DIY Guitar Pedals

dirtychinchilla · 14 Aug 2017 at 07:37

Morning everyone,

I've got a couple of weeks off work coming up, and I'll be stuck in the house so I'm thinking that I might have a go at putting a pedal together.

I bought one years ago, and managed to **** that up somehow - I think I overheated the capacitors when I was trying to solder - so it's never worked.

The pedal that I'd really like to try and replicate is the Dunlop Rotovibe, which I think is awesome. I was also thinking of maybe doing some sort of tube screamer as well, for a little extra kick.

Has anyone had a go at either of these pedals? Any recommendations on where to buy from? I can't, for the life of me, remember where the last one I bought was from.

Cheers!

dirtychinchilla

Tk7 · 14 Aug 2017 at 15:28

I've made over a hundred pedals over the years, and i'd recommend http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/ for layouts, and bitsbox.co.uk for parts. I also get stuff from tayda from time to time but the delivery is a couple of weeks.

I haven't made a rotovibe clone but i've made a few tube screamer variants. To be honest I never found any of them that much different to the original, so I just made a TS9 clone. I do tend to use an OCD or Klon Centaur clone more then anything else for overdrive though.

If you wanted any premade boards, look at http://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/ I've bought quite a few from them and they are very good quality.

dirtychinchilla · 15 Aug 2017 at 12:31

Oh wow, that's pretty impressive. I don't think I'm going to be able to do any layouts etc at this stage, I'm a couple noob. I was looking more at kits at this point.

I'm definitely going to get the TS9 clone from Pedalparts. Just one question - is the OptoPuss optical bypass just a true bypass thing? Obviously I'd rather have true bypass where possible.

Have you made anything similar to the Rotovibe? Do you think a tremolo pedal would create a similar effect? I'm thinking of doing a couple of pedals at this point as I'm unlikely to use them that much - probably just set up the rotovibe type thing and leave it on.

Tk7 · 15 Aug 2017 at 14:23

It's quite addictive once you start, especially when you realise that for most pedals there's no secret ingredient, it's all off the shelf components (granted, some use harder to find or expensive op-amps or diodes but they still aren't too expensive). The kits from bitsbox use the layouts from tagboardeffects so they're a really good place to start. I also use the website sabrotone for reference of the wiring diagrams, there's also a few other layouts on there too.

The octopuss is exactly that, it uses an optocoupler instead of the more standard way of using a 3PDT footswitch. The switches the octopuss uses are a little nicer feeling, but the whole thing seems a bit unnecessary to me. I've always gone for the normal 3PDT method (these are cheap in bulk, like from Tayda, but can be expensive in the UK).

I haven't made anything quite like the rotovibe, it's a chorus type effect and not really like a tremolo. There's some univibe layouts out there and that's close to the sound, albeit in a different form factor to the rotovibe. Check out the tri-vibe board from the pedalparts store. That and the TS9 would be a good couple of projects to start with. I've housed similar setups in one enclosure before, to simplify the wiring etc.

dirtychinchilla · 15 Aug 2017 at 15:09

Yeah well if you can just build anything you feel like, then I can imagine! I obviously don't have those skills yet, but I'd love to be able to build whatever I want. I'm quite impressed that people are just cloning pedals as they need them hah.

So do these pedals have true bypass on the whole? I don't quite understand what the octopuss does - is it literally just a lighter feel? At the end of the day your stamping on it so it can't matter that much!

I'll definitely be making the tri-vibe and the TS9, they both look great. Is it possible to buy a pre-made enclosure like you can get for the rotovibe? I'm not actually clear on how it works. It looks like you can vary the level of chorus with the pedal - is that right?

Tk7 · 15 Aug 2017 at 23:10

I'd say the majority of pedals are probably true bypass these days, but all Boss pedals are buffered. A buffer isn't a bad thing as such and it can help with signal and tone if you have a lot of pedals, but some pedals need the high impedance of the guitar output to work properly (a lot of fuzz pedals), and not the low impedance output of a buffer.

The opto switcher is just a fancy way of performing a true bypass. A lot of the 2PDT switches out there do feel a little bit nicer in use then the clunky feeling/sounding 3PDT switches. There is also a method called the milennium bypass that uses a 2PDT switch to perform the bypass.

I should add that you can have a perfectly true bypassed pedal just using a two pole footswitch, the 3rd pole is only required to switch the on/off LED.

I haven't seen any wah style enclosures on the suppliers I use but there are some available from buildyourownclone.com - they are expensive though ~$50. The rocker controls the speed of the effect, the rotovibe has a pot on the side to control the intensity.

Good luck with the pedals anyway, let me know how you get on!