frankly I've opened one too many commercial world established branded pedals to find out it is a tube screamer or electra distortion with some or none minor modifications to care.
Here's a little dose of reality. Most musical circuits have been endlessly copied by somebody. To this very day, people have been stealing designs created by Leo Fender and Jim Marshall. When it comes to DIY pedals, unless you're talking about a very complex circuit, like a delay or a chorus, then there is only so many ways you can make a circuit work. Suppose you want to create a simple distortion pedal. You can use transistors or opamps. suppose you choose to use an op-amp. Well, there's only so many ways you can bias an op-amp. Guess what? The way MXR biased their op-amps in their pedals is the textbook for what you should do to bias it. Well, there you go, there's half the circuit right there.
Daniel Bell He did, but it wasn't exactly Fender's circuit to begin with. Leo Fender stole most of that circuit from an old engineering text book that was intended to be used to amplify telephones. For this reason, Leo couldn't patent the circuit itself, so Jim was free to use it as he wished.
Club Soda Well,it wasn't Westinghouse or RCA. " All of the research I've done on the 5F6A circuit about it's origins has come up with the following.....The Bassman circuit was originally designed by Western Electric and Bell Laboratories in 1948 for use in industrial Public Address systems. The engineers at Western Electric wanted a circuit that produced less distortion so they eventually abandoned this circuit design. In an effort to recover the money spent on R&D they offered to license the circuit to other companies. Fender licensed it because it was cheap. Later when Fender started making enough money to hire more engineers and develop original circuits one of the primary goals was to eliminate distortion. The Brown and Black Fenders were designed with that goal in mind. Later.....when CBS took over they made even further efforts to eliminate the distortion. " archive.ampage.org/threads/1/gagd/043345/Thank_God_for_Western_Electric-1.html#043345 There's a famous Tube Amp book that talks about it and even shows the Western Electric schematic. That's what I was going by. My poor memory thought Westinghouse. But it was actually Western Electric. .
Quick disclosure - I make everything including my pedals with turret boards I designed and manufactured so I'm not using your or anyone else's boards anyway; it's just the point of the thing. Good advice until you get to the part where you're talking about prefab boards. The prefab board is a component - that's it. You or someone else designed that board and I cannot sell that particular board design but I can sure as hell sell anything I make with that component I bought from you or whoever without asking you personally first. At least in the US anyway your copyright only extends to the board design not to what I may do with that end product I purchased. Any pedal or console or whatever I build with that incorporates that prefab board is my design and myy work went into building it. Some may consider it courtesy to ask first but I, and a lot of other people, consider it pretty fucked up that someone else thinks I should ask permission before using a product I purchased. It's the equivalent of Home Depot demanding that contractors get their permission before selling homes built with 2x4s bought at Home Depot.
I agree, If you are in the Boutique Pedal Building and Selling business at a rate of minimal few sales a month, then after taking in all research and development, including breadboarding test circuits, component testing, designing pcb layouts and box graphics, and every detail of aligning the board, pots and all inclusions to the box, then soldering on parts and assembling the pedal, along with taking image photo shots for sale add, then making an add for wherever, Ebay, Reverb etc. Then not having a big brand name to start, drawing little attention to the product, causing you to have to list at minimal price hoping for a return for all your work. Also taking in all costs to begin with, like setting up for the job, parts cost, solder cost, cleanup cost, on and on costs. The bottom line is you are operating at a rate of around 20 to 50 cents an hour, if lucky. A lot of it is down to having a passion and the joy for creating and making, but all the same the builder needs to be renumerated to some extent for their efforts, albeit to often a pretty lousy return. So hats off to all pedal builders big and small, and like you say cloning and getting the job done and perfected is a stepping stone to better build practice and future potential new designs.
