I'm only a few months into pedal building and I've never heard a more reassuring phrase than "This is the part of the build where things start disappearing." It feels like at some point your parts and tools just sprout legs and toddle off and it's nice to know it's not just me.
Haven't gotten into pedal building, but I have assembled things before with small parts and one tip is to use small containers to categorise and keep things in. That way, when those small containers sprout lets and go walk-abouts, at least you'll have the peace of mind that the little pieces aren't alone.
Josh, never change please. your inspirational. it's not just a business. it's a passion. sharing knowledge is a privilege for both parties. It's how we grow.
Thank you Josh for the free pedal! Chose the 3-Series Fuzz, of course. Watching you solder was really helpful...I see what I've been doing wrong. Thanks!!!! Great content... more please!
we actually learned in electronic school you shouldnt bend the legs underneath on the solder side because if you need to chage something its pain in the ass and the solder doesnt flow as parallel
Josh you have literally impacted my life today, I watched from beginning to end. Yes, I took a 3 hour nap with my wife halfway through because it really is ASMR. But I finished it and I was SO EXCITED to hear how quickly you could change the sound of the fuzz, and once I saw you go through the bin of capacitors and continium transfunctioners I lost my marbles. I knew I was going down a beautiful, colorful, spiky, rabbit hole filled with unsoldered resistors and transistors and insistors and desistors and prosisters covered in germanium gelatin. I have a small shopping cart on amazon with a work mat, a soldering iron (a decent one) and some solder and remover wick. I just wanna find a cool pedal and build my first one. It also got me curious about modifying my pickups, and then I saw a video of another guy making a pedal with 12 oscillating capacitors on it to help change the tone of the guitar pickups. Alice, I will find you in Pedal Wonderland!!!!
Josh is truly a gift to humanity! His desire to share his passions and his humble nature make it easy and enjoyable to watch. Guess that makes me a nerd! 🤓
Using a multimeter to test the resistors is essential for those of us with red/green colorblindness. It can be really difficult to discern the different colors of the bands.
I have a little fixture made for this exact purpose. It's basically a bit of PCB with 2 copper lands with banana plug leads soldered to them so as I go I can just touch a resistor off the pads, get a reading and carry on. Much handier than dealing with probes.
Just stumbled into this video; not sure how I missed it when it was first posted, but IT’S FASCINATING! I’m a civil engineer, so I’d say I’m fairly intuitive and mechanical, but electronics have always intimidated me. When I initially saw the parts for this build, I thought, yep, no way I could do that. But Josh has such an awesome way of explaining everything, and then to be able to actually watch him doing it, is just so cool! Now I want to build a pedal! Seriously. On a related note, I have the Notaklon solderless pedal on pre-order and was a bit concerned about whether I could put it together. Not anymore. Thanks Josh, you are an awesome teacher!
I've been breadboarding fuzzes all week so this is just lovely! I'd love to know more about substituting components, and identifying the different stages of a schematic! Thanks for the tone wisdom
Equipment suggestion: You could use an Ipad (or non apple equivalent) to take a photo of the small component in front of you so you would instanly have a 10" picture of it you could point at various parts with human sized fingers. You could then just put the ipad out of shot and come back to it later if you think of another point or have another tiny component. Or a dedicated Tiny Objects camera with a Tiny Table and Wee Pointy Stick
This was awesome. Thank You. For such a long time I have been going back and forth (contemplating) on trying my hand at kit pedals or kit amps. I really hope this becomes a series and goes into deep dives on component selection, easy modifications for swapping components, etc. Thank you for the content!
This couldn't be more perfectly timed I recently ordered a book on electronic circuitry so I could start learning how to modify or even build pedals thanks to the inspiration you, this channel, and your amazing team have given me
Firstly, I love this content so I'm glad you're doing this. Secondly those instructions from Stu Mac are so visually easy to read, use and are super informative. Congratulations to their team for that.
Thanks for your humility! It's honestly great seeing you do this in real time and make a mistake. Very relatable and validating for me as I create plenty of mistakes too
I absolutely loved this episode!! Not only was it great to watch you build a pedal but it was really great to see you work through any of the minor hiccups you ran into and watch you troubleshoot them. Thank you soooo much!! Can't wait to see the next episode!!!
I am so freaking into this! I'm a flight simulator technician, I've worked on several military platforms and worked at the FAA's flight standards research and development platform where I was the lead tech. I've wanted to learn to build pedals forever. Thank you so very much for doing this. I hope you'll get way deep in the weeds on how to build great pedals. Edit: spelling
Could be my favourite video thus far - I've been watching a couple of years now, it's definitely a favourite anyway. More please Josh, this was fascinating and really encouraging.
I really appreciate you making this video, Josh. As someone interested in learning how to create my own DIY pedals this has been a great resource. It helps a lot to see how different people approach their workflow and this makes the idea of creating my own pedals much less intimidating. I hope you will consider making more of these kinds of videos, I really learned a lot and enjoyed it. It's incredibly helpful to see a tutorial from an industry professional such as yourself.
