Hello and welcome back to Basement Builds! In this installment, I will be showing you how to make your very own Distortion Guitar Pedal. I like to call this pedal The Stephen Hawk ROCKing Pedal (may he rest in peace) because it’ll kick your tone into high gear and have you tearing through the fabric of space and time. I have designed this pedal to be as simple as possible with very few parts so you don’t need to be a world-class physicist to put it together.

Step 0: Gather Required Materials

The first thing you will need to do is gather your parts. As with the microphone, most of these parts can be found in your home but I will try to link as much as possible to be safe.

• Resistors x3
• Capacitors x2
• Diodes x2
• Transistor
• Soldering Gun (or iron)
• Solder
• Flux (optional)
• Wire
• Breadboard or Perfboard
• 1/4” Barrel Jack x2
• 9V Battery Snap (or 12V barrel jack)
• Bell Box (optional)

Resistors and capacitors have a large effect on the circuit’s output so it is important to choose carefully. The transistor and diodes are also crucial to the pedal’s performance but any NPN BJT and regular diodes will work fine. I handpicked all of my values to produce my own unique tone but if you can’t find the same values I also used ADS to simulate the circuit and found a good range for each component.

For R1 you should try to stay as close to 10 k as possible. C2 and R3 are much less important as long as you stay within my range. C1 and R2 are where this gets exciting. C1 is used primarily to block the DC voltage from going back into your guitar but it also has some control over the tone. A lower value for this capacitor cuts more bass so keep that in mind when choosing your cap. This could also be replaced with a variable capacitor to give your pedal a tone knob. R2 is used to bias the transistor which controls the gain of the pedal. More resistance here leads to more gain at the output. A variable resistor, or potentiometer, here can act as a volume knob.

 Step 1: Plan Your Layout

Before you begin soldering any connections it is very important to plan how you are going to construct your circuit. Every breadboard/perfboard is different so I can’t tell you exactly how to hook it up but I do have some guidelines.

I like to start by looking at the full circuit diagram and labeling nodes. A node is where two or more components meet. In the figure below I have labeled the nodes RAIL, IN, BASE, COLLECTOR, and OUT. Since there are five nodes, there will be five points of connection to consider.

I then count the number of connections on each node to see how they will fit on my board. We can see that node OUT has four components, five including the jack not shown on the diagram, which is a lot for smaller boards. If you have a board where the holes are connected in three’s or four’s, you will need to connect two grouping together with a short wire or touch of solder to give yourself more space. If your board does not have any of the holes connected you will have to make groupings for nodes yourself.  Finally, pick groups of holes that are near each other, but not too close, and label them as your nodes.

It is also a good idea at this point to sketch you components right in the board using your nodes as a reference. I like to do this on paper with a pencil because it can take a few tries to get a nice arrangement. We can see in the sketch to the left that I had trouble grounding all my parts at the output. To make this easier I connected a group of holes to the negative rail using a short wire.

Step 2: Test Your Circuit (optional but recommended)

It is always a good idea to test a circuit before soldering it together. Testing can be difficult without expensive lab equipment which is why I have made this step optional. Start by putting your parts on a breadboard in accordance to your sketches.

Power Supply Unit – PSU (upper) and Variable Signal Generator – VSG (lower)

In the circuit diagram, there is an AC source called ‘VtSine’. This source will be your guitar, but for testing purposed we can use a Variable Signal Generator. V_DC will be a 9V battery but again, for testing purposes we can use any DC PSU. To measure hook up an oscilloscope with one probe across the input from the Signal Generator and the second probe across R3.

Below we can see the input in yellow, a nice clean guitar signal, and the output in green. The output is not only amplified to be louder, but we have also turned that nice smooth sine wave into an asymmetric square wave. Square waves have a much dirtier tone than sine waves due to the rapid change from + to -.

With good test results, you are ready to complete your creation!

Step 3: Solder The Board (also optional)

If you skipped the last step, soldering might not appeal to you either but rest assured as it is not completely necessary. You can leave your pedal completely exposed on a breadboard if you wish. You will simply need to replace the VSG with a 1/4” Jack and the PSU with a 9V battery snap. The other 1/4” Jack will go in parallel with the diodes and R3. Take a look at my circuit if you’re having trouble and try to draw it out. I used green wire for guitar and auburn for amp. Mapping these circuits can be difficult so its a good idea to try to match the configuration you had on the breadboard. At this point you should only solder the parts on the board. Leave loose wires in place of the guitar input, amp output, and battery.

Step 4: Put It In A Box

To keep everything safe it is a good idea to put your guitar pedal in a box. I put mine in a old bell box with a button on it. If you put a button in your pedal you will need to connect either end of it to the two positive parts of the 1/4” jacks. The positive parts are the ones that make connection with the patch cable. The button will allow you to toggle on bypass by creating a short from input to output. Make sure to place your board in the box and feed your loose wires through the appropriate holes before soldering the button, battery, or 1/4” jacks. Finish it off by pulling the excess wire into the box and fastening the jacks and button in place.