Two points: 1. Yes you can protect a circuit you've designed, if it is novel then it is patentable and it is illegal to copy for it for commercial purposes. (there are other requirements for a patentable design which can easily be looked up online, they are slightly different for different geographical areas of the world). 2. If you are selling electronic devices, they should comply with all legal requirements. In the case of a guitar pedal, that is likely to mean EMC requirements for susceptibility (the device should not be adversely affected by external magnetic and electric fields up to certain strengths and frequencies), and also for emissions (it should not emit electrical or magnetic fields which could cause disruption to other devices). A guitar pedal may emit excessive fields, particularly at the frequency of any clocks on board (or at odd harmonics of those clocks), and is more likely to be susceptible to fields unless it is well shielded. Shielding is a complex science (and sometimes more of an art) and requires a lot more than just sticking it in a metal box. EMC is the biggest issue for me here. If you're selling something to people, it is dishonest if you haven't tested it properly for EMC, and that is a complex thing to do - it can't be done in your home lab. If a guy pays you $100, receives it and it buzzes like hell in his studio (it may have been fine in yours), then he's going to be mighty pissed off. EMC testing is normally done at specialist labs and can cost multiple thousands of dollars unfortunately. That's not practical for small makers. It is also illegal to sell stuff which isn't EMC compliant, so it's your risk if you want to do it. If you still do, I suggest you make it clear to your buyers that there is no EMC compliance and that you are willing to refund them at any time in the future if they're not happy. Good luck whatever you decide!
yes you can protect a circuit design. but a lot of basic guitar pedals only use simple generic filter and amplifier circuits. they are so generic they are not patternable.
Yes you can patent a new and novel design, at great expense, and therein the patent will only last something like up to 20 years, and thereafter be open slather for all takers. Also along the way there are numerous ongoing fees to keep the patent alive. It really is an expensive ordeal, far above most newcomers to any electronics endeavored field and for starters you would have to have something big with a whole lot of potential to even consider doing so.
Yeah, there it is the killjoy that takes all the fun out of the hobbyist FX builder with ambitions, "Compliance Regulations" FCC, CE, EMC, etc. That which is usually far too costly for the backyard amateur startup to afford. Kind of sucks the life out of all the hope a boutique builder might have hoping to get established.
I think that legally speaking (and I am not a lawyer here) that a circuit is only patentable if it is novel. Many of these circuits are a straightforward use of opamps or transistors as an audio amplifier with tone controls. Fender for example built amps almost straight off of the suggested uses from tube data sheets. Clipping diodes on the output of an opamp (hard clipping) is not novel. Clipping diodes in the feedback loop (soft clipping) is not novel. The specific transistor or opamp you put in a gain circuit is not novel. I would add that, in my opinion, selling a pedal with a board made by somebody else is always 100% ethical IF you made that pedal for yourself, and then you decided that you didn't really want it. The ONLY time it's questionable is if you buy the board with the intent of reselling a completed pedal.
PS - one more thing. I've also seen major sales of companies held up for months or even years because the buyer was unable to show absolute proof that they owned the intellectual assets they were claiming on their balance sheet. That gives partners or stakeholders a very bad day. You do not want to be the source of that frustration. Likewise. If YOU are designing great stuff from scratch - use your head and start protecting your IP rights straight from day 1. That way when Jim Dunlop comes calling , you'll be ready to put that check in the bank. Cheers!
There are no original designs. I'm a datasheet horder and tech applications and applications of IC chips and transistors horder as well. Almost every idea for a pedal has come straight from the manufacturers datasheets and applications of parts books. It all started with the RCA books from which guitar amplifiers were born and the fuzz box. Not to mention that the guitar effects crowd borrowed heavily from the organ and synth manufuacturers circuits in the 50s and 60s and into today. Not to mention, parts. Todays effects makers and even DIY PCB makers often refuse to believe that parts make a difference and keep trying to make boards smaller and smaller which make it impossible sometimes to use anything other than 5mm caps or 1/8W resistors or SMD. Pisses me off. These folks like to say that parts are parts and your just imagining that your hearing a more musical effect due to some NOS or hi quality magic mark. Well you can say that all you want to but my Oscilloscope and test gear disagrees with you in a big way and prove that they are dead wrong. SO now you can't fit your special part on your board because the guys at the PCB DIY store have running bets with each other on whether or not they can get a famous chorus pedal or phaser that was on a huge 5"x7" board mashed down to fit into a 125b enclosure. So much for using any NOS golden parts you had laying around.
