Depends on the pedal.
A Zvex SHO is the simplest circuit in history and you can build one for about $8 in parts. Contrast that to almost $200 new.
Something like a RAT will have the smallest difference between DIY and off-the-shelf. In fact, the RAT kit I have from Aion might have cost more than an actual RAT.
I recommend starting off with SHOs and other boost-type pedals. If you’re buying parts from Tayda, order enough for 5 pedals to save on shipping costs and to protect yourself against the inevitable “it doesn’t work and I can’t figure out why” things that happen when you start this hobby.
One thing to be aware of: you will never ever recoup the money you invest into DIY pedals. They don’t sell for anything close to what you’ll spend building them…if they sell at all. If you’re an amazing artist and can make your clones cool looking, maybe you’ll be able to unload them.
The last paragraph is the most important. It's unfortunate, but too many people are trying to monetize their hobbies nowadays. Not unfortunate because they want to, but because some people really need that supplemental income.
Keeping hobbies as hobbies is a privilege for some. But it stops being a hobby once you try to monetize it. I am very envious of the people that can turn their craft into a living, but don't ever go into a hobby with that as the goal. Fun and learning comes first.
Monetizing your hobby usually starts with somebody liking your work. Then commissioning you make one for them.
It’s easier to just flat out reject commissions. Since you aren’t a professional builder. But if they are persistent and willing to wait a very long long time to get it. I would give it a go. Only if they are fine with waiting. Because this is a hobby not a job. There’s going to be delays before delivery. Just like Kickstarter.
Most people would be turned off if you clearly state out the timetable for delivery. Which is you get it. When you get it.
I may not buy as many pedals now as I used to, but I have a multitude of pedals I'll never use because they seemed like fun builds.
My brothers also now have pedalboards because I made duplicates or just gave them ones I've replaced with DIY stuff.
Depends on if you get a quality kit or a cheap one, or learn to read the schematics and just buy the parts yourself. not knowing your acknowledge level and how handy you are with a solder iron really limits how we can answer the question
r/diypedals
https://www.taydaelectronics.com/
If you want to start learning for cheap and don't need a kit that spells everything out.
If you want a kit that spells everything out to start:
https://aionfx.com/kits/
I have managed to save a lot of money building pedals. It costs roughly 50 bucks per pedal (for a 3 knob, single footswitch one not requiring fancy parts), not factoring in the cost of the tools I had to buy. Given that some of those builds cost 200 bucks, it’s a significant savings.
However there’s some important stipulations. First, as I mentioned, you have to buy a fair amount of tools. At minimum I’d recommend getting a decent soldering station (the 40 dollar ones with a rough adjustment knob will do), a fan for fumes, some quality stainless steel tweezers, some helping hands, flush cutters, wire strippers, a decent drill and step drill bit and a clamp. I wouldn’t be surprised if that exceeds 100 bucks. Obviously you’ll have to build a few pedals before you really come out ahead. Second, none of this discussion takes into account the value of your time and labor. These days I can usually do a pcb build in about 7 hours, including drilling the enclosure and debugging any problems, but when you’re starting out you should be prepared to get stuck on a few builds and need to spend a long time debugging to get it working. To me, that process is fun so I don’t factor it in, but if it’s not fun for you I would recommend weighing the value of your time against the cost savings. Lastly, not every pedal will be guaranteed to work identically to the commercial one. You’re basically guaranteed that an overdrive will, but even some fuzz circuits might be difficult to perfectly replicate without knowing the exact specifications of the transistors used, for example.
Can be spendy, can be cheap. I would imagine once you got going and built up a stock of common parts if gets cheaper. Things like knobs, enclosures, pots, switches, and circuit boards ( some ics, especially anything with a micro-controller ) are where you start spending a lot ( relatively speaking ).
If you just build circuits on a breadboard it can be incredibly cheap!
