Boutique versus DIY pedals

[pablogilberto]

A question for the experienced and knowledgeables on guitar pedals.

What do you think makes the boutique pedals generally better compared to generic or DIY pedals?
I mean in terms of circuitry.
Are they just the same or have you noticed any 'secret' sauce that boutique pedals do/use that low-budget pedals do not have/use.

Let's say for an OD pedal, is it all about the transistors or OP-AMP used or is it more on the topology or filter design?

I will appreciate technical and practical insights.

Thanks

[thetragichero]

circuit topology beats out mojo parts every time
resale value is about the only difference as long as a pedal is constructed properly

[newey]

Yeah, tragichero is right, the circuit will matter more. A lot of the mystique built up around boutique pedals is more based on the "look what I got!" effect than on any real difference in how they sound, unless there is some difference in the topology from what the mass market delivers. A clone is probably just that- a clone. The fact that something is advertised as being "hand-made" or "hand soldered"? Don't even get me started . . .

[reTrEaD]

Dec 20, 2023 8:55:31 GMT -5 pablogilberto said:

What do you think makes the boutique pedals generally better compared to generic or DIY pedals?

The price. They cost more, so they gotta be better.

[frets]

Probably a different issue but I think the use of reputable parts in the construction does make a difference in the reliability of the pedal. I have had pedals just fail for no reason. I used to buy parts off of AliExpress and experienced sudden failures, but now I just buy parts from Tayda and have had no problems.

This is not a plug for Tayda it just is a belief that quality of parts differs. You could buy from any reputable vendor.

Some of us might think a part is a part but I do think there are levels of quality. Just like anything in life. You get what you pay for.

That’s just my experience. I could be wrong.

Of course, only the builder of the boutique pedal knows the origin of the parts.

[kitwn]

Dec 20, 2023 15:47:52 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

Dec 20, 2023 8:55:31 GMT -5 pablogilberto said:

What do you think makes the boutique pedals generally better compared to generic or DIY pedals?

The price. They cost more, so they gotta be better.

Ah yes, good old 'confirmation bias', we're all prone to it even when you know it exists.
I watched an unboxing video of a pedal by guitarist I really like on YT. he loved the packaging with the neat logo on the box and the coloured tissue paper, plus the neat insect design printed on the case of the pedal itself. He even opened it up to show the insect shaped and decorated printed circuit board inside. None of the above details will affect the sound in any way whatsoever but I guarantee it was the purchaser who paid for all that glitz. Obviously the expectation was high for a really special product with a really special sound before it was ever plugged in.

Did he like it? oh yes!

If I had tossed him a DIY pedal of the same circuit with identical components knocked together on Veroboard with no case and the pots and jacks just dangling on wires would he have had the same expectation of greatness and the same high praise on hearing it? Maybe, maybe not. Th only way to know would be a properly conducted double blind test of the two devices with all preconceptions removed.

My preference would be to spend the same amount of money on buying a simply constructed and packaged product that had had the product development costs spent on good research and design of the circuit and the best quality components in the signal chain. I would not buy such a fancy, hyped up product on principle.

[kitwn]

Dec 20, 2023 18:38:09 GMT -5 frets said:

Probably a different issue but I think the use of reputable parts in the construction does make a difference in the reliability of the pedal. I have had pedals just fail for no reason. I used to buy parts off of AliExpress and experienced sudden failures, but now I just buy parts from Tayda and have had no problems.

This is not a plug for Tayda it just is a belief that quality of parts differs. You could buy from any reputable vendor.

Some of us might think a part is a part but I do think there are levels of quality. Just like anything in life. You get what you pay for.

That’s just my experience. I could be wrong.

Of course, only the builder of the boutique pedal knows the origin of the parts.

There is a big trade in counterfeit parts in the world of electrical and electronic components, so purchasing the real thing from a reputable supplier is the wise thing to do.

At least with a DIY unit you can choose to spend most of the available budget on the components in the signal chain that really matter and not go for the most expensive box and knobs just to make it look cool. It's also a chance to experiment with what sounds good to you whilst playing with your soldering iron, which is always fun for us more geeky types 😃🎸

Kit

[reTrEaD]

Dec 20, 2023 18:38:09 GMT -5 frets said:

Probably a different issue but I think the use of reputable parts in the construction does make a difference in the reliability of the pedal. I have had pedals just fail for no reason. I used to buy parts off of AliExpress and experienced sudden failures, but now I just buy parts from Tayda and have had no problems.