Thank you for the great videos In catching up on them I'm an electrician by trade but have played guitar longer I'd looked inside my Big Muff a dozen times and until I saw your videos it hadn't dawned on me Why the hell not build something I saw a fellow repairing a tube amp and he had the schematic for it well he decided to use a the way another amp company wired their master volume it was different enough but did the same thing but helped with the tone So I would think this may fall into the clone thing and hit on what you said about putting your own spin on it We all know The Simpsons already did it B4. This is off topic but I watched your salvage video What are you thoughts on VRs And isn't this a way to avoid cloning to boot throw a new VR in set to the value where there was a Standard one. Plus using LEDs for clipping instead of the called for diode Folks do it all the time they change just enough to avoid copy right infringement and nothing can be said I mean the only way I see a problem is if you go the Chibson route and make a blatant copy down to the Tube Screamer on a green box There is the line lol
I know this video is a little older though I'd like to add my own two cents especially when it comes to the prebuilt pc world. For example you can source your own components such as gpu, gpu, motherboard, cooling system (fans, liquid cooling, mineral oil, etc.), ram, case and much more and still sell it as it's own thing easily without any issues. I'm not lawyer as a disclaimer but I'm pretty sure that there was a court case that even made it legal in the U.S. to buy another product, repackage and sell it as your own. That's as lazy as it gets. I'll still do more research but nice to see this coming from you as I have a lot of respect for what you do. Thanks for being a good teacher. Cheers. :)
You learn very quickly that buying premade clones vs having a company in Asia print pcb's for you and buying the parts in bulk is 99% cheaper anyway. Josh Scott has been very open that his designs are mostly "improvements of originals". If you want to do something special with these circuits, work on original art and designs on the enclosures, do quality work, provide customer support and give a porton of your proceeds to a local food bank or cancer research and advertise that.
IMHO, Anything out of production by the original manufacture is fair game for cloning. Where I would personally draw the line is cloning another current builders pedals such as just churning out D*A*M Meat Head clones, even though It's loosely based on a Si Fuzz Face, it would just be ethically wrong to me.
Pigeon .FX I understand your point of view, but please don't exaggerate. You said yourself it's based on other well-known circuit, probably messing with a protoboard and then "voilá"....so not much of R&D there... What else? Soldering skills? Finishing enclosures? That's the experience you talking about to justify 200$/piece for a DAM? God, it's a stripboard, not even a PCB... I build my own effects, I know how much it costs for me. I can only assume what lower prices a manufacturer gets when ordering a singificant amount of parts/equipment. Give me a break...
you should tell airis effects this. I bought two pedals from then and one was built on a S0S board and the other "hades preamp" was built on the fuzz dawg krank maximus pedal. I felt pretty ripped off as the "brutal drive" was literally SOS with a diode dropped and a 3mm red led with a few resistor tweaks( that wouldn't change the tone)
Ianal but in america right of first sale would apply to all predesinged boards sold without a preceeding commercial contract, so there is no worry about rebadging a purchased board. Most likely any “license” wouldn’t be worth the paper it is written on, hard to enter into and impossible to enforce against an end user consumer
If you are cloning to the extent that the finished product looks identical and trying to pass it off as real, then you are asking for trouble. It's like someone buying a fake Chinese Gibson and trying to sell it on as a genuine Gibson.
The only people who defend pedal clone companies are those who play in cover bands at the pub. If you're shamelessly copying someone else's earnest ideas and hard work you should take a hard look at your creative priorities
I'm not a lawyer either but I do understand intellectual property law in the USA. There are all kinds of slippery slopes here because everything involving that pedal including but not limited to the board , the circuit design , the case design, the graphics and name (of course) the design of the knobs, whatever - could potentially be someone else's intellectuals property and therefore subject to some manner of infringement. And some items don't have to be "registered" by them for those ownership rights to exist. Although, typically if they do go to the trouble of registering trademarks copyrights and patents then they can be entitled to more punitive damages in most states. So hey - no prob you say, who is gonna sue me for selling a cpl clones on eBay?? Maybe nobody - unless of course a company is headed into bankruptcy, or is being acquired by a bigger fish, or 101 other reasons that would cause them to need to find and destroy any challenge to their intellectual property. It happens daily and I know of several cases where small mnfcts were hit with $100,000 +++ judgements. It's literally luck of the draw and no doubt Jim Dunlop would be able to mount a better battle against you than Jim Doe Boutique fuzz.com. It is also UNTRUE that taking an existing design and changing it a little will protect you. If you didn't either design it yourself, or get written permission to use it for what you are doing - you are at risk, period. So MY opinion would be "cross your tees" Making $45 on a clone fuzz face is not worth there risk of losing your house. Just my .02. Instead, come up with your own ideas if you want to sell them. Cheers!
Yeah I think Tioga is wrong. The circuit design can't be copyrighted. If it could, explain why there wasn't huge furore surrounding the release of the Soul Food? Or JHS adapting almost every Runoffgroove schematic? Or their Devi Ever copy? The Mooer RAT copies? PCB design can be copyrighted sure, the actual image of the schematic can be copyrighted, yes the name obviously, but the inherent circuit design cannot be copyrighted.
