Before you start building new guitar pedals, there are specific things that you need to acquire. You’re going to need a few tools, some parts, and a few other supply items to get started.

While it is tempting to want to build a lab full of high-tech devices, the truth is that you can get started with very little and without breaking the bank. Here is the electronics equipment and other supplies that you need to start building guitar pedals.

What You Need to Get Started

There are only a few things that you truly need to build a guitar pedal. For the sake of simplicity, this list won’t include very basic things like a place to work, a power supply, or schematics. Here is a list of what you absolutely need:

• soldering iron and solder
• proper safety equipment
• pedal parts (enclosures, boards, and parts)

The list isn’t long since you only need the things to put the pedal together and keep yourself safe while doing it. Other than that, everything else is just nice to have and fills a specific role that you can likely do without. Let’s take a deeper look at this list.

Soldering Iron and Solder

The most basic piece of equipment that you need is a soldering iron. It is a very simple tool, it heats the tip up to the melting temperature of your solder so that you can melt it on can connect metal parts to each other.

Although it is a simple tool, it is also one of the more dangerous items that you will work with when building guitar pedals. Soldering irons heat up to hundreds of degrees Celsius, which means touching the wrong material for too long can start a fire.

When you buy your soldering iron, make sure that you get a reliable stand for it. it is the first and arguably the most effective piece of safety equipment that you have for preventing fires and injuries.

Alongside your soldering iron, buy a container of solder. This is the metal filament that melts and creates the connections when heated by the iron. There are two main types of solder: leaded and lead-free. If you are new to soldering, we suggest using lead-free solder. You can avoid a lot of the risks of exposing yourself to lead poisoning. Leaded solder is stickier and can be easier to work with, but there is a risk of lead exposure.

For now, you only need one roll of solder to start. It will last you a very long time since you use very little to make any of the connections.

Buying Tip: Buy a soldering iron that has a digital temperature gauge in it. It makes setting the temperature correctly much easier, which can stop you from making bad solder connections or burning your parts as you build.

Safety Equipment

Building guitar pedals does require the use of safety equipment. While many experienced builder’s don’t use certain pieces of equipment, like safety goggles, you should use them when you first start out. Accidents can happen and you can be severely injured or disfigured if without the right safety equipment in place.

Always start your safety kit with personal protective equipment (PPE) that should be used for what you are doing. This includes eye protection, ear protection, head protection (if needed), and hand protection. In short,

• goggles
• ear plugs
• hard hats or head restraints
• gloves

As you develop your skills and change your process, you may be able to safely eliminate things like goggles and gloves, which can make using a soldering iron harder. However, they should still be accessible and you should reevaluate your need for them when you change processes.

Fume Extractor

Another necessary piece of safety equipment for building guitar pedals is a fume extractor. An extractor is a fan that runs in reverse so that it pulls air away from you. Working with solder means that you may be dealing with smoke, especially when you first start out and need to practice more. Overheating solder creates smoke and you don’t want to breathe it in consistently.

An extractor will pull the smoke away from your face so that you are not breathing it in. Its important for your long-term health. If you don’t have a fume extractor, they don’t have to be expensive. You can get one on Amazon for $20.

Alternatively, you could use a fan that you already have and just point it so that it blows across your work area, but not directly at you. It will blow away the smoke if you put it on a high enough setting. This will get you through until you can get an extractor that you like.

Power Strip

Another way to protect yourself is to use a power strip for your work tools instead of plugging directly into the outlet. This gives you a degree of separation from dangerous power levels in case something goes wrong. It also lets you add a step to your soldering process to help you avoid dangerous mistakes early in your career.

Get a power strip that has an on/off switch. Plug your soldering iron into the power strip. Every time you stop working on a project, turn the soldering iron off, then turn off the power strip. That way, you can walk away knowing that no one will accidentally turn your soldering iron on and cause a fire, or you won’t accidentally forget to turn it off.

Having two switches to turn off means you are far more likely to remember to turn at least one of them off and stop your soldering iron from causing fires.

Workstation Protection

Although it is widely overlooked, you should also get a heat-resistant soldering mat for your workstation. Forgetting to put a hot soldering iron back in its stand is a common occurrence for new pedal builders or solderers in general. Unfortunately, this can quickly lead to a fire.

A heat-resistant mat will stop you from burning your workstation and give you more time to correct your mistake. It is also immensely helpful for making it easy to see components laying on your workstation since most of the mats come in colors that make very clear backdrops for what you are doing.

The one on my workstation even has little bins to hold and sort parts for my projects. One time, my components bin fell off the wall as I was hanging it over my work area. I’m still resorting all of the components back into their drawers, but I use my workstation mat to help sort the parts and it goes much faster. You never know when these little things can come in handy.

Parts

To start building your first pedal, you need the parts for it. Typically, you’ll need an enclosure to put the finished circuit in, a circuit board of some kind, and the parts to go on the board. Getting all of these can be a challenge if you are just starting out. There are two methods that can make this easier.

Firstly, you can order just the parts that you need. Companies like DigiKey let you buy exactly what you need in specific quantities with discounts for bulk purchases. This way can be more expensive, but you do get a finer level of control over what you buy. DigiKey offers cheap generic parts as well as more expensive high-quality parts. You can choose exactly what you need based on what you are willing to pay.