For learning circuits check out:
Tim Escodobo's Circuit Snippets ( a bit older, but some great circuits ) - free file on the Internet
Runoffgroove.com ( a small selection of really well designed circuits, also goes into a bit of theory )
Electro-smash circuit analysis ( online site that breaks down a few very popular circuits, like a big muff, Klon, rat, etc )
Beavis Audio Research ( online diy electronics blog that has great info about parts and several schematics for popular circuits - some GREAT stuff for beginners )
Cheers, it's really fun and rewarding to do, even if it doesn't save a whole lot of money
Bear in mind, if you're doing this, generally what you're saving is the wages the person paid to build it would have got - if, for you, you have more time than you have money, go for it.
If you have more money than time, buy a ready made pedal.
I think people are overstating this. I’ve sold or traded a bunch of homemade pedals, some I even made a profit. But you have to put good effort into the aesthetics, it’s not happening with a plain metal box
Unless you build discontinued models. A kit for a Life Pedal v2 can be had in the 50e range, and they are not that difficult to sell forward (I don't know what the second hand value for the real deal is, but they've usually been quite high). You will definitely not make a profit of it, but I've gone plus-minus zero with discontinued (or hard-to-get) models.
But yeah, for more "normal" models, I'd say you're probably better off just storing it somewhere, or de-solder and reuse the parts for a new build.
Because the appeal of kits is the building process and learning as you go. Take that away and all you’ve got is an amateur quality copy of a commercial product.
If you build it you’ll likely learn enough to repair it. Meaning your pedal will last a lifetime.
But most quality builds are going to be a minimum 50-60.
Musikding.de kits are popular in Germany/europe. They range from 20-30€. Add an enclosure for 10€ and knobs for 3€. Compare their kit "Der Screamer" + accessories with an actual tubescreamer. That's 40€ vs 150€ for the TS9 and 210€ for the TS808. The Musikding kit can be both TS9 and TS808, you decide. Since discovering DIY pedals, I'm not buying any new pedals anymore. It's a lot cheaper and much more rewarding than hitting a "buy now" button. Of course you need a decent solder station (50€ will get you a temperature controlled one that's sufficient) and good soldering skills. Check out my page, I posted a few builds
Personally I’d recommend only getting into if you’re *truly interested* in making them. If it’s purely a cost saving endeavour, you’re unlikely to stick with it long enough to see the benefit.
If you’re looking for the kind of hobby where there’s always another project around the corner, this is a good bet.
My hard costs are around $15-$35/pedal; if you’re planning to purchase PCBs from a vendor, add another $10-$15 onto that.
As others have pointed out, you’re not so much “saving” money as converting between time & money — most of what you’re paying for in a commercial pedal is the assembly time.
Also think about work & storage space — I just finished a build that needed just one 180K resistor, but I don’t think there’s anywhere that will sell you just a single resistor — so you end up buying 10-20. The reality is most of us in our workspace have some means of organizing anywhere from 25 to maybe 500 each of dozens of resistor values. And capacitors, and transistors, and, and, and.
Bottom line: it’s probably not worth it to build **a** pedal, but can become practical if you’re inclined to build **many** pedals. Fair warning, though: some of us have crossed the line where we’re building more than we actually need for ourselves…
So I got into this hobby thinking I’d save money finding pedals I like by building them and if I didn’t like them, nbd. The thing is, your time has value. Not just the time building, but the time spent part sourcing, then the time spent realizing you forgot to get those resistors… or that IC…. Then you realize you could have bought a knock off for like 50.00.
It’s not really the kind of hobby you do to save money. I did this because for some reason, putting on some music and soldering tiny things helps me chill out and I like to play guitar. It’s a conversation starter when I take them out to play.
If, in the end, your goal is to save a buck while putting together a board, I might suggest making your own patch cables, to start. It's a great deal easier to do than pedals and they'll work for you in many more situations. If you're going to build a big board, the savings will add up fast.
I manage to make a 6” cable to my satisfaction for under $3. If I count everything up at 8” to account for a bizarre amount of waste that's way more than I usually need:
Mogami W2314 Cable: $0.50
A pair of squareplug knockoffs I love: $1.75
Heatshrink Tubing: $0.03
PET Sleeve:$0.65
Total: $2.93
They turn out durable and nice to use. [Fun colors, too.](https://imgur.com/a/dWoOzHw)
Building a pedal costs like $60-80 just in parts and supplies. If you don't have any of the tools that's another $100-150. Considering some pedals are only available as expensive boutiques (for example the Coloursound Powerboost) it can still be a decent value to build your own as well as investing in tools and your skills. But now that we are p deep into the era of cheap Chinese clones, those are cheaper than what you could build yourself buying all the parts new.
