Why the World Needs Another Pedal Kit

The Ultimate Beginner Pedal Kit (part 1)

There are plenty of DIY pedal kits on the market, but there's still an unmet need. A niche to be filled. We need a kit for absolute beginners.

The goal of this project is to make it the #1 recommended resource for newcomers to pedal building. It should be a kit you can confidently recommend to any guitar player with no soldering experience, and the low price and ease-of-build make it a no brainer for them to give it a try.

What makes it different and noteworthy?

Extremely Affordable

Newcomers to DIY pedal building should be able to try it out without breaking the bank

• Low base price (target $39 to $49)

  • HOW? We are NOT going to make lots of different kits. All efforts are funneled into this one kit. Goal is to do 1 thing and do it well: Be the #1 recommended resource for newcomers to pedal building

• Low tool and material costs: Specially designed to require as few tools as possible; You need only a Soldering iron (and sponge) and cutters (diagonal or side cutters)

Most Beginner-friendly

Newcomers to DIY pedal building should have a fun, relaxing, and rewarding first experience to gain some confidence and gauge their interest in the hobby

• Includes practice soldering kit with complete documentation and video instructions that teach you to solder, assuming no prior knowledge

• Comprehensive illustrated documentation, and accompanying build video (linked to each other by chapter).

• No offboard wiring, which is a common point of problems or frustration

• Pre-sorted components - no need to parse capacitor codes, or match resistor bands

• Variety of visual styles to pick from: You can get bare aluminum with a faceplate, or a powder coated and printed MAS Effects design.

So I'm working through a second round of prototypes at the moment, and I'll post some more pics soon. Shoutout to PCBWay.com for the great prototype boards. You can get 5 or 10 PCBs for only $5, so if you ever wanted to design your own pedal, give it a shot!

In the meantime below you’ll find some pics of the first prototype, complete with plenty of mistakes (which are being ironed out in subsequent versions). More to be posted in the coming days.

Whoops, LED was on the wrong side of the foot switch board, so for the first one it was just flipped around.

Guts are designed to be easily removable, no desoldering. No complicated offboard wiring either. Just simple ribbon cables.

You can either get plain aluminum to decorate yourself (faceplate included), or a powder coated and printed enclosure (more on that in later posts)

A preview of Part 4 on enclosures

Series: The Ultimate Beginner Pedal Kit

This series walks through the why’s / what’s / how’s going into the creation of a MAS Effects Ultimate Beginner Pedal Kit

• Part 1 [this post]: Why the World Needs Another Pedal Kit

• Part 2: Unboxing the Beginner Pedal Kit

• Part 3: This LED Flashlight Will Save You From Darkness and Failure on Your First DIY Pedal

• Part 4 [coming soon]: You WILL Succeed in Your First DIY Guitar Pedal

• Part 5 [coming soon]: How Many Enclosure Options is Too Many for the Beginner Pedal Kit?

• More? Let me know what you want to see