Definitely a related issue. And it suggests we should be looking at more than just the separation of Boutique vs Generic/DiY.

There is a middle category. Mass-produced pedals from reputable brands. MXR, Boss, ElectoHarmonix, etc. You're unlikely to find garbage components in these brands but they are reasonably priced. Yet they are not at all 'boutique'.

There are dirt-cheap pedals from lesser known brands, built in China and marketed by AliExpress, Amazon, and others. The reliability of pedals from this group varies drastically.

[newey]

Dec 20, 2023 20:29:45 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

There is a middle category. Mass-produced pedals from reputable brands. MXR, Boss, ElectoHarmonix, etc. You're unlikely to find garbage components in these brands but they are reasonably priced. Yet they are not at all 'boutique'.

Not only that, but when you mass-produce thousands of something, it is more likely that problems with component quality or product design will quickly become evident and be fixed.

When I attended the open house at EarthQuaker Devices last Spring, one of the tour guides (a long-time employee) said that they heard howls of protest from customers when they switched from hand-wiring their boards to a wave-soldering automated process- customers were upset that the pedals were not "hand made" anymore. But he then said that, since they changed over several years ago, the number of returns they see for defects/failures has dropped by over 75%. It was never high to begin with, but now it's miniscule.

While a "hand-built" Rolls-Royce might be nice, I'm betting my Honda, mostly assembled by robots, will be more reliable. "Mass-produced" seems to have become a bad thing in people's minds, which confounds me.

[kitwn]

Dec 21, 2023 6:15:07 GMT -5 newey said:

Dec 20, 2023 20:29:45 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

There is a middle category. Mass-produced pedals from reputable brands. MXR, Boss, ElectoHarmonix, etc. You're unlikely to find garbage components in these brands but they are reasonably priced. Yet they are not at all 'boutique'.

Not only that, but when you mass-produce thousands of something, it is more likely that problems with component quality or product design will quickly become evident and be fixed.

When I attended the open house at EarthQuaker Devices last Spring, one of the tour guides (a long-time employee) said that they heard howls of protest from customers when they switched from hand-wiring their boards to a wave-soldering automated process- customers were upset that the pedals were not "hand made" anymore. But he then said that, since they changed over several years ago, the number of returns they see for defects/failures has dropped by over 75%. It was never high to begin with, but now it's miniscule.

While a "hand-built" Rolls-Royce might be nice, I'm betting my Honda, mostly assembled by robots, will be more reliable. "Mass-produced" seems to have become a bad thing in people's minds, which confounds me.

I understand the attraction of a 'hand built', one off piece of artwork. I'm a member of a local woodcraft guild and we sell unique piece mad by the members. People like the chance to actually meet the maker on occasions. But a piece of electronics? The individual transistors and other components are not hand made, merely assembled by humans on a production line.

Maybe the wave-soldering machine was hand-made? So the new pedals are assembled from machine made components (just like the old ones) and soldered using a hand-made machine. I think that's good enough for me 🤪

It's also worth pointing out that mass production is what makes it possible for the average citizen to live in relative comfort. When everything was hand-made productivity was so low that many working people could not afford to buy the products of their own labour. Shoemaker's children went barefoot in winter, for example. Wave-soldering makes many products affordable for more people and should be praised for it.

[sumgai]

Dec 21, 2023 6:15:07 GMT -5 newey said:

"Mass-produced" seems to have become a bad thing in people's minds, which confounds me.

Same thing as 'cotton covered wire' or Orange Drop capacitors, etc. etc.

It goes beyond confirmation bias and even beyond hero-worship (he plays a Les Paul, so I gotta play one too), it's simply Good Marketing Speak to beat the drum of "Keep Up With The Joneses", implying that "You'll never sound as good, nor play as good as your Hero if you aren't using our SuperDuperStudMaster device".

No one has ever wondered why Marketing majors hate me so much.

HTH





sumgai

[kitwn]

Dec 21, 2023 16:46:42 GMT -5 sumgai said:

Dec 21, 2023 6:15:07 GMT -5 newey said:

"Mass-produced" seems to have become a bad thing in people's minds, which confounds me.

Same thing as 'cotton covered wire' or Orange Drop capacitors, etc. etc.

