A Different Kind of Design

January 13, 2013 by Chris Morris.

Friend and prolific pedal builder, Scott of Mezei Tone, once warned me about the overwhelming addiction that comes with building your first guitar pedal. What started as a simple DIY Tube Screamer project has exploded into 22 hand built guitar pedals of all shapes, colors, textiles and functions with plenty more on the way. I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

The creative process and tangible outcomes are what keep me hunched over my workbench. Fine tuning the signal path of a guitar to create beautiful, sometimes raunchy, sometimes reckless, sounds is an exciting experience. Different finishing techniques for the enclosures complete the personality of each build.

A majority of the PCBs for my pedal projects come from MadBeanPedals. A purveyor of nothing but the finest PCB boards. They also have an amazing forum with a huge amount of information.

All of the enclosures were finished with either paint, decals or fabric. The Morris Chorus was etched with ferric chloride acid. Here are a few of my favourites:

Sourcing Components and Enclosures

Kits & PCBs

AEMCON 2017 DIY Workshop

In 2017 I ran a workshop for the Alberta Electronic Music Conference about building DIY audio electronics. We focused the workshop around building a simple filter pedal based on the BBE Maximizer circuit. You can download the entire presentation below:

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