Your other option is to buy packs of parts. For example, you can buy a pack of resistors for a specific rating, or you can buy starter packs that have an assortment of resistors in them. That is what I did to get started. I ordered a few kits from Amazon for resistors, capacitors, and potentiates, as well as a bunch of other parts as needed. Then, I order specific things that did not come in those packs but I needed for a project.

I did this with 1meg resistors, which are often used in guitar pedal circuits to stop that loud popping sound when you turn a circuit on. Its called a pull-down resistor and we’ll discuss it when we build a circuit in another post. The pack that I ordered had resistors up to 670K ohms and I needed 1meg (1 million ohms), so I order a 20 pack of 1 meg resistors.

Testing Equipment

You can get buy with the simplest of testing equipment: a guitar and an amp. However, there are times where having specialized testing equipment is both a better idea and safer. For example, building a guitar amp is inherently dangerous because a full-sized amp that doesn’t run on batteries will run on mains voltage.

Mains voltage is the power coming into your house and distributed to all of the outlets in your house. It is what powers your appliances and it is strong enough to kill you if you don’t know how to harness it properly. Taking an untested amp that you just built and plugging your guitar into it is not a good idea. Instead, you should have some other type of testing device to help keep you safe.

for guitar pedals, the voltage is often much lower and less risky if you make a mistake. However, you can still face significant risk, especially if your pedal is plugged into a power source or a wall socket. In any case, you should try to isolate your projects from mains voltage as much as possible and use appropriate testing equipment if there is a risk that you can be injured or killed.

Multimeter

Multi-meters are your most basic testing tool and you can use it in any stage of development or assembly. In short, a multimeter lets you test the electrical properties of a component. For example, resistors are difficult to read since they use colored bands instead of a number system. Rather than taking forever to decipher what a resistor is, you can use a multimeter to find its resistance.

This trick also works with capacitors. Most multimeters can even be used to test a circuit to see if you have a short (a break in the circuit) somewhere. If you are designing your own circuits or modifying other circuits, it is a good idea to have a multimeter available to help you solve problems.

Oscilloscope

An oscilloscope is a nice tool to have if you are trying to diagnose a problem in a circuit or you are trying to design a waveform like a distorted guitar sound. In a nutshell, it measures the oscillations in an electrical signal and shows you what it looks like on a graph. This is where you get the traditional sound wave form, the hills and valleys on a graph, that everyone is familiar with.

Oscilloscopes are great for fine tuning your sound under different, constant conditions. For example, you can see how the sound changes at different frequencies, then change your circuit design to get what you want.

The main problem with oscilloscopes is that they are expensive and can be difficult for beginners to use. As you get into more advanced designs, adding an oscilloscope to your setup can be beneficial. For most of us, we can get by just using our ears.

Frequency Generator

Alongside an oscilloscope, you may want to get a frequency generator as you get into sound design and circuit testing. It does exactly as the name implies: it generates specific frequencies. You choose the frequency that you want, and the generator will create a consistent frequency so that you can test your devices.

Unlike an oscilloscope, a frequency generator does not have to be expensive and you may want to get one immediately. I use a frequency generator app on my phone that is free. You can use it to create a signal for your guitar pedal without having hook up a guitar. That way, you can have both hands free to test and adjust your circuit while the generator creates the sound that you need for testing.

Variable Power Supply

A variable power supply allows you to dial in the amount of power served to your circuit. This is great for diagnosing power problems and for testing your circuits at different power ratings. There are overdrive pedals that can work at 9v, 12v, and even 18v. Many Strymon pedals run at 24v. Having one power supply that can be adjusted to supply all of these makes testing and design much easier and safer.

Like oscilloscopes, the downside to a variable power supply is that they can be expensive. However, you may find a need for it early on since it can provide consistent, high-quality power for your pedal build projects.

Guitar and Spare Amp

If all else fails you, or you just don’t have the money for more equipment, you can use a guitar and an amp to test your circuits. If you are careful during your builds, then you won’t face a huge risk if you jump straight to a play test. However, it can be risky if you are unsure or inexperienced, not just for you, but for your equipment as well.

Get a cheap but reliable guitar and spare amp that you can use for testing. I built a ruby amp that I meant to use for testing my circuits out of speakers that I got from Goodwill and some spare wood lying around my house. It won’t produce great tones, but I can test circuits without worrying about damaging my expensive Epiphone Les Paul.

Don’t Let Equipment Hold You Back

Don’t let your equipment or the lack of it hold you back from getting started on guitar pedal projects. Most builders acquire what they need as they need it. You can realistically get the basics for under $100 and start building something in a few days. The important part is that you start building and can learn to do it safely.

The more you build, the better at this you will be. With time and luck, you’ll start to acquire a collection of equipment and parts that can be used for any of your project ideas. After a while, you reach the point where you can come up with an idea and just start building rather than having to find the right parts or equipment first.

Take a little time to research the equipment that you want. Amazon is a good place to look for general shopping, but there are more specialized companies like Love My Switches that may have everything that you need. Learn more about guitar pedal building on the Builder’s Guitar Lab blog with new posts and courses coming soon!