wish me luck

[jessenator]

My neighbor heard from my bragging wife that I make guitar pedals and after months of dragging my feet (and recovering from illness and surgery), I'm finally accepting his invite to demo for his high school guitar class. tomorrow

Never mind that some of those kids likely play better than me...  I'm excited and nervous.



(Amp)--------|
|---------(git)

Degenerator; Glass Hole; Fraudhacker; Pork Barrel
Runt; Mudbunny; Sardine Tin; Bumblebee

It may but be a surprise, but this is the first time I've set up a pedal board. Borrowed the physical board from a friend, along with a few pedals that I didn't have ready (Pork Barrel, Runt, and Mudbunny). I've got a good assortment, I think. about all I can fit! I wanted to put a Moodring after the Degenerator and a cupcake at the front...

Hopefully the signal chain is what it should be. I'll welcome any feedback that may come in the next 12 hours 

[lars]

Never mind that some of those kids likely play better than me...  I'm excited and nervous.

I wouldn't worry at all about that since you're really there to display pedal building. Have a screwdriver on hand to open your pedals up to show the inner workings. Have some schematics printed off to show what's going on. Maybe you could even bring a pcb and demonstrate soldering a few components in. That will be educational.
If they wanted guitar playing, some dude with an acoustic could just sit there and play some boring scales really fast. Anybody can see that. Show them the stuff they don't get to see.

[jessenator]

I wouldn't worry at all about that since you're really there to display pedal building. Have a screwdriver on hand to open your pedals up to show the inner workings. Have some schematics printed off to show what's going on. Maybe you could even bring a pcb and demonstrate soldering a few components in. That will be educational.
If they wanted guitar playing, some dude with an acoustic could just sit there and play some boring scales really fast. Anybody can see that. Show them the stuff they don't get to see.

Thanks for the insights. I completely spaced actually talking about those details of pedal building. Definitely going to go over a simple -ish circuit in schematic form and maybe I'll bring a breadboard and some parts to play with.

I have a load of empty, bad (designed) PCBs I'll give out just for kicks, since I don't have surplus picks, and they might have some already.

[jessenator]

Well I think it was a success. Small class, which was nice. Even had one guy stick around after to witness live breadboard debugging

Definitely got lots to improve (the other guitar teacher wants me to come in in the Fall...), but overall it was fun, and they mostly enjoyed it.

[Bio77]

That's super cool     Sounds like fun.

[lars]

Sounds like it went well. On the next one, maybe incorporate some trouble-shooting skills, which is really the most valuable thing you learn with soldering. How to fix instrument cables, broken solder joints on jacks, bad stomp switches, etc. Stuff they will definitely see a benefit to knowing.

[jessenator]

That's super cool     Sounds like fun.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm not TED talk material by any means, but it was fun.

Sounds like it went well. On the next one, maybe incorporate some trouble-shooting skills, which is really the most valuable thing you learn with soldering. How to fix instrument cables, broken solder joints on jacks, bad stomp switches, etc. Stuff they will definitely see a benefit to knowing.

That could be cool and useful. I'll have to get their thoughts on soldering (lead, fumes, etc.)

[blearyeyes]

Sounds like it went well. Cool thing to do..

[lars]

I'll have to get their thoughts on soldering (lead, fumes, etc.)

Give them the truth. Lead solder = good.
RoHS compliant lead-free solder = fix it again and again and again which exposes you to more fumes, burns, and malfunctioning pcbs that cause electrical fire hazards, etc.