Build Your Own
Clone
While that may seem like a bold statement to
anyone who doesn’t have an electrical engineering degree, Vonderhulls has managed to
make that recipe incredibly easy for anyone
with equal doses of patience and courage.
BYOC kits arrive meticulously organized, with
predrilled and labeled PCBs, blank canvas
enclosures and the components partitioned
into tiny, plastic bags. While the instructions
do come in the form of a PDF file—meaning
a computer has to
become involved in
the process, if only
briefly—they are
generally full of large
images, line drawings
and straightforward
instructions. It’s a
recipe that has been
refined since the first
kits hit the street,
one that has simultaneously become
more focused on the
steps that matter and
stripped of the details
that don’t. “When I
first started, I really
dumbed it down,”
Vonderhulls says. “I
included actual photos of every solder
joint. I actually got
complaints about it
from people, saying
it slowed the build
down. They told
me I should edit my
instructions.”
Part of the effort to ease newcomers into
the world of circuit building has been the
inclusion of the company’s Confidence
Boost—literally a simple linear boost and
buffer—and a signal tester kit in all first-time
orders. “If you can do paint by numbers, you
can build your own pedal,” says Matt Keon,
a longtime customer who is now involved in
BYOC’s creative and marketing efforts. “But
[Vonderhulls] has introduced some products
that make things even easier, like giving
first-time buyers the Confidence Boost kit
for free. It’s like saying, ‘Here, try this first.
It’s unknown territory and it might be a little
scary, but give this a shot before you take the
other pedals out of their packaging.’”
It’s a strategy that has largely been successful
for the company, as most first-time purchasers
end up becoming prolific repeat customers.
“It’s very addictive after you build your first
pedal,” says Vonderhulls. “It’s such an empowering thing. Once [a customer] builds their
first one and all their friends geek over it, they
come back and buy three or four more. Some
guys buy one and then come back and
buy everything.”
It’s difficult to find
anyone that has a bad
thing to say about
BYOC; everyone you
talk with has the same
infectious enthusiasm
for the concept. “I’ve
built every kit except
for one,” says Keon.
“I basically built my
entire pedalboard up
from dust.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, BYOC grew
out of Vonderhulls’
earlier flirtations with
establishing his own
boutique line. A self-professed “pedal
geek” from his earliest years of playing,
he began learning
how to build pedals
around 2001 after
seeing a Z.Vex pedal
on eBay. “I thought,
‘This is a handmade item someone made in
their garage or something’ and that I could do
that. And when I saw that someone was getting $300 for the pedal, I decided that’s what
I wanted to do,” Vonderhulls says. He eventually began turning out clones of Fuzz Faces,
Tube Screamers and Tone Benders under the
name Big Tone Music Brewery in his spare
time; it was with these early designs that
Vonderhulls had the experiences that would
form the basis for BYOC. “People kept sending pedals like the Fuzz Face back and saying
things like, ‘You know, it sounds great, but
could you cut the bass out of it a little bit?’
And I’d say sure, but I was only changing one
capacitor value, and it would almost be easier
for them to do it themselves,” Vonderhulls