I bought this kit a couple of months ago and it's been sitting on my dresser because I've been a little intimidated to jump into it. So excited to build this along with you
Hey Josh, I've been into diy electronics since I was 13 years old, I'm 54 years old now, and have quite a bit of experience in building diy fx pedals, one pedal I built is a custom UniVibe pedal which includes an added 3-position voicing switch and an external speed-controller socket, as well as led status indicators for the bypass and Chorus/Vibrato footswitches, I also have a red Jim Dunlop JD-F2 Fuzz Face that has a genuine Jim Dunlop JH-F1 Turquoise Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face PCB installed in it, sounds great.
I coached my nephew through the build of the Ghost drive several months ago and came out great and he wanted me to coach him on the fuzz face about a month ago. Went for the smoke test and nothing on the pedal but we did get tone thru on bypass. Had a big voltage drop right off the get go using my dvm. He was discouraged and i proceeded to unsolder the power connector so I could remove the guts from the enclosure. I touched up a few solder connections before doing that to no avail. Upon close inspection I could see the tone pot was touching one side of the diode and the solder connection was pretty high so cut that down and told him to put another piece of the insulation tape in the small area where there was none. Temporarily hooked up the power jack and tested outside the case. Worked so reassembled and did the listen to bias but don’t know much about that. I liked your using the transistor bases so you can try different ones. I bought a couple for when I do my fuzz face. I’m also going to top mount the two trim pots and put a small voltage gauge in between for the bias so I can always go back to a certain setting. Great video I skipped past the build part to where you started testing. I’m going to be looking for the bread board fuzz build. Cheers!!!
I just got to tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time (as busy as you must be running your company) to educate the masses about this interesting and very rewarding hobby. You my friend are a true believer and King of pedal lore!
This is the best reality show that I've ever watched. Organic & Natural. That is a good band name too. Your wife and Belle play a huge role in this episode. At last, we believe that you're a human.
Two things that make me cautious about jumping into pedal kits: #1 missing parts #2 defective parts This video makes it real tempting - I don't even need a pedal. That Transistor Wizardry is way cool! 😎
Oh yes! Thanks man, I bought a fuzz face clone kit for Christmas and not even taken it out of the bag yet due to time constraints. Now I'm inspired again
I got my jack wiring upside down on a pedal build recently. I didn’t stay calm… looked at the circuit multiple times over the next few days trying to find a bad solder joint. The relief when I finally worked it out!
Cannot wait for the breadboard episode! Thats where I'm stuck, somewhere between schematic and breadboarding. Also, talking to one self while creating is essential! Thanks, Josh! 👾
Hi Julian! You aren´t from Sweden huh? The surname Holm is very common here in Sweden anyway... Would you like to tell more precise where you are stuck, with what? Is the breadboarding where it takes stop for you? When you are trying to take a schematic and put a circuit on the breadboard? Is it something specific that you have been trying to do but haven´t been able to overcome? Some circuit you cant get working? I wouldn´t mind to try to help you overcome the obstacles so you can keep on advancing to your next level with electronics. Getting stuck is so un-fun and bad for creativity so i would be glad to help you with your journey. I´m no electrical engineer but i have made the journey myself with building kits - building from stripboard/vero layouts - building from schematics - making my own schematics and circuits - designing and making my own PCB´s for pedals/synthesizer circuits. I feel like this hobby is the best thing thats ever happen to me, it has been so extremely fun. Everything about it. To learn, create, advance, trying, failing, troubleshooting, getting ideas on the bus i have to draw a sketch of immidiately and try as soon as i come home. It is so rewarding and healthy for the mind and soul. Challenging and interesting. Electronics is not easy. You WILL get stuck. What i like about it though is that you physically can track down and find the faults. It doesn´t give you a error-code like a computer "FaultErrorUpdate404.exe is computing process corruption, bios delete C:. Erase the Cat. Press Try Again!. If you get how i mean. If you have a short circuit for example, there will be a physical short somewhere on the 10x10cm board that you will be able to find, sooner or later. In the beginning there is a lot of headscratching when troubleshooting but the more you do it the better will you be at troubleshooting. You will be a lot faster and it will be a lot easier when you have methodical ways and a better overall understanding of circuits so you know where to look when a certain fault is showing its ugly face. As a beginner you have to just be persistent sometimes, find A way. Maybe not the best or fastest way but atleast you now have a way that you know will work for sure, get you to your goal. It´s a lot easier if you have someone to bounce your ideas off of and talk to when getting stuck, we learn a lot by putting word to our thoughts. So if you want someone to talk electronics with back and forth and maybe share our current projects and learn from each other you´re more than welcome to send me a e-mail or text me att fb or something. You can find my mailaddress and my name here on my youtube page. I´m curious where you are stuck :-). If anyone else reads this and wants to talk electronics, feel free to reach out!