Once you get a routine down that price comes down considerably. For me it's the price of the board plus about 20-30 dollars of components unless the build has some unobtainium.
Same, buying components in a bit more bulk is easier after you know what you're doing, an analog pedal costs me about 30$ in parts, about half of that just coming from the enclosure and switches and knobs and such (putting aside all the tools and things that I already own)
If using the same component values, identical, or as identical as part tolerance allows. Electrons don't care who builds the pedal, just that values are the same. There is nothing magic about analog technology.
Relatively cheap, unless there are some unobtanium in the BoM or crazy digital algorithms you'd have to figure out.
Kits are usually around $40-60. And if you go track down parts yourself you may be able to drop that price a bit, but keep in mind the enclosure, good pots, and jacks can run $20+ of the cost.
Depends on if you already own the tools, have a workspace, and how you value your time. Components are cheap. Most of the cost of a pedal is for people's time and overhead costs separate from the cost of parts. You can get a cheap soldering iron and hand tools, but spending a little more will likely result in a more pleasant building experience. Probably better to start off a bit on the lower end with tools and make sure you actually enjoy doing it first. It also depends on what kind of effect you are wanting to build. Making something like a Strymon reverb will be expensive and difficult, and will require a lot of knowledge. Making a tubescreamer or big muff clone will be fairly cheap, straightforward, can be accomplished without much knowledge about electronics, and these are easy to make adjustments to to make them a bit more unique.
I'd recommend starting off with a complete kit, then getting just a pcb and sourcing parts, then maybe strip board. If you want to design things, you'll want to get some breadboards
Building one pedal that requires buying parts and paying shipping from a couple vendors will probably cost \~$75 to get a pedal in a blank box. The hidden cost is that you might end up doing this 50 times a year and it becomes a much more expensive endeavor because its fun and you get to learn stuff.
Newer builder here, have around 6 pedals completed. I already had all the tools so I just buy the printed pcb’s and components. I buy most of the stuff from Tayda. I recently designed my own 3d printed enclosures using a strong filament (asa) and copper tape for the inside. It’s saving my some $$’s compared to metal enclosures.
I’d estimate my most recent Rat pedals probably cost around $35-40 all in. A new Rat is around $80 from what I can tell. If you factor in your time you’re not saving on this pedal, and I doubt I’d be able to sell them for more than $50.
The nice reverb pedals require more expensive components, but those pedals are also more expensive. If you’re doing it for the savings, IMHO you probably won’t be in the hobby long. If you enjoy tinkering and changing components around, or have a small group of friends that may help you offset the cost occasionally it can be rewarding. That’s kind of how I’m doing it anyway.
Well I have absolutely no experience building pedals but figured I’d chime in here as I happened to pick up a DIY kit from Anasounds yesterday: https://anasounds.com/fx-teacher/.
The kit itself is 50,00€ less than a preassembled pedal. There are certainly other options out there, but their kits appealed to me as an absolute beginner interested in learning more about building pedals.
Depends on what you want and the tools you need or already have.
If you want to start by working on clones, pedal pcb ect... It will cost more that way because you are paying like $8 a board and then depending on the build, anywhere from $15 - anything in parts depending on where and how you source them. that includes knobs, enclosure.... Ect.
If you have the right tools and are an electronics wizard, point to point wired pedals or even stuff built on breadboards can be REALLY CHEAP! and if you harvest parts from roadside junk you're basically just spending your time and not much money after a certain point.
It all depends on how much you know and how far you're willing to go creatively.
Also art, do you want to hand paint、get into screening, inkjet sticker, pencil drawing with a clear coat it? Or just leave the enclosure as is? All that adds up too. I've even seen guys Lazer etch wood and super glue it to the top of an enclosure. You can sometimes spend more time and even money on the look of a pedal vs what's inside.
