DIY Guitar & Pedals

» 150+ Guitar Pedal companies

This list is (mostly) limited to guitar pedal companies that have home pages and some retail sales. So, since I can't find a true homepage for Crowther (Hot Cake), so I didn't list it.

» 3pdt Guitar Pedal Wiring

If you're just not getting the wiring for a basic guitar pedal, and need to go really basic, you're not alone.  This illustration uses a metaphor for the parts of the 3pdt that will seem like overkill to those who got it right away. What I think is helpful is having a way to think of the connections that doesn't require you to keep things like “the far pole and the middle throw on the in-most side” in immediate brain access. Using this illustration, you could just call that one "black lightening" (sorry, see title of this post).

The “3p” in 3pdt is for the “3 poles” labeled super, black, and wonder. The “dt” is for “double throw”, and the throws come in sets of superheroes or songs, all or nothing.  So, you get super-man, black-lightning and wonder-woman as a set. Or, you can have super-freak, black-velvet, and wonder-wall.  Those two states – songs or superheroes – are the only two available.

» Stereo Phone Jack

The input of a lot of guitar pedals uses a stereo phone jack so that when you unplug, you no longer drain the battery. The thing that seemed tough when I started making pedals is that the lug for soldering the tip is the lug furthest away from the tip. After color coding it doesn’t seem so confusing to me.

» Feedback Loops

This graphic follows the signal flow in one pedal through three states, illustrating how a feedback loop pedal is wired. The pot is usually a 500k. There is an extensive discussion on the topic at Experimentalists Anonymous

Theory & Production

» Hertz EQ & Mixing Chart

Properly mixing a song is a strange art, something like arranging oil in water. However, it is also a matter of skill. Among a vast array of options, try making room in the mix (especially for the voice) and avoiding competition between instruments. I referenced speaker manufacturers, wikipedia, personal experience, and of course you really shouldn’t try to mix anything without Sound on Sound Magazine as a primary reference

» Chord Intervals Chart

This chart is set on a piano roll, with each chord labeled at its highest note on the stack. Other than the 3 and the 5, every labeled note on the chart stands for a chord that includes all the notes beneath it (and not those above it). By this logic, a 6/9 chord is shown as an extension of a 6th chord, but an add9 chord has its own horizontal space without the 6 underneath it.

Each interval also has its own color, though it is ghosted for the higher octave unless the voicing is specifically extended. I chose to “interrupt” the interval between the 7 and the 9 with the octave. That may not be the best choice for every application – it doesn’t facilitate viewing an m9 as a stack of minor triads – but for me it says more about the way the chord actually sounds. Interrupting even higher intervals wasn't as valuable to me, but ghosted notes still show behind them. Enharmonic inversions are chords that have the same notes, but place them in different orders.

»Interactive Fretboard

An interactive fretboard in flash.