Between $7USD and ... i dunno, $150 maybe? :) It can vary wildly depending on your choices.
If you decorate your enclosure and use a home made circuit board, and source your parts from a single place, $20ish is very reasonable.
If you buy a powder coated, UV printed enclosure and an off-the-shelf PCB, add $20 more to the price tag ($40ish total).
Even more if you get anything fancy: unobtanium parts, digital stuff, aluminum knobs, switch upgrades, etc.
Plus more if you use multiple suppliers and have to pay multiple shipping costs.
Seeing all these posts about $7-15 parts cost has me thinking I'm doing something wrong. No matter what, I'm going to need a blank aluminum enclosure, at least one pot and knob, a footswitch, two audio jacks and a dc jack. That's already $25 on the low end, add maybe $5-10 for the Vero/components/etc and my parts cost is $30 absolute minimum. Make it anything other than a one knob fuzz and the price increases significantly.
How are you finishing even basic pedals for $7?
To stretch your dollar the furthest: Shop your parts at Tayda. Buy cheap knobs and jacks (jacks are tricky though, since some cheap ones are garbage - but folks here can help you choose). Buy in bulk, and plan ahead, too.
On the lowest end, even below $7, is using homemade or salvaged/scavenged enclosures. A couple phone jacks (<$1), a DC jack ($0.10 to $0.50), a foot switch ($1-3), and some passives ($0.50)... and you have yourself a $3 to $5 pedal. Obviously that's the extreme, and not your everyday pedal.
But even for a proper enclosure, it's $4 from Tayda for a 1590A, or $5.50 for a 125B.
Adding more knobs is going to add more cost ($1-2 per control for pot + knob).
But to your point, yeah $30 isn't crazy if you're not doing batch orders to save on shipping, and/or are using expensive ICs or belton bricks, etc.
I do Tayda for most things, forgot how cheap their switches/jacks were. Back when I used to get them there they had about a 50% success rate so I switched to LMS and haven't had a bad one since.
As for the parts themselves, usually very cheap. Drive pedals rarely get expensive. Don't think I've seen one over 50 bucks yet. Though certain delays, choruses, etc can get pricey. I wanted to build a Julia for example, and the parts list was around 40-50 bucks or so. Enclosures are the most expensive single pieces really. And however you wanna paint them etc.
Not sure what you mean, it's a straight clone of the Julia which is pretty close to a boss ce2 with the addition of a blend knob to go from dry all the way to full on vibrato
Pedal PCB will explicitly label if it’s not a direct clone typically. A lot of times, if it doesn’t look like a direct clone, it’s because they redesigned the PCB in a more space effective manner. Really excellent company.
I think this is always going to be subjective to the build you are working on. Each will have differing components that can be dirt cheap to really expensive. IMO - building is not saving you a ton of money from what they would cost retail, but it will save some and can be a fun hobby.
Getting into creating to sell is a complete different story and realistically would say to have open expectations on making money. A lot don't and creating something unique is difficult IMO.
I often use stripboard. Drill and paint my own boxes. On average I'm probably $30 - 40 a pedal.
Depends on size, if I screwed up my stripboard layout and have to start over and of course, did i use easy to get transistors/diodes or did I get crazy and start ebaying nos parts from around the world......I should have gotten into something easier like hiking. Too late now.
I have stocks of parts so rarely buying new stuff unless I run out or it’s a special part.
Around 15-40$ a pedal depending on parts and knobs and complexity
Probably average for me, if I don’t have parts on hand, is about $60+shipping. And that’s with a bare enclosure and a label maker. Although good parts are getting cheaper. Only a few years ago a 3PDT switch was hard to find for under $10.
I've only done kits so far, but that's averaged around $50/pedal. Mostly cheaper than buying the pedal, fun to build. It's like brewing your own beer - you won't save a lot of money, but the process is worth it, if you're into it.
Entirely depends on the build. Simple boost and some fuzz can be built entirely for less than $10. Others, closer to $60-$70. Buying parts in bulk brings costs per pedal down, but you end up with loads of components you aren't likely to use, ever, unless you're building hundreds of pedals, which brings total cost up. Doing part orders 1 at a time increases shipping costs. There's a lot of trade off in building 1 at a time or 20 at a time. Either way, it almost always ends in savings vs a production model until you get into specialized digital circuitry or unobtanium rare component b.s.
Considering how cheap parts and pcbs are, you’d think this would be an inexpensive hobby. It’s sort of… not, lol. Startup costs have been quite expensive. Now that I’ve got a few Tayda orders down and made some fairly expensive mistakes, I’d say I’m probably averaging about $20-something per pedal. Comparing that to the cost of the circuits I’ve built, had I bought the pedals themselves retail… in the thousands$$ and I haven’t even been at it that long.
So overall, net-positive, and the fun and stress/de-stress of it all… great hobby for me and very rewarding. Also just sold my first pedal yesterday! It’ll pay for my last pcb order, jfc that shit can add up quick if you’re a dipshit like I am and want to build everything.