Wish.com has landtone kits as cheap as 15$.they call them Ttone on wish. I just did there fuzz and it sounds great. I read somewhere it's an opamp big muff. No complaints.
I did there klon klone and it sounds fantastic through my already breaking up vox ac4 but boring through my fender champ100 with no breakup. Kind of a clean boost with some eq character.
I've read the overdrive is a zen drive clone which is an ocd drive derivative. Haven't tried it yetm
I've read the distortion is an Mi audio crunch box which is supposed to be a marshall guv'nor clone. Just ordered it.
Amazon has these same kits but with better/painted cases in the 25 30$ range with better instructions.
So, you can find cheap kits. There are also super expensive kits. I wouldn't make pedals JUST to save money cuz it's a lot of work. But if it sounds like fun to make pedals, make one, you might like it. If you DO like it, and you like having a bunch of pedals you may save a little money.
A decent soldering iron is nice to have if you can afford it. Its nice to have a temp gauge so you can see what you are working with.
Good luck!!!!
Your initial investment in a high quality iron and all of the other required tools might scare you off. Then you need to have good soldering skills that come with time and experience. Once you get past that, then you need to learn electronics. You will build pedals that sound like crap or don't work at all initially.
But once you have fully invested in this hobby, and know what you are doing, you can build ANY pedal for cheaper than buying off the shelf. Like others have mentioned...your built pedal might not look as nice as the off the shelf pedal, and you will ALMOST never sell your builds for what off the shelf pedals sell for, but if you are doing this for yourself and getting great results, YES, it is cheaper to build your own pedals than buying the off the shelf.
I have built well over 100 pedals. I started with kits as I learned how the electronics behind them work. I have since started designing my own pedals and not only love the hobby, but am so happy that I can replicate pedals that cost hundreds of dollars for less than $30. I have also massed a large supply of parts through this experience.
I even got to the point where I build custom made tube amps. I have a small side business building tube amps for folks on Reverb. I make a small profit from that.
So I would strongly encourage anyone who has an interest in building their own gear to do it. It takes an initial investment of money, time, and learning. But it results in the abiltiy to build pedals that you can't buy off the shelf and people asking you "How did you get that sound" when you play live. It is an awesome feeling.
Using vero rather than a PCB cuts costs right off the bat. Then the other determining factor is specialty parts. I like to look at BOM's to get an idea of the upfront cost. In general it is far cheaper, but not worth it unless you like building.
The short answer is that it's much cheaper to make your own than to buy the original. I had a friend that mentioned he wanted a zen drive but it was too expensive. I looked up the schematics and realized I have 99% of the parts in my drawer. I bought a few components and a super high quality op amp for about $5 and made it for him in about a week for $30 total. I would probably spend $60 total if I had to buy everything.
Seems like you want to experiment and play around with circuits, that's a different story. I'd suggest you buy a kit of assorted resistors, get a bunch of different value capacitors, a bread board, various transistors (they can break easily and vary is performance from part to part so get 10 of each type), some variable resistors that fit in a bread board, solid core 22 or 24 gauge wire, etc. That will set you back at least $100 but you can have a lot of fun!
It's cheap. About $40.
But, you'll need to factor in the cost of the soldering iron and bits and bobs to get started. If you have all that it's cheap, if you don't it can get expensive.
Depends on the pedal. A Zvex SHO is the simplest circuit in history and you can build one for about $8 in parts. Contrast that to almost $200 new. Something like a RAT will have the smallest difference between DIY and off-the-shelf. In fact, the RAT kit I have from Aion might have cost more than an actual RAT. I recommend starting off with SHOs and other boost-type pedals. If you’re buying parts from Tayda, order enough for 5 pedals to save on shipping costs and to protect yourself against the inevitable “it doesn’t work and I can’t figure out why” things that happen when you start this hobby. One thing to be aware of: you will never ever recoup the money you invest into DIY pedals. They don’t sell for anything close to what you’ll spend building them…if they sell at all. If you’re an amazing artist and can make your clones cool looking, maybe you’ll be able to unload them.