If a company wants to protect their design, it is possible to hide the components inside a casing that can't be opened. I'm not saying that they should have to, but they can if they want.
Whether or not a design is inventive, original, or unique enough to be protected under intellectual property law is a complicated issue, and quite often a large company will just threaten people with frivolous litigation if their design is even slightly similar. As a small-time pedal builder you can protect yourself by not advertising your pedal as a direct copy of something else. That way it's unlikely that you'll catch the attention of some big pedal company. If you're saying "buy my home-made DS-1 pedal for a fraction of the price of a real DS-1", then you're asking to get sued.
Hmmm. Great discussion and a very GREY area. As an electrical engineer, I've worked for a few manufacturers who have R&D, marketing, manufacturing departments etc. It gets down to enforceable patents and jurisdictions. Like amplifiers, guitars and recording equipment, stomp boxes have always had an element of "homemade" enthusiasts making and perfecting variants of existing designs. The tube screamer itself is arguably based on other concepts. That became possible with the advent of opamps. Lots of Leo Fender & Les Paul designs were perfected from existing creations. In fact what became Ibanez were constantly sued for by Fender and Gibson for their lawsuit guitars (arguably better than the originals at the time) and ironically manufactured for both. Then there was the whole boutique amp industry based on modified Fender designs based on previous designs that went on to become brands themselves like Dumble, Rivera (A fender designer) and Mesa Boogie. China has risen as a manufacturing powerhouse because of two overriding factors, cheap Labour and industrial espionage that has stolen many companies design patents and proprietary technology. Its a culture in China where the state gets a slice of the pie. Reverse engineering is how designs become better and more affordable. I noticed yesterday that Joyo has been taking notice because they have changed the capacitors in their amp simulator pedals, obviously after reading threads in build forums. Surface mount technology, component volume production and component arrays have also made stuff both easier to build at a cheaper price point. Bespoke, craft and home builds have always been a thing in most industries where people want something a little different to suit their thing. I have repainted and modified most of my stuff because I want it to reflect me and my art. Ethically, most circuits on a variboard with a tweak and a changed component value here and there are a new incarnation. Distortion, like noise, is not patented. How it's attained may be, as indirectly copying circuit boards is illegal. Every design can be improved, tailored and adapted ethically. Who owns it? Well, there have been some pretty stupid patents and don't get me started on blood sucking lawyers. I read this morning that Trump (don't get me started) is slapping tariffs on China which will see Chinese imports become more expensive. That's a dangerous thing considering the American companies manufacturing in Cina (including Ivanka Trump clothing company) The third largest holder of US treasury bonds is China..yet I digress Someone in here said Ethics is not being an Asshole, yep that's about it in short, however, there's a lot of assholes in this world (dont get me started)...rant over.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You say "you need to check with the fabricated board maker" before selling, but I'm not aware of any precedent for that. The right to resell (first sale doctrine) is foundational law in every country I'm aware of. Respectfully, I know you say you're okay with people selling your boards, but even if you weren't it doesn't matter how you feel about it, if you sell somebody a PCB they can resell it in an assembled pedal or otherwise. Am I missing something?
I just make them for me and my mates, don't sell them or anything. Thing is, aren't most pedals based off existing things anyway? I have a mooer slow engine for autoswells, and its nigh identical to a boss slow gear, cept the visual aspect, really, and lack of controls.
I meant the SELLER not the buyer in the comment below. If you're selling your company the IP (designs, etc) could well be your largest asset. Protect them the best you can.
Stirring up controversy Paul.Haha Build for the love,not the money. Everyone starts thinking they're gonna save/make money, then you end up with stacks of enclosures,drawers full of components,mad girlfriends/wives,burned fingers and you can't stop! Welcome to the disease! Like you said start with family and friends then move on to Ebay. Hopefully your friends will tell you what you need to improve on!
Thanks for your opinion! I started doing diy pedals an year ago just for myself but then friends started asking me to build for them. Then a friend of a friend saw it and wanted one... word spread out... and I came to a point of thinking about ethics so I feel confortable to hear from someone with so much experience than me. So thanks again and take a look to my page... facebook.com/savasta.fx. Suggestions are welcome. :) Albert.
