Pedal Effect Kits Directory

This is Guitar Kit Builder's directory of guitar pedal effect and stompbox kits. We try to maintain a comprehensive list of pedal effect kit makers and sources so please let us know of any needed additions or changes by emailing us at editor at guitarkitbuilder dot com. This directory has two sections. The first is a list of pedal effect kit makers with a brief description of their offerings. Following that is our cross-reference of classic pedal effects and the kits and board sold to clone them. To read our articles about building these kits please click on the category of interest in the orange menu bar above. Have you built one of these kits? We invite you to share your knowledge and experience by commenting on our articles. You don't need to be a registered member to comment.

Pedal Effect Kits Sources

Beavis Audio Research - started in 2005 as a hobbyist site to share information on DIY guitar electronics. From the initial few pages of questionable designs, it has grown to a popular place for DIY freaks to visit and learn. Along the way, beavis has evolved into a small company. They strive to advance the DIY ethic and provide resources, tools, kits and products to the worldwide community of gearhounds

Build Your Own Clone - opened for business with only three kits - the Fuzz Face, Tonebender, and Rangemaster, and they came with point to point eyelet boards. Today BYOC leads the way in DIY FX kits for guitarists. With distribution in Canada, Europe, Australia, Great Britain, and Asia, and over 25 thousand kits sold worldwide, BYOC is a leader in DIY effects. And our goal has not changed - to bring guitar players a product that is more than just some DIY effects project that merely "works", but a complete stompbox that will rival or surpass any of the big name boutique pedals on the market today.

DIY Pedal Kits - supplies hand made guitar effect pedal kits from the UK. All you need to complete their kits are a small number of basic tools. These are a soldering iron, screwdriver and wire cutters/strippers. In addition, needle nose pliers make things a LOT easier but they aren’t essential. Included in each kit is a pre-drilled metal enclosure, 3PDT true bypass) switches (if applicable), high-quality quarter inch jacks, all wire, solder, heatshrink, components, etc needed for the build, 2.1mm center npower supply socket and full color build guide.

Fuzz Box World - We are dedicated to bringing the highest quality components to builders of guitar and bass effects. We want to be the number one source of parts for electronics diyers. Whether you are a professional boutique pedal builder or a weekend hobbyist, your business is very important to us. We will do everything we can to make sure you are happy with your experience at Fuzz Box World.

General Guitar Gadgets - is a family owned operation located near Good Hope, Missouri, USA. Our goal is to provide the absolute best Do-It-Yourself Guitar Effect information on the internet and to provide resources to the world for building your own guitar effects.

GuitarPCB.com - designs and sells printed circuit boards (PCBs) with a boutique look for classic and boutique pedal designs. Their active forum provides support for builders using the PCBs. A theme throughout their site is that you expensive boutique pedals are simply classic older designs with little or no modification, and you can easily build your own.

KillerTone.com makes the ToneCrafter pedal, an easily modifiable pedal device that comes with the parts for seven different effect pedals.

Madbean Pedals provides schematics and circuit boards so you can create your own pedal kits. As the creator, Brian, describes it, "I love making music and I love making things, so pedal building is a happy accident for me. Mostly, it came from being too broke to buy any gear. I owned and used only two pedals for about a decade: a TS-10 and a Digitech PDS-1000 Digital Delay. I used those for both my bass and guitar gigs. Even my drum gigs, I think. Anyway, rather than spend money I didn't have, I decided it would be more fun to take a "peek under the hood" and see what the whole effects thing was about. That was about six years ago, and the obsession grows a little more every day! "

MEK UK Electronics - is a maker of custom guitar effect pedals, mods and more, handcrafted in Germany.

Mod Kits DIY sells kits for amps, mods and pedals through their one-stop shop, AmplifiedParts.com.

Monte Allums Mods - Tweaking the tone of inexpensive stomp boxes is an obsession of Monte Allums. He started modding mainly because he refused to spend $200 to $300 or more to achieve great tone. Monte believes that most expensive boutique pedals are simply clones of inexpensive pedals, but upgraded with higher-quality components. So his mods and kits feature classic designs with better components to deliver superior tone.

Moody Sounds - sells guitar effect pedals, DIY kits, parts and custom pedals.

MusicPCB.com - offers PCB projects to build guitar and bass effects, and synth modules. All PCBs are professionally manufactured, and include soldermask, a silkscreened component legend, and plated through holes and pads. They are designed to be easy to build, provide simple and clean wiring, to work well with your other pedals, modules, and instruments, and most of all to sound great and provide sounds and features not available in commercial designs. Each PCB comes with a PDF document with wiring diagram, schematic, build notes, and large modding sections with details on how to perform a variety of mods to tailor the design to your needs/taste.

Officially Licensed Circuits (OLC) - makes pedals and kits for the DIYer. Through partnerships with some of the more knowledgeable people in effects design, OLC offers kits from Runoffgroove and others. New kits are always being added.

Pedaldoc - is a company specialized in the production of kits to convert standard guitar effect pedals into boutique sounding pedal stomp boxes. They carry "do it yourself" kits to modify many topselling Boss pedals, Electro harmonix stompboxes, Vox 847´s wah pedals and more. The only thing needed to perform one of their mods in is about an hour of your time and a soldering iron. Their kits are designed for guitar and bass players who may not have any knowledge of electronics and all the components that need to be substituted are clearly market on a picture of the pcb board of the pedal.

Poodle's Pedal Parts Emporium - is a UK-based company that describes itself this way "I started DIYing a few years ago and got a bit sick of paying over the odds for, often, crap. So I buy good stuff and pass it on. All trannies are tested and sorted into hFE ranges. All duds are consigned to the ‘make a mural out of these one day’ box. I won’t rip you off with inflated postage costs, and I won’t sell you anything I wouldn’t use in my own builds. I have no intention of becoming a total ‘one stop shop’ right now, as frankly I have no desire to pick out two resistors and a polybox cap for you for the total profit margin of 3p. Hey, I’m honest. What I will do is put together new, very reasonably priced DIY kits as regularly as I can manage, with lovely pro-fabricated PCBs of my own design."

TonePad - provides ready-to-use layouts and circuit boards for effects and amplifier projects to the do-it-yourself music community. All layouts are provided free of charge and are subject to the limitations set forth on their legal page. Parts are available from Small Bear Electronics, and ready-made PCBs for many projects are now available directly through tonepad.

CLASSIC PEDALS CROSS-REFERENCE TO PEDAL KITS AND BOARDS

This is our new cross-reference between classic pedals (e.g. a Fuzz Face) and who makes kits or boards to build it yourself. In some cases the kit or board is for an exact clone. In others, it is for a circuit based on the original but with improvements or combinations with other pedal designs. Read the description specifics by clicking the link and visiting the maker's site. The list is sorted on designer or maker (e.g. Arbiter Electronics for the Fuzz Face). If you don't know the designer/maker and can't find something, try searching the page by using the ctrl-F search function of most browsers. This is our first pass at this project, and only includes kits and boards from General Guitar Gadgets (GGG), Build Your Own Clone (BYOC), Poodle's Pedal Parts Emporium (PPE) and TonePad.com (TP). We'll be cross-referencing more kit and board makers soon. Click on the kit makers initials to be taken to the kit or board on their website for the classic pedal indicated. Please give us any feedback on missing items or errors by leaving a comment or emailing us at editor at guitar kit builder dot com.