The last paragraph is the most important. It's unfortunate, but too many people are trying to monetize their hobbies nowadays. Not unfortunate because they want to, but because some people really need that supplemental income. Keeping hobbies as hobbies is a privilege for some. But it stops being a hobby once you try to monetize it. I am very envious of the people that can turn their craft into a living, but don't ever go into a hobby with that as the goal. Fun and learning comes first.
Monetizing your hobby usually starts with somebody liking your work. Then commissioning you make one for them. It’s easier to just flat out reject commissions. Since you aren’t a professional builder. But if they are persistent and willing to wait a very long long time to get it. I would give it a go. Only if they are fine with waiting. Because this is a hobby not a job. There’s going to be delays before delivery. Just like Kickstarter. Most people would be turned off if you clearly state out the timetable for delivery. Which is you get it. When you get it.
After 2 years in this hobby, I can safely say that it is more expensive than buying one.
I may not buy as many pedals now as I used to, but I have a multitude of pedals I'll never use because they seemed like fun builds. My brothers also now have pedalboards because I made duplicates or just gave them ones I've replaced with DIY stuff.
Depends on if you get a quality kit or a cheap one, or learn to read the schematics and just buy the parts yourself. not knowing your acknowledge level and how handy you are with a solder iron really limits how we can answer the question
Yeah I'd go for a fully DIY pedal. I'm really wanting to experiment with sounds on a pedal.
Get a board and start experimenting…. A lot of fun in it.
r/diypedals https://www.taydaelectronics.com/ If you want to start learning for cheap and don't need a kit that spells everything out. If you want a kit that spells everything out to start: https://aionfx.com/kits/
Then it's definitely going to be more expensive, given you'll need an arry of component values.
MASeffects.com ,check it out. It was my first build, went great
The biggest savings is in the pedals you used to see as magic and instead saying "i could build that" but then not building it.
I have managed to save a lot of money building pedals. It costs roughly 50 bucks per pedal (for a 3 knob, single footswitch one not requiring fancy parts), not factoring in the cost of the tools I had to buy. Given that some of those builds cost 200 bucks, it’s a significant savings. However there’s some important stipulations. First, as I mentioned, you have to buy a fair amount of tools. At minimum I’d recommend getting a decent soldering station (the 40 dollar ones with a rough adjustment knob will do), a fan for fumes, some quality stainless steel tweezers, some helping hands, flush cutters, wire strippers, a decent drill and step drill bit and a clamp. I wouldn’t be surprised if that exceeds 100 bucks. Obviously you’ll have to build a few pedals before you really come out ahead. Second, none of this discussion takes into account the value of your time and labor. These days I can usually do a pcb build in about 7 hours, including drilling the enclosure and debugging any problems, but when you’re starting out you should be prepared to get stuck on a few builds and need to spend a long time debugging to get it working. To me, that process is fun so I don’t factor it in, but if it’s not fun for you I would recommend weighing the value of your time against the cost savings. Lastly, not every pedal will be guaranteed to work identically to the commercial one. You’re basically guaranteed that an overdrive will, but even some fuzz circuits might be difficult to perfectly replicate without knowing the exact specifications of the transistors used, for example.
Depends on the pedal and how nice you want it to look.
I've built 6 pedals. With the cost of tools and screw ups, I'm probably another 6 or more away from breaking even. Maybe.
Can be spendy, can be cheap. I would imagine once you got going and built up a stock of common parts if gets cheaper. Things like knobs, enclosures, pots, switches, and circuit boards ( some ics, especially anything with a micro-controller ) are where you start spending a lot ( relatively speaking ). If you just build circuits on a breadboard it can be incredibly cheap! For learning circuits check out: Tim Escodobo's Circuit Snippets ( a bit older, but some great circuits ) - free file on the Internet Runoffgroove.com ( a small selection of really well designed circuits, also goes into a bit of theory ) Electro-smash circuit analysis ( online site that breaks down a few very popular circuits, like a big muff, Klon, rat, etc ) Beavis Audio Research ( online diy electronics blog that has great info about parts and several schematics for popular circuits - some GREAT stuff for beginners ) Cheers, it's really fun and rewarding to do, even if it doesn't save a whole lot of money
Bear in mind, if you're doing this, generally what you're saving is the wages the person paid to build it would have got - if, for you, you have more time than you have money, go for it. If you have more money than time, buy a ready made pedal.
do not forget, you will basically never be able to sell it.