Nothing you've ever done has got me more excited than when you announced doing this. I absolutely love this kind of content and I can't wait to see more. I'm a beginner guitar pedal builder with a few pedals built so far and many more in the works.
What a coincidence, I just recently bought a fuzz face clone kit off Etsy. Its gonna be my first build! It's nice to hear an industry professional talk more candidly about pedals/circuits/electronics. This can be a very overwhelming and daunting hobby to begin learning about but thanks for helping to clear up some of my stress and confusion! Excited to see more from this series.
Thank you for providing this demo video, Josh. I appreciate you taking the time to explain and show how different transistors effect the sound. Very interesting and informative.
THIS IS SO AWESOME i can't wait to learn more. How the different transistors made such a huge difference was so cool, I am impressed. I was looking for this kind of introduction to building pedals, so neat
I'm doing a few workshops on pedal building at my school. One of the options is a modded silicon fuzz face with the fuzz control replaced with a fixed resistor and a bias knob. We are using biscuit and chocolate tins as the enclosures. No circuit boards, just twisting components together, soldering, and praying.
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR DOING THIS JOSH! I HAVE, DREAMED, FOR A LONG TIME, ABOUT TRYING THIS BUT NEVER HAD THE GUTS TO TRY THIS.... BUT MAN, Your video goes me so much HOPE! When I finally get money again, I may go at this and get the same small Kit and wire it along with your video!! I really want to see the breadboard on the kit!!!!!!!!!!
G'day Josh, I'm enjoying your "How To" video. I'm about ½ way through so far, but I had to write you a note. You've just encouraged us to write, so here's some tips I have to share (although, I feel really silly telling you this). I made a couple of volume boxes & A/B switches where I made some mistakes. So I ended up making some new leads for my multimeter to help find the problems. I bought a few 6.35mm TS jacks, a bunch of ¼" banana plugs, some 2-core wire, & made up a few test leads to connect my DMM to the boxes. Here's what I made; 1- Single jack to 2 banana plugs. I wired up the tip to a red plug, & the sleeve to a black plug. When I use this lead in the box, select the Continuity Test, & test is negative, then the earth & positive are not connected. I can also use this lead to test pickups in guitars. 2- Single jack to single plug (4 off). I wired up the tip of 2 jacks to 2 red plugs, & the sleeves of 2 more jacks to 2 black plugs(single wires can be used). When I run a continuity test, 2 black plugs should test positive, & 2 red plugs should test positive on a by-pass circuit. 3- Finally, I've connected solid core wires to 2 banana plugs. The solid core wire should be sized to fit breadboard sockets. I can then use these to test my breadboard circuits for voltage, resistance, or continuity. I hope this helps someone out here in JHS-land. Once again, I am enjoying your video. Thanks for the great program. Please please please do not stop making them. I tell you what - if you promise to keep making these videos, I promise that I will not start my own pedal company to put you out of business. Or, in other words, I promise to use what I'll learn for niceness, instead of evil. Keep up the good work Andrew BTW, your desk is a mess, which is good to see. :)
I talk to myself constantly when I'm doing something. Fixing the car, cleaning the BBQ, building a kit RC car, anything where I'm concentrating on what I'm doing. I find it actually relaxes me and by basically talking out what I'm doing keeps me focused and less stressed
To me there are few things as reassuring as seeing someone with decades of experience still making the same mistakes a person with hours of experience makes. The beginner mindset is a powerful thing. Thank you for this format, and can't wait to follow along on more.
They're totally different mistakes that experts who don't need read the instructions make. Totally unrelated to the mistakes made by beginners who are simply too foolish to read the instructions. They just look very similar, ... if you're not an expert. For instance, all experts ignore the recommended order to install components. How can a piece of paper know more than we do?
I build my first pedal this year in march. I ordered a kit for a Fuzz Face clone and a DS-1. I didn't expect much, i never soldered something since university 15 years ago. I f****ed pretty much, but with a little reaserch i found my errors and fixed them. Now i'm totally hocked. Finished my 8th pedal today (ElectricDruid DigiDelay). Give it a try, it is a lot of fun.
Top job Josh. That's real life right there, own your mistakes and see it through to the end. Looking forward to the breadboard as I inherited a bag of fuzz face components in a box of bits that came with a fender body that I used to build a strat. There was also a 80's OD1 in bits that I managed to put together. Keep up the great work! Happily own an Angry-Driver pedal 👌 Cheers Adam
I'm most amazed by the fact that he still has his 10mm socket. Fun fact: as soon as you open and use a socket set there is a 90% chance that, when you put it away, a wormhole will open up and consume the 10mm and 9/16 sockets. They are whisked away to a pocket socket dimension where they spend all of eternity watching video of their previous enslavers searching for them.