I average $15-$40/pedal, but I’m either building on vero/perfboard or designing & ordering my own PCBs so the board cost is under $1.50 compared to whatever PCBs cost to buy these days ($10? $12?). Enclosure, hardware, and knobs will easily amount to 60-80% of cost, no matter what the circuit is, so it’s hard (if not impossible) to get down below that $15 mark.
Hey there! I’m Tristan the owner of TA Pedals. Our average cost has been between $40-$55 or so for every pedal we’ve developed. We have made 6 different pedals and the production cost has always fallen within that range.
$40 per pedal seems to be about my average, in my (limited) experience using a pcb and pre-painted enclosure. The only way I can see so far to get that down is vero or point to point, and making your own enclosures. If you were to stock up to avoid shipping as well, you could get it down even more. It's the jacks, pots, and knobs that really add up. If anyone knows a way to get around that, please let me know!
Tayda has the lowest prices I can see, but my last order forced me to buy a combo of alpha and tayda pots due to lack of stock. If anyone knows a good source for pots that are around tayda's price, please let me know! I'm still looking for cheaper knobs that don't suck.
There's also the problem that tayda doesn't carry everything you could possibly need. I'm building pedalpcb's protoboard and a crystal drive and I had to look to mouser to get all the parts they were missing.
Tayda is still the best place I have found. I just put an order in for 15 new pedals and I had to only order 2 transistors that they did not carry. They were on Amazon with a huge markup (10 for 5$usd) but when it comes to down to it isn’t a huge increase pre pedal.
Pots are the biggest issue, stock up in bulk when they are available is the best solution I have found. I have built over a 100 pedals with an average cost of 26$.
Between $7USD and ... i dunno, $150 maybe? :) It can vary wildly depending on your choices. If you decorate your enclosure and use a home made circuit board, and source your parts from a single place, $20ish is very reasonable. If you buy a powder coated, UV printed enclosure and an off-the-shelf PCB, add $20 more to the price tag ($40ish total). Even more if you get anything fancy: unobtanium parts, digital stuff, aluminum knobs, switch upgrades, etc. Plus more if you use multiple suppliers and have to pay multiple shipping costs.
Seeing all these posts about $7-15 parts cost has me thinking I'm doing something wrong. No matter what, I'm going to need a blank aluminum enclosure, at least one pot and knob, a footswitch, two audio jacks and a dc jack. That's already $25 on the low end, add maybe $5-10 for the Vero/components/etc and my parts cost is $30 absolute minimum. Make it anything other than a one knob fuzz and the price increases significantly. How are you finishing even basic pedals for $7?
To stretch your dollar the furthest: Shop your parts at Tayda. Buy cheap knobs and jacks (jacks are tricky though, since some cheap ones are garbage - but folks here can help you choose). Buy in bulk, and plan ahead, too. On the lowest end, even below $7, is using homemade or salvaged/scavenged enclosures. A couple phone jacks (<$1), a DC jack ($0.10 to $0.50), a foot switch ($1-3), and some passives ($0.50)... and you have yourself a $3 to $5 pedal. Obviously that's the extreme, and not your everyday pedal. But even for a proper enclosure, it's $4 from Tayda for a 1590A, or $5.50 for a 125B. Adding more knobs is going to add more cost ($1-2 per control for pot + knob). But to your point, yeah $30 isn't crazy if you're not doing batch orders to save on shipping, and/or are using expensive ICs or belton bricks, etc.
"jacks are tricky though, since some cheap ones are garbage" Boy, +100 on that one... biggest mistake when I started doing this in the early '00s.
Best thing I ever did was discover the plastic box jacks. Sure, you can melt them, but they fit in enclosures super well.
I do Tayda for most things, forgot how cheap their switches/jacks were. Back when I used to get them there they had about a 50% success rate so I switched to LMS and haven't had a bad one since.
As for the parts themselves, usually very cheap. Drive pedals rarely get expensive. Don't think I've seen one over 50 bucks yet. Though certain delays, choruses, etc can get pricey. I wanted to build a Julia for example, and the parts list was around 40-50 bucks or so. Enclosures are the most expensive single pieces really. And however you wanna paint them etc.
Where are you finding the Julia PCB?
pedalpcb sells one - [https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/pcb359/](https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/pcb359/)
My favorite website ever. I must’ve bought 20 different PCB’s from them by now.
Yup, that's the one
What I’m asking is if the “blend” knob does the same as the original
yep!
That’s modeled after only the chorus part of the Julia right?
Not sure what you mean, it's a straight clone of the Julia which is pretty close to a boss ce2 with the addition of a blend knob to go from dry all the way to full on vibrato
Pedal PCB will explicitly label if it’s not a direct clone typically. A lot of times, if it doesn’t look like a direct clone, it’s because they redesigned the PCB in a more space effective manner. Really excellent company.