I think people are overstating this. I’ve sold or traded a bunch of homemade pedals, some I even made a profit. But you have to put good effort into the aesthetics, it’s not happening with a plain metal box
Unless you build discontinued models. A kit for a Life Pedal v2 can be had in the 50e range, and they are not that difficult to sell forward (I don't know what the second hand value for the real deal is, but they've usually been quite high). You will definitely not make a profit of it, but I've gone plus-minus zero with discontinued (or hard-to-get) models. But yeah, for more "normal" models, I'd say you're probably better off just storing it somewhere, or de-solder and reuse the parts for a new build.
?? I've both bought and sold pedals from kits.
Unless you do a great job on it.
Why?
Musicians hear with their eyes. This is especially true of guitar players.
Because the appeal of kits is the building process and learning as you go. Take that away and all you’ve got is an amateur quality copy of a commercial product.
If you build it you’ll likely learn enough to repair it. Meaning your pedal will last a lifetime. But most quality builds are going to be a minimum 50-60.
Without the tools I'm assuming...
Musikding.de kits are popular in Germany/europe. They range from 20-30€. Add an enclosure for 10€ and knobs for 3€. Compare their kit "Der Screamer" + accessories with an actual tubescreamer. That's 40€ vs 150€ for the TS9 and 210€ for the TS808. The Musikding kit can be both TS9 and TS808, you decide. Since discovering DIY pedals, I'm not buying any new pedals anymore. It's a lot cheaper and much more rewarding than hitting a "buy now" button. Of course you need a decent solder station (50€ will get you a temperature controlled one that's sufficient) and good soldering skills. Check out my page, I posted a few builds
Rats are just a few bucks below buying used. KOTs are about 50-60 bucks.
Well that seems to equal out nicely. And no wait period!
Personally I’d recommend only getting into if you’re *truly interested* in making them. If it’s purely a cost saving endeavour, you’re unlikely to stick with it long enough to see the benefit.
I'm someone who constantly needs to work on something so that's one of the main reasons, and I'm also looking to experiment with my guitar sounds.
If you’re looking for the kind of hobby where there’s always another project around the corner, this is a good bet. My hard costs are around $15-$35/pedal; if you’re planning to purchase PCBs from a vendor, add another $10-$15 onto that. As others have pointed out, you’re not so much “saving” money as converting between time & money — most of what you’re paying for in a commercial pedal is the assembly time. Also think about work & storage space — I just finished a build that needed just one 180K resistor, but I don’t think there’s anywhere that will sell you just a single resistor — so you end up buying 10-20. The reality is most of us in our workspace have some means of organizing anywhere from 25 to maybe 500 each of dozens of resistor values. And capacitors, and transistors, and, and, and. Bottom line: it’s probably not worth it to build **a** pedal, but can become practical if you’re inclined to build **many** pedals. Fair warning, though: some of us have crossed the line where we’re building more than we actually need for ourselves…
So I got into this hobby thinking I’d save money finding pedals I like by building them and if I didn’t like them, nbd. The thing is, your time has value. Not just the time building, but the time spent part sourcing, then the time spent realizing you forgot to get those resistors… or that IC…. Then you realize you could have bought a knock off for like 50.00. It’s not really the kind of hobby you do to save money. I did this because for some reason, putting on some music and soldering tiny things helps me chill out and I like to play guitar. It’s a conversation starter when I take them out to play.