19:43 I also socketed my transistors so I could try different ones. If you use the tiny pliers you have, you can angle the legs of the sockets to fit into the PCB
1: thanks for the tip on the Rocket Sockets - I use those for everything pedal and guitar wiring-related. 2: I’d love to see a workbench series exploring mods to pedals which are easily mod-able. I tried building a Klon replica, and made a lot of mistakes (don’t work tired, kids). I’m still unraveling them while I gather parts for a second round, but I see a number of things I need to do differently. Thanks for all your content, Josh!
YES!!! This is what ive been waiting for! I need that schematic, to breadboard, to build, all back to back so it all makes perfect sense. Unfortunately college isn't showing it like that currently, and it's all a mess when starting out. So many holes in the knowledge. Thank you Josh! Please continue.
Enjoyed your process. Thanks for showing how to make a mistake, and recover from it. Everybody had an opinion and a solution, and no idea what was really going on.
"I love this. If you're into this, you're a special kind of nerd. We could be friends." We could be friends. I can't even play guitar but I build pedals. Please keep this series going!
I used to buy Archer kits from Radio Shack in the early 70's. First kit was a 7 transistor radio. Second was a 3 channel color organ and the third was a strobe light. I had a TV repairman build my first fuzz/distorion pedal for me for $10.
learning so much from this video. i dont have any electrical engineering background our anything but i was glued to my screen. that socket thing with the transistors blew my mind.
I’m only a couple kit builds into the craft and I’ve been sitting on fuzz face components. I really want this project to turn out well and this video helped me feel ready to tackle this one. Thanks guys
I built drones for years, It's fun until $500 gets stuck in a tree. I sold them and bought a couple of cheap guitars, which I instantly modified and upgraded. My first build was a TUBE preamp for my board. It was fun, so now after 3 years, none of my guitars or pedals have gotten stuck in a tree. They don't fly away forever, and I don't have to go to a park to play my guitar. This is like a slice of heaven... Thanks for this Josh. I can't wait to get my NOTAKLON, so I'm going to order this fuzz and build it.
Fuzzes are such fun to build. I just started getting into pedal building and have built a few that I'm really proud of. Nothing special, single transistor with diodes.. but it's the sound I'm looking for. Looking forward to learning more through the series.
I was definitely falling asleep. It was like when I watched Bob Ross as a kid after school. But now its after work and staying up for 36 hours. I really enjoy the content.
I'm so glad I found your channel! I've wanted to get into pedal building and watching your channel has inspired me to do it. I want to learn everything possible.
Dude-thanks for teaching people how to catch their own fish.
Any time!
"Fishing is not that hard"
-R. Swanson
I'm only a few months into pedal building and I've never heard a more reassuring phrase than "This is the part of the build where things start disappearing." It feels like at some point your parts and tools just sprout legs and toddle off and it's nice to know it's not just me.
Love the last name, I'm Brian Heaney
Worry not. Happens to all of us. LOL.
Sometimes mine just falls into oblivion.
Haven't gotten into pedal building, but I have assembled things before with small parts and one tip is to use small containers to categorise and keep things in. That way, when those small containers sprout lets and go walk-abouts, at least you'll have the peace of mind that the little pieces aren't alone.
@@C33Fernandez Smart. The buddy system is a classic for a reason.
Josh, never change please. your inspirational. it's not just a business. it's a passion. sharing knowledge is a privilege for both parties. It's how we grow.
Thank you Josh for the free pedal! Chose the 3-Series Fuzz, of course. Watching you solder was really helpful...I see what I've been doing wrong. Thanks!!!! Great content... more please!
I think when that tool is in use, it should be called Carol Cam.
The Carol Clamp!@@davidpekarsky2977
we actually learned in electronic school you shouldnt bend the legs underneath on the solder side because if you need to chage something its pain in the ass and the solder doesnt flow as parallel
As someone who's just started building kits I love this
Yeah, I hate it too
As someone who has built kits I love this
I had to walk away from the live stream for a few minutes so it didn't let me vote on the poll.
My answer is YES. Please keep doing this series.
Josh you have literally impacted my life today, I watched from beginning to end. Yes, I took a 3 hour nap with my wife halfway through because it really is ASMR. But I finished it and I was SO EXCITED to hear how quickly you could change the sound of the fuzz, and once I saw you go through the bin of capacitors and continium transfunctioners I lost my marbles. I knew I was going down a beautiful, colorful, spiky, rabbit hole filled with unsoldered resistors and transistors and insistors and desistors and prosisters covered in germanium gelatin. I have a small shopping cart on amazon with a work mat, a soldering iron (a decent one) and some solder and remover wick. I just wanna find a cool pedal and build my first one. It also got me curious about modifying my pickups, and then I saw a video of another guy making a pedal with 12 oscillating capacitors on it to help change the tone of the guitar pickups. Alice, I will find you in Pedal Wonderland!!!!
I've built 3 Stew Mac kits and have 3 more to build. Absolutely a blast to build. Thank you for this video.
