Re: Build Your Own Clone
He has a Rat clone and a Triangle era Big Muff clone now. And, until the end of the month he has a sale, buy 3 kits, get the delay kit free.
I was weak, I bought the Mighty Mouse (Rat), Phaser, Chorus, and got the free delay. Hence, I have some pedals going on ebay this weekend. So far, I have built the Rat and Phaser and like both. The Rat is a little tight fitting in the enclosure, but it has 3 modes, Rat distortion, clean boost, and overdrive. I like it alot. The phaser sounds good too, it's more subtle that the new reissue Phase 90s, and has nice tone. I'm working on the chorus and delay, probably get them done this weekend.
The kits are pretty much color by number if you can solder. I've actually built around 125 or so pedals from scratch that were sold through Fat Sound Guitars in NC about 10 years ago. To do nice painted pedals with silk screening and everything, it's alot of work, including out sourcing. These kits are worth the $, some of them, like the phaser, cost about the same as the RI Phase 90, but the BYOC ones are true bypass. You can voice the BYOC one to sound like the new RI or the old script phaser, if you look around the forum there are quite a few mods too, although I would definitely build some "stock" ones first to get your feet wet. I also say the kits are worth it because if your time is worth anything, the time required to source parts for a few pedals is worth the price of the pedal. Not to mention ordering in small quantities will cost you more per part than ordering parts in the 100s.
FWIW, I'm pretty quick with an iron, I built the Rat in a couple of hours and the Phaser in about 1-1/2 hours. If you're just getting started, plan on a few nights per pedal and possibly some trouble shooting, there is lots of help at the BYOC forum too. I also didn't paint the boxes, just labeled them, I'm more concerned with good sounding pedals, spending hours painting them doesn't interest me.
THis stuff looks cool! I see how it's "Color by numbers" but how can you modify the tone to be different?
Lots of ways, check out the forum. The people there run the gamut from the people that can color by numbers but need everything spelled out for them to people who know their way around electronics pretty well. As far as specific mods, it would depend on what you are talking about.
$0.02