It goes beyond confirmation bias and even beyond hero-worship (he plays a Les Paul, so I gotta play one too), it's simply Good Marketing Speak to beat the drum of "Keep Up With The Joneses", implying that "You'll never sound as good, nor play as good as your Hero if you aren't using our SuperDuperStudMaster device".

No one has ever wondered why Marketing majors hate me so much.

HTH





sumgai

It has often been said that necessity is the mother of invention. I have often said that marketing is the mother of necessity. I do not hate you at all.

Please choose from the following according to your preference:

1)   A very merry Christmas to all our readers.

2)  A very happy, non-specific, around-the-time-of-the-December-solstice holiday to all our readers.

Kit

[ashcatlt]

So there may be some exceptions in this particular crowd here, but for most people the difference between a boutique hand-build and DIY is probably that the boutique builder has significantly more experience, possibly better tools, and likely a more refined workflow. You’re not probably buying their weekend hobby project or first try prototype. Not that I can afford that kind of thing. I just sort by price: lowest first.

[sumgai]

Dec 21, 2023 18:10:18 GMT -5 kitwn said:

Please choose from the following according to your preference:

I'll take what's behind Door #1, Monty!

Thanks, and the same to you as well.





sumgai

[kitwn]

Dec 20, 2023 8:55:31 GMT -5 pablogilberto said:

A question for the experienced and knowledgeables on guitar pedals.

What do you think makes the boutique pedals generally better compared to generic or DIY pedals?
I mean in terms of circuitry.
Are they just the same or have you noticed any 'secret' sauce that boutique pedals do/use that low-budget pedals do not have/use.

Let's say for an OD pedal, is it all about the transistors or OP-AMP used or is it more on the topology or filter design?

I will appreciate technical and practical insights.

Thanks

Sorry to have taken up so much of your thread off at at tangent! More to your point:

There isn't much in the way of 'secret sauce' in the electronics world. Spend some time looking at published designs and most circuits will start to look very familiar.
My cynical head tells me that the job of the marketing department of your favourite pedal manufacturer is to hide the fact that you've just paid $200 for a common circuit design you could have found in the device manufacturer's date sheet and built yourself for $5.

If you are interested in experimenting with the sound of different electronic designs rather than ways to reduce your bank balance, have a look at the Electrosmash website. www.electrosmash.com/

Kit

[JohnH]

Good design, good construction and high-quality parts are the key. I'm always sceptical of most NOS mojo of old components. But I can believe in great old valves, maybe a special transistor or diode, but not an old capacitor etc.

I'm not a collector, but I do have one 'collection' of pedals that sruck a chord with me for the care and engineering that went into them. It's the Digitech 'Hardwire' range, which ran from about mid 2000's, for a decade or so. These are mass produced, but engineered with incredible care, super robustness and thoughtful features. The drive pedals are analogue and the modulations are digital. But these are seriously pro quality and never got the attention they deserve.

You can still buy most of them used, for several hundred each (more than when new). I bought a full set, new, as their prices dropped at close-out. I have them all mounted on my home board so they are safe and ready to do what they do!




(There's also a couple of other favourites there, a Boss OD3, a modded Guv'nor II and a germanium fuzz.)

[JohnH]

...but on 'Boutique' construction, I can definitely appreciate the skill and care of a builder constructing a hand-wired circuit. I know how difficult it is and therefore how beautiful it can be when you see something done right. It's often such a shame that this work is hidden to all except those that can open the case. (Or lift off the pick guard to see a guitar harness made by frets!)

[pasqualino63]

Dec 20, 2023 8:55:31 GMT -5 pablogilberto said:

A question for the experienced and knowledgeables on guitar pedals.

What do you think makes the boutique pedals generally better compared to generic or DIY pedals?
I mean in terms of circuitry.
Are they just the same or have you noticed any 'secret' sauce that boutique pedals do/use that low-budget pedals do not have/use.

Let's say for an OD pedal, is it all about the transistors or OP-AMP used or is it more on the topology or filter design?

I will appreciate technical and practical insights.

Thanks

I'm late to the party here, so I'll just Re: to the totality of the thread and quote the OP to try and stay on topic.

The boutique pedals tend to be better if the craftsman selects and tests each individual part in the pedal.  Most of the "magic NOS parts" are all hype, with some specific exceptions.  A good example of this is the use of germanium transistors in certain distortion pedals (see Fuzzface). 