Just in time, I'm meeting a builder tomorrow to do my first build , a fuzz face circuit from scratch. This video is the perfect prep!
Josh is truly a gift to humanity! His desire to share his passions and his humble nature make it easy and enjoyable to watch. Guess that makes me a nerd! 🤓
Using a multimeter to test the resistors is essential for those of us with red/green colorblindness. It can be really difficult to discern the different colors of the bands.
I have a little fixture made for this exact purpose. It's basically a bit of PCB with 2 copper lands with banana plug leads soldered to them so as I go I can just touch a resistor off the pads, get a reading and carry on. Much handier than dealing with probes.
Good Lord this! They print tiny little numbers on other components, why can't they just put numbers on resistors?
Just stumbled into this video; not sure how I missed it when it was first posted, but IT’S FASCINATING! I’m a civil engineer, so I’d say I’m fairly intuitive and mechanical, but electronics have always intimidated me. When I initially saw the parts for this build, I thought, yep, no way I could do that. But Josh has such an awesome way of explaining everything, and then to be able to actually watch him doing it, is just so cool! Now I want to build a pedal! Seriously.
On a related note, I have the Notaklon solderless pedal on pre-order and was a bit concerned about whether I could put it together. Not anymore. Thanks Josh, you are an awesome teacher!
I've been breadboarding fuzzes all week so this is just lovely! I'd love to know more about substituting components, and identifying the different stages of a schematic! Thanks for the tone wisdom
Equipment suggestion: You could use an Ipad (or non apple equivalent) to take a photo of the small component in front of you so you would instanly have a 10" picture of it you could point at various parts with human sized fingers. You could then just put the ipad out of shot and come back to it later if you think of another point or have another tiny component.
Or a dedicated Tiny Objects camera with a Tiny Table and Wee Pointy Stick
Nice! Our guitar player is a modder and builder, and he's currently working on cramming a similar vintage fuzz into his Mustang.
Wow! This is SO helpful! Even after having built around 25 pedals, I still learned things watching Josh!
More, please!
This was awesome. Thank You. For such a long time I have been going back and forth (contemplating) on trying my hand at kit pedals or kit amps. I really hope this becomes a series and goes into deep dives on component selection, easy modifications for swapping components, etc. Thank you for the content!
Love the 80's opening, solid!
Ive been building for years and already see 5 things Im going to change in my process. Im gonna love this series.
This couldn't be more perfectly timed
I recently ordered a book on electronic circuitry so I could start learning how to modify or even build pedals thanks to the inspiration you, this channel, and your amazing team have given me
What book did you order? Would love to dig in as well
Firstly, I love this content so I'm glad you're doing this.
Secondly those instructions from Stu Mac are so visually easy to read, use and are super informative. Congratulations to their team for that.
Thanks, Josh!!! I had already built the same pedal. Wish I'd put in the transistor adaptors as you did to play around. Loved it!
Thanks for your humility! It's honestly great seeing you do this in real time and make a mistake. Very relatable and validating for me as I create plenty of mistakes too
I absolutely loved this episode!! Not only was it great to watch you build a pedal but it was really great to see you work through any of the minor hiccups you ran into and watch you troubleshoot them. Thank you soooo much!! Can't wait to see the next episode!!!
I am so freaking into this! I'm a flight simulator technician, I've worked on several military platforms and worked at the FAA's flight standards research and development platform where I was the lead tech. I've wanted to learn to build pedals forever. Thank you so very much for doing this. I hope you'll get way deep in the weeds on how to build great pedals.
Edit: spelling
Could be my favourite video thus far - I've been watching a couple of years now, it's definitely a favourite anyway. More please Josh, this was fascinating and really encouraging.
You’re the Bob Ross of pedal builders. "Change the transistors, it's your world"
😄👍
Look at all the happy little components!
Bob Ross of fuzz... who made a video about the Ross Fuzz... which made my head bob along to that song he played... coincidence?
Well maybe the Gary Shandeling of....
Josh thanks for doing this. It is important to show both being careful to follow directions but you also had the chance to demo troubleshooting.
Please keep this series going! I learned so much!!! Thank you Josh you are the GOAT!
The theme song and logo is outstanding!
Spectacular episode Josh!! I really enjoy this NERD-RAMA format of your shows. Looking forward to many more to come. Thanks!!!
Please make a thousand of these ones!!! I loved it and learned so much!!!
I build electronics professionally, but I've only made one pedal from a kit. This is super cool!
I really appreciate you making this video, Josh. As someone interested in learning how to create my own DIY pedals this has been a great resource. It helps a lot to see how different people approach their workflow and this makes the idea of creating my own pedals much less intimidating. I hope you will consider making more of these kinds of videos, I really learned a lot and enjoyed it. It's incredibly helpful to see a tutorial from an industry professional such as yourself.
