In the last few years of designing and building pedals, I have followed a natural progression to get better at this craft. First it was building kits, then moving on to buying PCB’s and sourcing my own parts, up to designing my own PCB’s. It was when I started designing my own boards, that I really felt like I could take off with this custom pedal thing.
There were a few things that I knew I needed to take care of before I was able to confidently be where I want to be in my pedal making. The first was to create unique circuits in unique form factors. Check. The second was to incorporate those designs into a PCB of my own making, making them easy enough to assemble and using thoughtful features like soft-touch relay bypass. Check. Thirdly, they circuits needed to sound good. Check.
The area where I always lagged behind was in pedal finishing. As much as sound is important when buying pedals, often we hear first with our eyes. You could have the best sounding pedal in the world, but if the visuals aren’t up to snuff, nobody will take a chance on it. I have been through a few iterations of pedal finishing over the years. The method I used for years and was good enough at the time was just using regular clear sticker paper and an acrylic clear spray paint. For many years, I was happy with the look and durability of this. It was good, just not good enough. About 2 years ago, I started experimenting with vinyl on my pedals. I would print a design on a vinyl sticker and apply a clear vinyl sheet over it as protection. This was a total step up from the sticker paper and clear coat that I had been using before. It looked worlds better than what I had been using. I didn’t have to use spray-paint anymore and it dramatically cut down on the time it took to finish an enclosure. It looked good, just not quite good enough….
That leads me to where I am today. I knew to move to where I want to be, I had to really up my game in the finishing department. I decided that the best way for me to do that was to invest in a laser engraver. After having and playing around with the laser for about 6 months, I can finally say that my pedals are where I want them to be.
Part of changing the way I do things in the finishing department is looking back at where I have been and think to myself “If I knew then what I know know.” So that has lead to the process of going back through my old pedals, and refurbishing them to my current standards. That means going through dozens of old circuits, unboxing them, powder coating the enclosure and etching new artwork on them. It is a lot of work to do, but the results are definitely worth it in the end.
This is a truly DIY process for me. I want to be hands-on in all aspects of what I do. I design my boards, I program my chips, I do all my soldering by hand, I drill all my enclosures, I powdercoat all my boxes, I deign my artwork and I etch all enclosures by hand. I love the process of being able to take essentially nothing…. some resistors and capacitors, a chunk of metal box and create something that people can use to make wonderful music with.
A recent weekend worth of powder coating and etching