This instructable outlines steps for creating your own clone of the popular ‘tube screamer’ guitar distortion stompbox. Even if you’re not keen on making tubes cry out, it’s a good introduction to the DIY effects box process (and what motivates players to make their own) –
I never really considered building my own guitar pedals. I always thought that it was best if I left it to someone else to build the tools which would build my tone.
When I first got into guitars, I played accoustic and the funny thing was that even though I had been playing for about 2 years, I still knew nothing about gutiars.
My first distortion pedal was the FAB Metal pedal. It was cheap. Thats really all I can say about it. The next pedal I got was the classic Boss DS-1. WIth the DS-1, I began to wonder about it and finally came accross a website which show me how to mod the pedal. At this point, I decided that I create my own tone and that is exactly what I will be doing in this instructional.
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DIY Guitar pedal effects
2 thoughts on “HOW TO – Build a tube screamer guitar pedal”
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Nice, a couple ideas for testing new builds beyond what the author put into that instructable:
Check for obvious shorts in the power supply section of your circuit by measuring the resistance across the battery terminals with your DVM. Shorts or extremely low impedance will toast your battery, and could be less fun if you power off a wall wart.
After you power up your stompbox use the DVM to check for DC voltage on both the input and the output of the circuit. Almost all effects pedals are capacitively coupled, and should NOT have any significant DC voltages present at either point.