Savasta FX Like the uniform look Albert! No worries mate, just remember, a lot of the boutique builders, started where your starting. Good luck mate! Paul
guitar pedals cost too much.Their real value is low because manufacture is fucking dirt cheap.The people that are scamming are the ones that make the pedals, not the ones selling cheap replicas. (i don't sell anything, that's only my view on the entire pedal thing...)
+NumbnutzTV . A lot of the cost is in paying the R&D guys to come up with the designs, it's not just the component cost. Do your begrudge paying more than $0.50 for a CD because that's how much the CD cost to make? Aren't the band members, or circuit designers in this case, allowed to make a living?
Geraldine Hills i've checked the parts in a distortion pedal that was on sale for 60$ and the components on the schematic of the thing cost about 10$ add 10$ more for a box and you get the thing's real value at 20$ so the R&D cost 40$ for tech that is 55 years old? It seems unfair and they can make a living on even 10$ for R&D if they sold more of the damn things.If they didn't put such a high R&D price they would have to work to design new pedals with new effects... The price of the R&D is high because there are enough idiots to pay 60$ for something that really should cost 30$..
The effects are universal, the technique i.e. filters are universal, but the circuits themselves are patented. That's what makes a product unique and worthy of patent. You're right, many people do design the circuit, but they're paid to create an entirely new circuit. Modding your own, purchased pedal is okay as long as you bought it. Keeley is a prime example of this type of work. Clone is a loose reference to copying. Take EH and their range for example... they built original pedals that have patents for their property. They build the same pedal 20 years later with modifications to the tone circuit, because they own the design and patent. Expired patents become rare as companies buy old companies up and the IP is back up again. I would advise a beginner to mod what they have and learn the basic layout. Then build an entirely new pedal from experience with your own design. Then grab a creative commons and apply for your patent. It's more lucrative in the long run.
AFAIK circuits aren't patentable. The layout can be copyrighted, as if it was a piece of art, but not the circuit. Some companies have patented the principle of operation of certain circuits, but that applies to specific applications. I don't think you can patent an overdrive, because the principle of operation isn't specific enough for you to prove it's something you invented.
the circuits used in most pedals are very simple and are generic in nature. ie a fuzz face circuit is a very simple 2 stage transistor amplifier circuit. that style of circuit has been used for decades in thousands of applications. but the name could have the copywrite
Thank you for your thoughts. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this very subject. It was good hearing your opinion. It's helping confirm the way I feel about selling pedals based on other good pedals that are already out there. I think like you said that we need to find a way to improve or change something. To make it ours. Let's be honest, the bigger companies made their design based on someone else's design. Thanks again, also thanks for all you do to share your knollage with others. It is greatly appreciated. Steve
I was actually thinking of putting a few pedals up for sale once I got a few personal builds done. Your suggestion of doing something different than the original is pretty much what I planned. Find a pedal I like and either add features or change key components to something else that sounds good to my ears. Good advice about using prefab PCB's and getting permission to use them. I find it hard to understand why they would take issue with you using their board as they sorta make a profit off every build you use their boards for; but I guess if you've rehoused a Big Muff and pass it off as your own pedal they may take issue. Lol
+thisdyingsoul76 Usually not but it depends on quantity. "most" pcb layout guys dont care for small runs, but you really need to check with the pcb designer. Im not too fussed with mine, i have provided pcb's to builders that have done small runs before. Cheers.
irateyourvideo2 some. Company I worked for ploughed millions and lots of brain power into our patents. Try running a whole floor of engineers (35) for 2 years on salary before making a cent.. protection of intellectual property and market share is an imperative to investment return. That's what patents protect.
with street entertainers and buskers in mind, is it possible to make a pedal that has a rechargeable battery and a solar panel so that it can be charged up with sunlight?
yes it is possible. probably not worth it though. probably better to build a 9v battery pack from 18650 cells with a large enough capacity to last the day that you can recharge at home over night
I think the "boutique" companies who actually make almost nothing but slightly tweaked clones *cough*jhs*cough*blackarts*cough*jrockett*cough* are just unoriginal and lack any creativity. I think they should have too clearly state that it's a clone of "this persons' design, they deserve at least some credit for it.
many smaller companies were not pleased with JHS ripping them off. Tubescreamer or Big muff is one thing, the market is saturated and they are classic, but if its a brand new small company working from their garage its pretty shitty.
i think ethically it depends if you are improving, marking the price down, adding better mods....vs what JHS does which is heavily mark it up, and advertise with hype that its new design.
