones i have bought, i think very few have had any insight into the customer wanting to use a actual full sized old carbon comp resistor, or a full sized axial capacitor. I have seen a few that would allow different transistor pinouts which is nice. I used to do Autocad designs for audio amps with layouts and schematics and would actually like to start doing it again. You can make pads for tiny resistors inside the size you need for a bigger resistors. Just my rant on that.

[alanp]

If anything'll kill diy pedals, it'll be when resistors and caps all go to SMD.

[benny_profane]

It could just be more that the demographics are changing - perhaps people are using Facebook and Instagram more than DIY-specific forums like this one. And today there is much better documentation for DIY projects than 10 years ago when you may have had little more than a veroboard layout to go off of.

So perhaps beginners have fewer questions, I don't know. But most of the time beginners will end up on forums trying to get a question answered - and then they'll get hooked and stay for the community. Fewer questions = less community.

To this point, I just wanted to add my perspective. I've been building for about a year. I'm young, but am not super into social media. I still like phone calls and email. Forums are great (this one in particular), but do seem a little antiquated in today's internet. I don't know if most young people getting into building would think first to get involved with a forum like I would. Rather, maybe searching the web (including forum posts)/relying on (fantastically thorough) build instructions for process, then just sorta throwing pictures or builds out into the world via social media. That's not a great way to have a dialogue about learning, though.

With forums, there's so much knowledge already there that is searchable. Beginners can find many answers that way. Also, many people may build for a bit, or only casually, and not become engaged in a building community. A lot of regular posters have been around for awhile. I know it can seem daunting to post 'simple' questions because there's a search function and it may seem like a lot of basic questions are things that people that have been around for awhile have moved past already. People may not want to feel like they're wasting people's time by asking basic questions; posting a question and getting crickets can be discouraging. That's not to imply that forums are not welcoming to new folks, they (and MBP in particular) certainly are. But all of those things taken together might be something. Look at the ratio of forum guests to members at any one time and you'll see plenty more guests.

[Manc]

If anything'll kill diy pedals, it'll be when resistors and caps all go to SMD.

I am pretty sure when SMD will be all people can find, DIYers will embrace it and develop new skills.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

*** PERSONAL OPINION ALERT ***

The golden age is over (or just about) because of saturation. Everybody and their brother are slapping "company logos and names" on a build before they even warmed up the soldering iron for the first time. Too many people out there fighting for a quarter.

I've lost count of how many times I have seen someone post here or other DIY forums looking for build help with a 2 or 3 post count, sporting pictures of an OD, fuzz, boost, etc. with a cool company logo on their pedal. 

[jimilee]

And, you can only build so many overdrives before you run out of stuff to build. Millennials aren't interested in DIY for the most part, they're a pretty disposable generation. Don't build it or fix it, buy it and replace it.


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[pickdropper]

And, you can only build so many overdrives before you run out of stuff to build. Millennials aren't interested in DIY for the most part, they're a pretty disposable generation. Don't build it or fix it, buy it and replace it.


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I'm not sure I agree with this.  Plenty of Millennials are tweaky DIY types.  Just look at the growth in the whole "maker" industry.  Point of entry is so much easier than it used to be and there is so much information out there.  The question is whether or not the vast majority of Millennials are into guitar effects.  That could very well have a different answer.

I think the biggest change these days is motivation for getting into pedal building is somewhat different.  Many of us started in the golden age of boutique pedal companies.  The idea of building some of these cool, expensive circuits ourselves was a huge draw, especially when there weren't lower cost alternatives in the marketplace.

These days, there are so many more entry points for purchasing pedals, particularly when you include the cheaper Asian produced options.  Some folks will just get the cheaper offerings instead of learning to produce their own.  Still, some will learn to build once they realize that they can build their own with better quality than the import pedals and lower cost than the higher end boutique type options.

I think it feels like the golden age is over because so many of the regular posters here have been at it for so long that we're personally saturated.  I know that I build far less for myself than I used to, mainly because I have 9 pedalboards already (and pedals to spare).  Occasionally I'll need something for a particular setup or I'll want to try something new, but I've built a lot.  In my spare time these days, I really want to build more guitar amps or hifi gear.

When folks build long enough, they either end up building for other people or need to take a little recuperation time to focus on other things.  Thus is the nature of hobbies, really.

[Muadzin]

For me building pedals was a way to get expensive vintage or boutique pedals on the cheap. As I didn't have a whole lot of money back then. For a while it became a fun hobby, building stuff just for the sake of building stuff. And I really do like to build stuff. It's primal, the feel is great, it's relaxing, it SO beats working in an office. I think we humans are meant to build things as a species, not shuffle paper or bytes around. That stuff just kills the human soul.

But after a while there's only so many pedals you really need, so many overdrives or fuzzes you can build before they all start to sound the same. It's good that there are more and more PCB's being sold, great for you guys selling them. It's good that more and more parts are being sold, great for you vendors, especially you, Chromesphere. I always enjoyed ordering from you. But you can still move more volume and no longer be in a golden age. Maybe the golden age was one of creativity, when people came together and tried build something together. And now that something is flourishing, but that creative spark is no longer there? Like a startup that was new and exciting in the beginning, and now has become a business, that makes more money then ever, but the creatives have moved on, or settled in a business hierarchy and it just became a company like all the others?

I also think that SMD will be a major game changer. Being able to get started with through holes was easy for me, but it still terrified most people that I know. I can't imagine this hurdle becoming any easier when all the through holes have been replaced with SMD. Quite the opposite in fact. It might be that DIY pedal building will change from what we do now, assembling everything onto a pcb and then into a pedal, into installing pre soldered SMD pcb's into a pedals, or multi FX pedals. That would make things easier for newbies, turning it from full DIY pedal building into more IKEAing your own pedal.