DIY Guitar Heaven: The Best DIY Resources, Build Your Own Stompboxes, Effects, Amplifiers and beyond

Who said you can't build your own distortion box or even a delay unit? A small pratice amp or a majestic high power tube amplifier?

'Online communities' running for more than a decade created a powerful wave of electronics experiment and knowledge at a 'consumer' degree. Building a perfect equipment became user-friendly with the growth of a vast resource library. A big online laboratory where thousands experimented, debated, way over speculated and created myth's but with it came this vintage like trend that is rushing through almost every guitar player. Also the popularity of the DIY attitude granted musicians a better sight of the "electronics" behind an amplifier chassis or a wha pedal.

And yes, you can do it. Does take time, not a summer hobby. Can also get dangerous if dealing with high voltage circuits like tube amplifiers, they have a very simple design. But their guts run from 300v to 400v.

Start with stomp boxes, the basic ones are fuzzes which are always cool. Those very nice fuzz tones you can build suit nicely on every guitarist pedal board. Very simple also some compressors, even eq's and distortion boxes. More complex ones the delays, chorus, etc...The degree of difficulty comes from the PCB (printed-circuit-board), the schematic, your skill with a soldering iron and very, very important: your skill to handle a various amount of tools you need to assemble a project.

It's not so cheap at a start, so if you do not have the patience...don't go into it. This is something anyone can handle but does take it's time except if you already into electronics. And you can end up build units that run commercially for hundred of dollars with 50 bucks.

It's a crazy world the DIY one. Very rewarding also...