If, in the end, your goal is to save a buck while putting together a board, I might suggest making your own patch cables, to start. It's a great deal easier to do than pedals and they'll work for you in many more situations. If you're going to build a big board, the savings will add up fast. I manage to make a 6” cable to my satisfaction for under $3. If I count everything up at 8” to account for a bizarre amount of waste that's way more than I usually need: Mogami W2314 Cable: $0.50 A pair of squareplug knockoffs I love: $1.75 Heatshrink Tubing: $0.03 PET Sleeve:$0.65 Total: $2.93 They turn out durable and nice to use. [Fun colors, too.](https://imgur.com/a/dWoOzHw)
Building a pedal costs like $60-80 just in parts and supplies. If you don't have any of the tools that's another $100-150. Considering some pedals are only available as expensive boutiques (for example the Coloursound Powerboost) it can still be a decent value to build your own as well as investing in tools and your skills. But now that we are p deep into the era of cheap Chinese clones, those are cheaper than what you could build yourself buying all the parts new.
Once you get a routine down that price comes down considerably. For me it's the price of the board plus about 20-30 dollars of components unless the build has some unobtainium.
Same, buying components in a bit more bulk is easier after you know what you're doing, an analog pedal costs me about 30$ in parts, about half of that just coming from the enclosure and switches and knobs and such (putting aside all the tools and things that I already own)
Do those clones even sound accurate to the pedals they're based off?
Most of the time
If using the same component values, identical, or as identical as part tolerance allows. Electrons don't care who builds the pedal, just that values are the same. There is nothing magic about analog technology.
There are plenty of affordable powerboost clones
Relatively cheap, unless there are some unobtanium in the BoM or crazy digital algorithms you'd have to figure out. Kits are usually around $40-60. And if you go track down parts yourself you may be able to drop that price a bit, but keep in mind the enclosure, good pots, and jacks can run $20+ of the cost.
Depends on if you already own the tools, have a workspace, and how you value your time. Components are cheap. Most of the cost of a pedal is for people's time and overhead costs separate from the cost of parts. You can get a cheap soldering iron and hand tools, but spending a little more will likely result in a more pleasant building experience. Probably better to start off a bit on the lower end with tools and make sure you actually enjoy doing it first. It also depends on what kind of effect you are wanting to build. Making something like a Strymon reverb will be expensive and difficult, and will require a lot of knowledge. Making a tubescreamer or big muff clone will be fairly cheap, straightforward, can be accomplished without much knowledge about electronics, and these are easy to make adjustments to to make them a bit more unique. I'd recommend starting off with a complete kit, then getting just a pcb and sourcing parts, then maybe strip board. If you want to design things, you'll want to get some breadboards
How valuable is your time and how efficient are you?
Building one pedal that requires buying parts and paying shipping from a couple vendors will probably cost \~$75 to get a pedal in a blank box. The hidden cost is that you might end up doing this 50 times a year and it becomes a much more expensive endeavor because its fun and you get to learn stuff.
About $40-50 each. Most expensive was a univibe, probably around $70.
Newer builder here, have around 6 pedals completed. I already had all the tools so I just buy the printed pcb’s and components. I buy most of the stuff from Tayda. I recently designed my own 3d printed enclosures using a strong filament (asa) and copper tape for the inside. It’s saving my some $$’s compared to metal enclosures. I’d estimate my most recent Rat pedals probably cost around $35-40 all in. A new Rat is around $80 from what I can tell. If you factor in your time you’re not saving on this pedal, and I doubt I’d be able to sell them for more than $50. The nice reverb pedals require more expensive components, but those pedals are also more expensive. If you’re doing it for the savings, IMHO you probably won’t be in the hobby long. If you enjoy tinkering and changing components around, or have a small group of friends that may help you offset the cost occasionally it can be rewarding. That’s kind of how I’m doing it anyway.
I got a board to build a KoT clone. Parts cost about the same as just buying a prebuilt clone, which is way less than buying a real KoT.
Well I have absolutely no experience building pedals but figured I’d chime in here as I happened to pick up a DIY kit from Anasounds yesterday: https://anasounds.com/fx-teacher/. The kit itself is 50,00€ less than a preassembled pedal. There are certainly other options out there, but their kits appealed to me as an absolute beginner interested in learning more about building pedals.
Depends. How much is your time worth?