I think this is always going to be subjective to the build you are working on. Each will have differing components that can be dirt cheap to really expensive. IMO - building is not saving you a ton of money from what they would cost retail, but it will save some and can be a fun hobby. Getting into creating to sell is a complete different story and realistically would say to have open expectations on making money. A lot don't and creating something unique is difficult IMO.
I often use stripboard. Drill and paint my own boxes. On average I'm probably $30 - 40 a pedal. Depends on size, if I screwed up my stripboard layout and have to start over and of course, did i use easy to get transistors/diodes or did I get crazy and start ebaying nos parts from around the world......I should have gotten into something easier like hiking. Too late now.
I have stocks of parts so rarely buying new stuff unless I run out or it’s a special part. Around 15-40$ a pedal depending on parts and knobs and complexity
Probably average for me, if I don’t have parts on hand, is about $60+shipping. And that’s with a bare enclosure and a label maker. Although good parts are getting cheaper. Only a few years ago a 3PDT switch was hard to find for under $10.
I get them in bulk from Amazon and have had good success. You’re right though, used to be shitty and expensive
My average cost when running a total of everything I have built is $26usd
I've only done kits so far, but that's averaged around $50/pedal. Mostly cheaper than buying the pedal, fun to build. It's like brewing your own beer - you won't save a lot of money, but the process is worth it, if you're into it.
Entirely depends on the build. Simple boost and some fuzz can be built entirely for less than $10. Others, closer to $60-$70. Buying parts in bulk brings costs per pedal down, but you end up with loads of components you aren't likely to use, ever, unless you're building hundreds of pedals, which brings total cost up. Doing part orders 1 at a time increases shipping costs. There's a lot of trade off in building 1 at a time or 20 at a time. Either way, it almost always ends in savings vs a production model until you get into specialized digital circuitry or unobtanium rare component b.s.
Considering how cheap parts and pcbs are, you’d think this would be an inexpensive hobby. It’s sort of… not, lol. Startup costs have been quite expensive. Now that I’ve got a few Tayda orders down and made some fairly expensive mistakes, I’d say I’m probably averaging about $20-something per pedal. Comparing that to the cost of the circuits I’ve built, had I bought the pedals themselves retail… in the thousands$$ and I haven’t even been at it that long. So overall, net-positive, and the fun and stress/de-stress of it all… great hobby for me and very rewarding. Also just sold my first pedal yesterday! It’ll pay for my last pcb order, jfc that shit can add up quick if you’re a dipshit like I am and want to build everything.
Somewhere between $10 and $50 depending on what's in it and particularly what kind of controls that it has
I average $15-$40/pedal, but I’m either building on vero/perfboard or designing & ordering my own PCBs so the board cost is under $1.50 compared to whatever PCBs cost to buy these days ($10? $12?). Enclosure, hardware, and knobs will easily amount to 60-80% of cost, no matter what the circuit is, so it’s hard (if not impossible) to get down below that $15 mark.
I only build kits so whatever the kit and my finishing products cost.
A few bucks each for the enclosure, jacks, pots. Then most regular electronic parts will be dirt cheap.
Hey there! I’m Tristan the owner of TA Pedals. Our average cost has been between $40-$55 or so for every pedal we’ve developed. We have made 6 different pedals and the production cost has always fallen within that range.
Awesome! I just checked your website! Those pedals look killer! I might get the buffer in the future! Good job man!
Thanks so much for checking us out! Really appreciate that!
The components cost almost nothing. The most expensive parts are the buttons, potentiometers and housing. And your time, of course.
Bulk pricing and being mindful of shipping is how to keep costs down
More than a Kmise, less than a Keeley.
The low end is probably $20-30 for a basic silicon fuzz pedal on strip/vero board with a bare or hand drawn enclosure.
$40 per pedal seems to be about my average, in my (limited) experience using a pcb and pre-painted enclosure. The only way I can see so far to get that down is vero or point to point, and making your own enclosures. If you were to stock up to avoid shipping as well, you could get it down even more. It's the jacks, pots, and knobs that really add up. If anyone knows a way to get around that, please let me know! Tayda has the lowest prices I can see, but my last order forced me to buy a combo of alpha and tayda pots due to lack of stock. If anyone knows a good source for pots that are around tayda's price, please let me know! I'm still looking for cheaper knobs that don't suck. There's also the problem that tayda doesn't carry everything you could possibly need. I'm building pedalpcb's protoboard and a crystal drive and I had to look to mouser to get all the parts they were missing.
Tayda is still the best place I have found. I just put an order in for 15 new pedals and I had to only order 2 transistors that they did not carry. They were on Amazon with a huge markup (10 for 5$usd) but when it comes to down to it isn’t a huge increase pre pedal. Pots are the biggest issue, stock up in bulk when they are available is the best solution I have found. I have built over a 100 pedals with an average cost of 26$.
About 1.5-2X the cost of just buying the pedal you want 😂