Came for the Barney songs, stayed for the pedal build. This was beautiful therapy I didn't know I needed. Thank You Josh. 🥰🥰
I bought this kit a couple of months ago and it's been sitting on my dresser because I've been a little intimidated to jump into it. So excited to build this along with you
Josh, i LOVE this concept!
Real content warts and all, honesty & sincerity are wonderful traits 🙏
Hey Josh, I've been into diy electronics since I was 13 years old, I'm 54 years old now, and have quite a bit of experience in building diy fx pedals, one pedal I built is a custom UniVibe pedal which includes an added 3-position voicing switch and an external speed-controller socket, as well as led status indicators for the bypass and Chorus/Vibrato footswitches, I also have a red Jim Dunlop JD-F2 Fuzz Face that has a genuine Jim Dunlop JH-F1 Turquoise Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face PCB installed in it, sounds great.
I coached my nephew through the build of the Ghost drive several months ago and came out great and he wanted me to coach him on the fuzz face about a month ago. Went for the smoke test and nothing on the pedal but we did get tone thru on bypass. Had a big voltage drop right off the get go using my dvm. He was discouraged and i proceeded to unsolder the power connector so I could remove the guts from the enclosure. I touched up a few solder connections before doing that to no avail. Upon close inspection I could see the tone pot was touching one side of the diode and the solder connection was pretty high so cut that down and told him to put another piece of the insulation tape in the small area where there was none. Temporarily hooked up the power jack and tested outside the case. Worked so reassembled and did the listen to bias but don’t know much about that. I liked your using the transistor bases so you can try different ones. I bought a couple for when I do my fuzz face. I’m also going to top mount the two trim pots and put a small voltage gauge in between for the bias so I can always go back to a certain setting. Great video I skipped past the build part to where you started testing. I’m going to be looking for the bread board fuzz build. Cheers!!!
I just got to tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time (as busy as you must be running your company) to educate the masses about this interesting and very rewarding hobby. You my friend are a true believer and King of pedal lore!
This is the best reality show that I've ever watched.
Organic & Natural.
That is a good band name too.
Your wife and Belle play a huge role in this episode. At last, we believe that you're a human.
Two things that make me cautious about jumping into pedal kits:
#1 missing parts
#2 defective parts
This video makes it real tempting - I don't even need a pedal.
That Transistor Wizardry is way cool! 😎
Oh yes! Thanks man, I bought a fuzz face clone kit for Christmas and not even taken it out of the bag yet due to time constraints. Now I'm inspired again
I got my jack wiring upside down on a pedal build recently. I didn’t stay calm… looked at the circuit multiple times over the next few days trying to find a bad solder joint. The relief when I finally worked it out!
Cannot wait for the breadboard episode! Thats where I'm stuck, somewhere between schematic and breadboarding.
Also, talking to one self while creating is essential! Thanks, Josh! 👾
Hi Julian! You aren´t from Sweden huh? The surname Holm is very common here in Sweden anyway...
Would you like to tell more precise where you are stuck, with what? Is the breadboarding where it takes stop for you? When you are trying to take a schematic and put a circuit on the breadboard? Is it something specific that you have been trying to do but haven´t been able to overcome? Some circuit you cant get working?
I wouldn´t mind to try to help you overcome the obstacles so you can keep on advancing to your next level with electronics. Getting stuck is so un-fun and bad for creativity so i would be glad to help you with your journey. I´m no electrical engineer but i have made the journey myself with building kits - building from stripboard/vero layouts - building from schematics - making my own schematics and circuits - designing and making my own PCB´s for pedals/synthesizer circuits. I feel like this hobby is the best thing thats ever happen to me, it has been so extremely fun. Everything about it. To learn, create, advance, trying, failing, troubleshooting, getting ideas on the bus i have to draw a sketch of immidiately and try as soon as i come home. It is so rewarding and healthy for the mind and soul. Challenging and interesting.
Electronics is not easy. You WILL get stuck. What i like about it though is that you physically can track down and find the faults. It doesn´t give you a error-code like a computer "FaultErrorUpdate404.exe is computing process corruption, bios delete C:. Erase the Cat. Press Try Again!.
If you get how i mean. If you have a short circuit for example, there will be a physical short somewhere on the 10x10cm board that you will be able to find, sooner or later. In the beginning there is a lot of headscratching when troubleshooting but the more you do it the better will you be at troubleshooting. You will be a lot faster and it will be a lot easier when you have methodical ways and a better overall understanding of circuits so you know where to look when a certain fault is showing its ugly face. As a beginner you have to just be persistent sometimes, find A way. Maybe not the best or fastest way but atleast you now have a way that you know will work for sure, get you to your goal.
It´s a lot easier if you have someone to bounce your ideas off of and talk to when getting stuck, we learn a lot by putting word to our thoughts.
So if you want someone to talk electronics with back and forth and maybe share our current projects and learn from each other you´re more than welcome to send me a e-mail or text me att fb or something. You can find my mailaddress and my name here on my youtube page. I´m curious where you are stuck :-).
