u/BaldDesigner

Never tried to build a pedal or foot switch before. But I got scrappy during my kids Saturday nap with some aluminum and plywood I had kicking around and 20 bucks worth of parts from Amazon.

I’m honestly surprised this even works and there’s a lot I would do differently about switch placement and some other stuff, but it was fun trying to build instead of buy.

(Last two photos are just examples of the closest things I could find that would also do the job.)

I am a week into using this pedal.

After some shopping around I got this pedal to try to solve two problems:

1. I've been wanting a lighterweight headphone playing solution than my Roland Cube 30, so I can more easily hideaway my stuff when toddlers are awake and roaming.
2. I am likely going to start playing guitar for my small PCA church that has an old building and plays a combination of traditional and contemporary hymns (more indie folky than the megachurch worship sound). They don't have the band very loud and use an electric drum kit, so I wanted an entry point into IRs and straight to DI guitar playing.

This is my first amp pedal and my only other experience with amp sims are things like UA's free showtime 64 plugin and my old school Roland Cube amp models.

I got it for like $129 on Amazon so it was by far the cheapest thing that does this I could find.

My initial impressions are:

• I think it sound really good once dialed in! I am using the Jensen IR pack it offers as a download and York's free IRs. I am trying to use the larger speaker types to get bigger warmer sound. I like being able to adjust tone and amp settings but also tweak some IR things like output and high and low as well. I also really like how I can add an EQ or (not and) a Noise Gate at the end of my chain before I go into a DI.
• Works well with headphones, but it really became fun when I ran it in stereo into my studio monitors.
• I am hoping to set it and forget it, but I having the ability to switch settings with a foot tap is cool.
• The knobs are really hard to turn for my large hands, that is a pain point, and honestly almost everything about editing settings is very annoying and painful
• The app works and is better than nothing, but it is also not great and has some very annoying quirks. (But as someone who has designed apps for living for 10+ years I know making a good app is VERY hard, so I am happy it works at all).

I am really curious if anyone else is experimenting with this pedal. I debated returning it because of how hard it is to use. But since it sounds really good with some tweaking and it is way cheaper than almost any comparable option, I am going to stick with it for a while and try to make it work!

I've had most of this stuff for 6+years and I am trying to make it work best for what I need.

I used to play in indie and chill wave bands and now I am more interested in post-grunge alt rock vibes ... and I am about to start playing church music.

So I wanted something that could do a lot of different things in the small footprint of the pedaltrain JR I already have. So I prioritized access to reverb out and IR out, so I can easily unplug my IR/Amp Modeler and bypass it into an amp, and I also wanted the stuff I'm going to be using live the most on the bottom tier.

Pedal Playground was super helpful for trying dozens of different layouts to optimize cable run and placement.

I also just switched from zip ties to velcro tie downs so I can easily rearrange in the future.

Thanks for letting me share!