Make Your Own Guitar Pedal With Beavis Board

Beavis Audio has recently released the Beavis Board, a kit to help fledgling guitar pedal builders. The kit addresses four typical problems in this endeavor: learning to solder, dealing with breadboards, sourcing parts, and making sense of schematics. By including a breadboard/psu/switch combo and tons of other parts as well as informative and easy to read schematics, all of these problems are alleviated, allowing eager builders to get to work right out of the box.

The kit costs $249 and we’re guessing it’s a little too “entry level” for most of you. It has a highly informative manual in PDF format. You could use that to get ideas and then source your own parts. Have any of you built a guitar pedal specifically for prototyping?

[via Music Thing]

12 thoughts on “Make Your Own Guitar Pedal With Beavis Board

  1. i for one am interested in this sort of thing. it’s not too “entry level”. i hope you don’t have sour grapes about some complainers. it takes a while for readers to adjust to change, and it takes a while for writers to get used to their audience. the barrage of new posts sort of accelerated that clash i think.

  2. ^^^ That would make sense, considering the clash is over the barrage of new posts.

    Not that this doesn’t look interesting, based on the pictures that looks like a rather complete introductory general electronics kit. 250 is a bit steep for what is essentially $30 worth of parts and a $15 multimeter, but considering that it contains all the basic components a beginning hacker will need for quite a while, and apparently some good documentation to boot, It may very well be worth that much for someone trying to get into hacking or electronics.

  3. why do they include a multimeter? almost everyone has one, and they’d be better off suppling you with a soldering iron, and for $250 you expected better over-all quality. im really interested in this because i have no previous experience hacking, however being 16 i don’t have $250 to save my life. is a kit similar to this, that is informative and teaches you to solder etc. but does overcharge you which i think this is doing

  4. Hey Trex, having been in that situation myself I can tell you exactly what to do. Build the kit yourself – it really is about $30 in parts. Get a breadboard, scrap a metal case from something or make your own with a hacksaw and C purling. Get yourself over to Ampage.org and Aaron’s stombox forum, or R.G. Keen’s site at http://www.geofex.com. If you’re interested in amp building, hit ax84.com. They’ll all have great advice and further links for you. This stuff isn’t hard or expensive, and doesn’t require $50 of kits, much less $250.

    Good luck! I’m almost finished with a degree in electronics after cutting my teeth in guitar FX and amplification starting at your age.

  5. Thanks much for the link. Here’s the deal on the beavis board: I do them part-time because lots of people have asked me to do it. If $249 is too much, then build your own. I have instructions on the site for how to make your own (beavisaudio is *all* about DIY) and you can download the builders guidea and all of the projects for free. As for the “30 dollars” in parts, that’s now even close–and there is a lot of labor involved in building them, sourcing the parts, doing all the docs, answering all the questions, etc. I do this as a labor of love (which is hopefully conveyed by the content on my site) not as a way to build a business. Regardless, thanks much for all the comments, don’t be shy about sending me emails!

    -dano

    1. Dani…I know that you posted this in another era, before the age of . {:0)> In any case I went to investigate something I saw many years ago and had no spare cash at the time…your Beavis Board. I found that your old site no longer exists. I was wondering if the schematic is posted somewhere. Now that I know how to read one, I’d like to construct what you were able to offer at one time as a labor of love. BTW, I appreciate that you were able to do that and I completely understand the economics behind the discontinuance. I can be reached at lespaul1963@hotmail.com

  6. $250 for support and a descent metal box with a quality stomp switch is not that bad. In my experience, the box and the switch have been the most expensive parts. Sure, you can use just a toggle DPDT and a plastic case, but I don’t recommend actually using your foot to hit the switch.

    If you really want cheap, pick up a 300in1 electronics kit from a box store after Christmas, they run around 5$ and have a breadboard and lots of low quality parts. Hit a music store or Radio Shack equivalent for some mono and stereo 1/4 inch jacks and a mix of log and linear pots. If you want some FETs for the more complicated pedals, you’ll have to find those too.

    Someone else mentioned it before, but Aaron’s Stompbox site moved some ages ago and I think is now found at http://www.diystompboxes.com/ And it’s a good place even for beginners.

  7. I don’t think $250 is overly steep, all in all. Two breadboards, the box itself, and all the jacks add up fast. I’m sure you could buy it all cheaper individually, but I’ve never seen an all in one kit that lets you make pretty much any pedal type. If he gets more in I think I’m gonna pick one up.

    -Storm

  8. it’s a shame this package is no longer available, there is a guy selling a 75 dollar beavis board with a switching pedal plus all the parts to build about 8 or 10 classic distortion pedals to get you going. I don’t think he’s making much money but I am going to be really stoked if I can get a hold of this as I am currently learning how to hand-wire tube amps and pedals, and the whole circuit-based electronic thing encompasses both. I can’t wait to make my own distortion pedal, even if it is just a hand-wired tube screamer with better parts and a cooler name. I wish I had gotten into this years ago, but I really have the covid-19 to thank for allowing me the time and space (plus a $1200 stimulus spent mostly on build kits) to start learning about the killer electronics that help make the electric guitar so limitless

    1. It’s a cool idea to make something more quasi-permanent. And guitar pedals aren’t just for guitars!

      But here’s my method: buy cheapest pedal you can find on eBay or thrift store and gut it. You’ve now got a nice project box, two 1/4″ jacks, some potentiometers, and a battery holder. If you want to wedge a small breadboard in there, go ahead, or run the wires externally to one.

      Or just air-wire stuff together, wrap it in electrical tape, and cram it in the box. Most of them have a decent amount of space and nice metal screws, so it’s easy enough to iterate through this.

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