Step 5: Rock Out

You’re ready to rock! Plug your guitar  in and unleash the power of The Stephen ROCKing Pedal. If you have any trouble with this build, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or reach out to me through the contact page.

Continue reading

Hello and welcome to the first instalment of  Basement Builds! In this series, I will be showing you how to make various electronics. As a musician, I like to focus my builds on audio equipment but I will occasionally branch out if I feel I have something interesting to show or a special request. I would like these Basement Builds to be as accessible as possible so I will focus on keeping them as simple and low-cost as I can.

To start off the series I wanted to recreate my first ever project which was making a Tin Can Microphone. My primary motivation behind this build was to be able to sing along with my guitar without buying too much extra stuff. I already had a guitar amp so did not want to buy a microphone amp as well. I also liked the idea of not having to carry around two amplifiers. An XLR to quarter-inch adapter would have allowed me to send a regular old microphone through my guitar amp but this did not appeal to the engineer in me.  I will not be going into too much technical detail with this series and keeping it centered around the build itself but I do encourage you to look more into the theory if you are interested. With all that being said, let’s get started!

Step 0: Gather Required Materials

For this build, you will need a few things; most of which you will probably already have at home and the others I will include links for.

• Tin Can
• A Thin Sock
• Soldering Gun (or iron)
• Solder
• Flux (optional)
• Wire (unless your piezo pip already has leads on it)
• 1/4” Barrel Jack
• Piezo Pickup

With all of your materials gathered, we are ready to begin.

Step 1: Prepare Your Can

The first thing you will have to do is get the can ready to act as the housing for your microphone. You can use any can that you like but I recommend choosing a sturdy can that fits well in your hand or gig bag. Once you have emptied and cleaned your can you need to pierce a hole in the side or bottom. I chose the side so the mic could be set down while in use.  The hole will have to be just large enough for the end of the barrel jack to stick through snugly. Be careful not to make the hole too large or you will have trouble getting the jack to stay.

Step 2: Soldering

With the housing ready to go, it’s time to connect the innards of your microphone. I chose to solder my parts together to increase the durability of my build but electrical tape can work in a pinch. If you are new to soldering I recommend you head over to youtube and watch some tutorials before going any further. Also remember to always wear safety goggles and do your soldering in a well-ventilated area.

Step 2.1: Attaching leads to your pickup

For this build, I only used parts found in my basement so this step may be unnecessary for you. Most Piezo Pickups already have leads attached to them but I pulled this one out of an old McDonald’s toy (I think) and the leads came off. To put new leads on a Piezo Pickup simply solder two wires to the bottom of it.  One wire will need to be attached to the outer ring and the other wire to the inner circle. These correspond to the positive and negative parts of the pickup. Using a bit of flux and leaded solder will help you get a much cleaner finish than I was able to.

Step 2.2: Attaching your pickup to the barrel jack

With leads on your pickup, it is ready to be attached to the barrel jack. You will need to affix the two leads from the pickup to the two wings on the barrel jack. It should not matter which lead goes on which wing so long as you attach one to each. If you are not comfortable with soldering this step can be done without so long as you got a pickup with leads and skipped the last step. Simply feed the wire through the hole, fold it back, and give it a little twist.  Those of you conformable with soldering should add a little bit here to increase the durability of the connection. Finally wrap the connection in electrical tape or shrink-wrap to finish it off an avoid shorts.

Step 3: Putting It All Together

Now all of the components are ready to go and the final step is assembling your microphone. This part can be a bit tricky if you have big hands like me and cannot get them inside your can. Needle nose pliers can be quite helpful here. First, take one nut and the washer off of your barrel jack. Then feed the end through the hole in the can and fasten the washer and nut back on the jack from the outside of the can. This should hold the jack firmly in place. Next, using a piece of double-sided tape (or any adhesive of your choosing) secure the pickup to the bottom of the can. Finally, stuff the thin sock into the can, toe end first, and fold the top down over the rim of the can. This will not only cover the possible sharp edge but also act as a pop filter for better sound quality.

Step 4: Rock Out!

You’re done! There’s nothing left to do now but clean up your workstation and have fun playing with your very own microphone. My personal favorite thing to do with this Tin Can Microphone is to experiment passing it through guitar pedals. Since we used a 1/4” barrel jack rather than an XLR you can use your guitar patch chords to send this mic directly to your pedals. Throw some distortion of your voice, or delay, or maybe even send it into a loop pedal synced with your guitar to really kick things up a notch. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial, please leave a comment and stay tuned for the next Basement Build!