Special attention to good soldering is far more important than components when you get down to it.  Nothing sounds good if there's a bad connection.  One of the things you'll often see in "mass produced" products are cold solder joints that got by the inspector.  The circuit boards (usually) are machine populated and the go down a conveyor belt into what's called a "solder wave" which is just a bath of molten solder that the bottom of the board crosses over.  Surface mount parts go through a different process, also placed and soldered by automation.  Not all parts can tolerate the solder wave or can be auto installed/soldered.  These parts have to be hand soldered.  after the boards go through each stage of the process, the are inspected for defects, such as cold solder joints.  Cold solder joints are notoriously difficult to detect.  Sometimes they're obvious, but it's the ones that are borderline often appear to be just fine until powered up or sometimes after just a few uses by the customer.  To make matters worse, these faults usually intermittent; they almost work.  This is not to say that the craftsman of a boutique pedal won't solder an occasional cold joint, but they're usually quick to correct the problem.  I guess the upside to getting a defective, mass produced unit is that the manufacturer has usually has another one to quickly replace it.  This is not always the case, but if you ever had to replace a motherboard on your computer and you buy a DuD, it's pretty easy to get the retailer to replace it.  With the mass produced pedals, just be sure to not go in there and fix it yourself if you expect to return it. 


For mass produced products, the individual components are seldom tested before installation.  (Hell, you'll be lucky if they actually test the particular unit you've purchased).  They go through a QC (Quality Control) process that will test sample of parts from a greater lot and test those sampled parts individually.  If there's more than 'X' failures from a lot of thousands, the whole lot gets rejected (in theory).  So a finite number of failures in a large lot is tolerated.  This means that the occasional bad part will get through and hopefully will be found during testing of the unit. 

The craftsman who makes boutique units (knockoffs or otherwise) will tend to test the part before installing it.  I don't really sell anything I make, so I'm not a good example, but when I build any project, I test every component that goes into that system before installing it.  When I modify existing designs or develop my own, I always simulate the circuit in Micro Cap and see what variations in component values can be tolerated.  In simple systems you can tweak certain critical parameters (e.g. the Beta (β) of a transistor which can be way off the value in the datasheet) and see the effects of sweeping the parameter in simulation.  Usually you try to design such that the system isn't dependent on the  value of highly uncertain parameters.  Other times we look to exploit a particular parameter of a particular component and pick through a large batch until we find what we want.  It's often the nonlinearities of the system that produces the desired effect.    Individual selection and testing of components would be cost prohibitive to a manufacturer of mass produced units.

What is most important is how the unit sounds and does it produce the desired effect in the user's rig.  It doesn't matter if you used chewing gum and the foil it's wrapped in inside the box, just so long as it sounds good (and the gum sticks.)

Now if we were talking about boutique tube amps vs. manufactured ones, then I'd have different (but similar) opinion.  In this case I do believe that wire insulation matters and there really is something to be said about NOS tubes vs those manufactured today.  I am also a fan of toroidal transformers, as opposed to, laminated transformers.  This is off topic though.

To finish, I have a huge stock of components bought from eBay.  I test them before shelving them and mark them as "tested" & "purchased from eBay."  Just because they pass my minimal battery of tests, doesn't mean there's no defect.  I assume the part is unreliable.  Like I said, I really don't sell the projects I build.  I will, however, build things for friends and while I can make good use of these eBay parts for developmental purposes, the final product gets parts from a reputable distributer (Digikey, Mouser, Newark, etc.) and usually make my friend pay for those parts.  It is so time consuming to do this stuff, so it's just not profitable.  As far as boutique effects and amps, Howie Dumble is the exception, not the rule.  He was highly skilled and had a great ear.  A great craftsman for sure. 

Alexander "Howard" Dumble (June 1, 1944 – January 16, 2022) 

[Update]  I bought a few ferrite toroid cores on eBay www.ebay.com/itm/325660013811 and wound about 40 turns or so of 28 AWG mag wire for a fast and dirty test which resulted in a 5.1 mH inductor.  Not too shabby, but still seems to need several hundred turns to get to that magic 500 mH.  I'll solder splice into this experimental unit, but would like to be a little more precise when I make more.  I'll break out my old fly tying gear for this.  It seems to be worth it. 

 

[sumgai]

Slight correction to the above.... Dumble's first name was Howard, Alexander was his middle name. In his later years (he lived to 77), he preferred to be known by his middle name, but most everybody just referred to him as Dumble.

[pasqualino63]

Well then Dumble it is!

[mitch88]

What Ge is in your fuzz?