wow, an online store for palmetto pedals!

i'm not much of a guitar player. sure, i've played bass in a couple of bands, strummed an acoustic for most of my life, and can tinker around with some rhythmic riffs, but when it comes to "playing guitar" i'm pretty useless. 

so what am i doing making guitar pedals?

short answer: it's fun. 

longer answer: it's a lot of fun. 

as a lifelong tinkerer, it was only a matter of time before i got into hobby electronics. i had a 100-in-1 Radio Shack experiment kit as a kid - got it for christmas - and could kinda-sorta figure it out and make basic circuits from schematics. but i think what makes guitar effects in particular a lot of fun for a hobby electronics enthusiast is they make nifty noises. a tiny little collection of resistors, capacitors, and a transistor or two can dramatically affect any incoming sound. 

also - guitar effects circuit design is kinda like cooking: just about every combination of ingredient, cooking time, flavoring, cooking method, etc. has been done before. the fun part now is rethinking recipes and flipping these building blocks around to make something sorta new. 

outside of digital stuff, just about every building block for effects pedals have already been done. you got your gain circuits, your tone stacks, your clipping section, etc. the fun part is adding a dash of this circuit with a scoop of that circuit and serving it up on a bed of yet another circuit. not "original design," maybe, but something fun, refreshing, or maybe just quirky.

probably the real reason i got into making effects pedals is so i could use them to make up for my lack of guitar chops. i couldn't afford all the cool pedals i wanted, so i figured i could build some.

at any rate - here's my shop. maybe you'll like something i've made, maybe you'll like how i do things and want me to whip up something special for you. maybe you're interested in the process behind making pedals and testing circuits. hopefully it's that last one, too, because i don't have much of an operating budget at this moment and will likely do a bit more writing than building pedals for sale.

so, while i save some moolah to do a couple "flagship" runs of the new Palmetto Pedals, follow along as i test circuits, audition classic effects, and learn about how all this stuff works.

- d russ