If anyone else reads this and wants to talk electronics, feel free to reach out!
Nothing you've ever done has got me more excited than when you announced doing this. I absolutely love this kind of content and I can't wait to see more. I'm a beginner guitar pedal builder with a few pedals built so far and many more in the works.
Just recently finished building you-Tuber tonegeek ts10 pedal build… and I am hooked. Josh great information, please continue this series!!
What a coincidence, I just recently bought a fuzz face clone kit off Etsy. Its gonna be my first build! It's nice to hear an industry professional talk more candidly about pedals/circuits/electronics. This can be a very overwhelming and daunting hobby to begin learning about but thanks for helping to clear up some of my stress and confusion! Excited to see more from this series.
Thank you for providing this demo video, Josh. I appreciate you taking the time to explain and show how different transistors effect the sound. Very interesting and informative.
Please continue this series! Looking forward to the breadboard show
Very cool! Thanks so much for having us along!
Definitely keep this series going!! Really looking forward to the breadboarding video of this circuit!!
THIS IS SO AWESOME i can't wait to learn more. How the different transistors made such a huge difference was so cool, I am impressed. I was looking for this kind of introduction to building pedals, so neat
I'm doing a few workshops on pedal building at my school. One of the options is a modded silicon fuzz face with the fuzz control replaced with a fixed resistor and a bias knob. We are using biscuit and chocolate tins as the enclosures. No circuit boards, just twisting components together, soldering, and praying.
You are the Bob Ross of pedal building. Today we're gonna build a happy little fuzz...
Thank you for doing this video! I hope this series continues.
Loved everything about this right down to the name of the series! Please do more!
THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR DOING THIS JOSH! I HAVE, DREAMED, FOR A LONG TIME, ABOUT TRYING THIS BUT NEVER HAD THE GUTS TO TRY THIS.... BUT MAN, Your video goes me so much HOPE! When I finally get money again, I may go at this and get the same small Kit and wire it along with your video!! I really want to see the breadboard on the kit!!!!!!!!!!
G'day Josh,
I'm enjoying your "How To" video. I'm about ½ way through so far, but I had to write you a note.
You've just encouraged us to write, so here's some tips I have to share (although, I feel really silly telling you this). I made a couple of volume boxes & A/B switches where I made some mistakes. So I ended up making some new leads for my multimeter to help find the problems. I bought a few 6.35mm TS jacks, a bunch of ¼" banana plugs, some 2-core wire, & made up a few test leads to connect my DMM to the boxes. Here's what I made;
1- Single jack to 2 banana plugs. I wired up the tip to a red plug, & the sleeve to a black plug. When I use this lead in the box, select the Continuity Test, & test is negative, then the earth & positive are not connected. I can also use this lead to test pickups in guitars.
2- Single jack to single plug (4 off). I wired up the tip of 2 jacks to 2 red plugs, & the sleeves of 2 more jacks to 2 black plugs(single wires can be used). When I run a continuity test, 2 black plugs should test positive, & 2 red plugs should test positive on a by-pass circuit.
3- Finally, I've connected solid core wires to 2 banana plugs. The solid core wire should be sized to fit breadboard sockets. I can then use these to test my breadboard circuits for voltage, resistance, or continuity.
I hope this helps someone out here in JHS-land.
Once again, I am enjoying your video. Thanks for the great program. Please please please do not stop making them. I tell you what - if you promise to keep making these videos, I promise that I will not start my own pedal company to put you out of business. Or, in other words, I promise to use what I'll learn for niceness, instead of evil.
Keep up the good work
Andrew
BTW, your desk is a mess, which is good to see. :)
I talk to myself constantly when I'm doing something.
Fixing the car, cleaning the BBQ, building a kit RC car, anything where I'm concentrating on what I'm doing.
I find it actually relaxes me and by basically talking out what I'm doing keeps me focused and less stressed
To me there are few things as reassuring as seeing someone with decades of experience still making the same mistakes a person with hours of experience makes. The beginner mindset is a powerful thing. Thank you for this format, and can't wait to follow along on more.
They're totally different mistakes that experts who don't need read the instructions make. Totally unrelated to the mistakes made by beginners who are simply too foolish to read the instructions.
They just look very similar, ... if you're not an expert. For instance, all experts ignore the recommended order to install components. How can a piece of paper know more than we do?
This is great. I don't usually watch videos this long and it took a couple of sessions, but this is great. I hope you keep doing this Josh!
received it yesterday... finished build today. Nice tone. Got a nice fuzzy look coming up for it
Watching Josh nerd out building a pedal - that's entertainment!! Thanks!
I build my first pedal this year in march. I ordered a kit for a Fuzz Face clone and a DS-1. I didn't expect much, i never soldered something since university 15 years ago. I f****ed pretty much, but with a little reaserch i found my errors and fixed them. Now i'm totally hocked. Finished my 8th pedal today (ElectricDruid DigiDelay). Give it a try, it is a lot of fun.