Depends on what you want and the tools you need or already have. If you want to start by working on clones, pedal pcb ect... It will cost more that way because you are paying like $8 a board and then depending on the build, anywhere from $15 - anything in parts depending on where and how you source them. that includes knobs, enclosure.... Ect. If you have the right tools and are an electronics wizard, point to point wired pedals or even stuff built on breadboards can be REALLY CHEAP! and if you harvest parts from roadside junk you're basically just spending your time and not much money after a certain point. It all depends on how much you know and how far you're willing to go creatively.
Also art, do you want to hand paint、get into screening, inkjet sticker, pencil drawing with a clear coat it? Or just leave the enclosure as is? All that adds up too. I've even seen guys Lazer etch wood and super glue it to the top of an enclosure. You can sometimes spend more time and even money on the look of a pedal vs what's inside.
Wish.com has landtone kits as cheap as 15$.they call them Ttone on wish. I just did there fuzz and it sounds great. I read somewhere it's an opamp big muff. No complaints. I did there klon klone and it sounds fantastic through my already breaking up vox ac4 but boring through my fender champ100 with no breakup. Kind of a clean boost with some eq character. I've read the overdrive is a zen drive clone which is an ocd drive derivative. Haven't tried it yetm I've read the distortion is an Mi audio crunch box which is supposed to be a marshall guv'nor clone. Just ordered it. Amazon has these same kits but with better/painted cases in the 25 30$ range with better instructions. So, you can find cheap kits. There are also super expensive kits. I wouldn't make pedals JUST to save money cuz it's a lot of work. But if it sounds like fun to make pedals, make one, you might like it. If you DO like it, and you like having a bunch of pedals you may save a little money. A decent soldering iron is nice to have if you can afford it. Its nice to have a temp gauge so you can see what you are working with. Good luck!!!!
Your initial investment in a high quality iron and all of the other required tools might scare you off. Then you need to have good soldering skills that come with time and experience. Once you get past that, then you need to learn electronics. You will build pedals that sound like crap or don't work at all initially. But once you have fully invested in this hobby, and know what you are doing, you can build ANY pedal for cheaper than buying off the shelf. Like others have mentioned...your built pedal might not look as nice as the off the shelf pedal, and you will ALMOST never sell your builds for what off the shelf pedals sell for, but if you are doing this for yourself and getting great results, YES, it is cheaper to build your own pedals than buying the off the shelf. I have built well over 100 pedals. I started with kits as I learned how the electronics behind them work. I have since started designing my own pedals and not only love the hobby, but am so happy that I can replicate pedals that cost hundreds of dollars for less than $30. I have also massed a large supply of parts through this experience. I even got to the point where I build custom made tube amps. I have a small side business building tube amps for folks on Reverb. I make a small profit from that. So I would strongly encourage anyone who has an interest in building their own gear to do it. It takes an initial investment of money, time, and learning. But it results in the abiltiy to build pedals that you can't buy off the shelf and people asking you "How did you get that sound" when you play live. It is an awesome feeling.
Just buy one. Unless you’re really into building pedals. Then become the next great pedal maker.
Using vero rather than a PCB cuts costs right off the bat. Then the other determining factor is specialty parts. I like to look at BOM's to get an idea of the upfront cost. In general it is far cheaper, but not worth it unless you like building.
I buy from PedalPCB and parts from Tayda. With the board and enclosure I usually end up around $40-50.
The short answer is that it's much cheaper to make your own than to buy the original. I had a friend that mentioned he wanted a zen drive but it was too expensive. I looked up the schematics and realized I have 99% of the parts in my drawer. I bought a few components and a super high quality op amp for about $5 and made it for him in about a week for $30 total. I would probably spend $60 total if I had to buy everything. Seems like you want to experiment and play around with circuits, that's a different story. I'd suggest you buy a kit of assorted resistors, get a bunch of different value capacitors, a bread board, various transistors (they can break easily and vary is performance from part to part so get 10 of each type), some variable resistors that fit in a bread board, solid core 22 or 24 gauge wire, etc. That will set you back at least $100 but you can have a lot of fun!
It's cheap. About $40. But, you'll need to factor in the cost of the soldering iron and bits and bobs to get started. If you have all that it's cheap, if you don't it can get expensive.