Building Clone Guitar Pedals

When it comes to finding the best pedals for your rig, there's just no substitute to trying as many as you can in your own setup. The downside, especially for boutique models and sounds, is that it can be very expensive to experiment. So I'm trying my hand at building my own pedals instead. They're a lot less expensive and you can get boutique sounds by applying modifications that might cost you hundreds of dollars for a pro to do.

Soldering resistors for the first time was
easier than I thought.

My first go is with the Confidence Boost from BuildYourOwnClone.com which is a simple clean boost. I'm new to soldering, but it was easier than I thought. I had ordered the Starter Kit from BYOC, read a short article on how to solder, and cleared off some work space in the garage.

Using my brother-in-law's own Confidence
Booster worked great as an example.

I work best by example, so I was able to borrow a Confidence Booster from my brother-in-law who had built one some years ago. He had it put together in a pedal case with a knob, light, footswitch, power jack, etc. Knowing what it's supposed to look like in the end is really helpful. When I started mine, I didn't know how far to set the resistors in their solder holes. Looking at the example answered that.

Assuming I'm able to finish the pedal and have it work, there are a handful of other kits I'd like to try and see how they sound in my rig. Saving a few dollars and building my own is a good way for me to continue experimenting with new guitar sounds.