Trying to learn bass, but got hooked on building pedals... and I totally agree it is therapy!
Top job Josh. That's real life right there, own your mistakes and see it through to the end. Looking forward to the breadboard as I inherited a bag of fuzz face components in a box of bits that came with a fender body that I used to build a strat. There was also a 80's OD1 in bits that I managed to put together. Keep up the great work! Happily own an Angry-Driver pedal 👌 Cheers Adam
Please please please do more of these!
I'm most amazed by the fact that he still has his 10mm socket. Fun fact: as soon as you open and use a socket set there is a 90% chance that, when you put it away, a wormhole will open up and consume the 10mm and 9/16 sockets. They are whisked away to a pocket socket dimension where they spend all of eternity watching video of their previous enslavers searching for them.
This dimension also contains all the single socks that disappear in the wash.
I think they run off with your PZ-2 bits, and from time to time have an affair with that 1 particular Torx bit you need right now...
19:43 I also socketed my transistors so I could try different ones.
If you use the tiny pliers you have, you can angle the legs of the sockets to fit into the PCB
1: thanks for the tip on the Rocket Sockets - I use those for everything pedal and guitar wiring-related.
2: I’d love to see a workbench series exploring mods to pedals which are easily mod-able.
I tried building a Klon replica, and made a lot of mistakes (don’t work tired, kids). I’m still unraveling them while I gather parts for a second round, but I see a number of things I need to do differently. Thanks for all your content, Josh!
Thanks!
If you ask me, Fuzz Faces, and most fuzz pedals in general, sound better through a dirty amp. Thank you for taking us along.
YES!!! This is what ive been waiting for! I need that schematic, to breadboard, to build, all back to back so it all makes perfect sense. Unfortunately college isn't showing it like that currently, and it's all a mess when starting out. So many holes in the knowledge. Thank you Josh! Please continue.
Enjoyed your process. Thanks for showing how to make a mistake, and recover from it. Everybody had an opinion and a solution, and no idea what was really going on.
"I love this. If you're into this, you're a special kind of nerd. We could be friends." We could be friends. I can't even play guitar but I build pedals. Please keep this series going!
I used to buy Archer kits from Radio Shack in the early 70's. First kit was a 7 transistor radio. Second was a 3 channel color organ and the third was a strobe light. I had a TV repairman build my first fuzz/distorion pedal for me for $10.
learning so much from this video. i dont have any electrical engineering background our anything but i was glued to my screen. that socket thing with the transistors blew my mind.
I’m only a couple kit builds into the craft and I’ve been sitting on fuzz face components. I really want this project to turn out well and this video helped me feel ready to tackle this one. Thanks guys
That was fun! Please continue the series.
OUTSTANDING!! This gives me confidence in building my own pedals, thanks!
I built drones for years, It's fun until $500 gets stuck in a tree. I sold them and bought a couple of cheap guitars, which I instantly modified and upgraded. My first build was a TUBE preamp for my board. It was fun, so now after 3 years, none of my guitars or pedals have gotten stuck in a tree. They don't fly away forever, and I don't have to go to a park to play my guitar. This is like a slice of heaven... Thanks for this Josh. I can't wait to get my NOTAKLON, so I'm going to order this fuzz and build it.
I loved this. Cannot wait for the breadboarding
🖤🖤🖤
Thanks Josh this is super helpful and I hope you do more. Pedal ASMR!
That Midnight 30 Over Fuzz you demoed a few days ago might be the only Fuzz I ever use for the rest of my life :)
I absolutely loved this! Thank you Josh! I'm ordering a kit today.
Fuzzes are such fun to build. I just started getting into pedal building and have built a few that I'm really proud of. Nothing special, single transistor with diodes.. but it's the sound I'm looking for.
Looking forward to learning more through the series.
I was definitely falling asleep. It was like when I watched Bob Ross as a kid after school. But now its after work and staying up for 36 hours. I really enjoy the content.
I hope more content like this keeps coming JHS awesome job
I'm so glad I found your channel! I've wanted to get into pedal building and watching your channel has inspired me to do it. I want to learn everything possible.
That was so much fun Josh. I hope this series continues. Greetings from Sydney 🙂
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you and your 3 series fuzz IS my FAVORITE fuzz for soooo many reasons!
More of this content please!!
This is wonderful! I've been thinking about building/modding some pedals, and this has pushed me to do so. Thank you!
Kudos to you and Brian, Josh! Knowledge dissemination is what it's all about. 👊
Josh I definitely loved this episode. Definitely keep on with this.
Great timing for me on this video. I hope you do more of these and often. I'd love to continue learning about components.
I got into building pedals using a veroboard and fixing electronics. Soldering is a comfort activity for me. It is so relaxing.
I like blue tack for holding parts in place.
Thank you so much for this series! Exactly what I need.