hear the name Build Your Own Clone and imagine him working on some sort of twisted genetic
experiments. No matter how complex the circuit, the instructions still have to remain simple
and accessible—a true feat, Vonderhulls says, as
the builds have gotten more and more complex.
And even though he’s made it clear that he
won’t touch it, he still gets requests for pedals currently in production by other boutique
builders. “I get at least one or two emails a
day asking me to clone a Klon or stuff from
Lovepedal, like the Eternity or the COT50,”
Vonderhulls says with a sigh. Contrary to what
critics might allege, BYOC is not trying to rip
anyone off or passing original designs off as
their own in some sort of electronic plagiarism. While the legality may seem questionable, it is not; classic circuits like the Fuzz Face
and the TS-808 were never patented and thus
remain free game for any number of builders to interpret, BYOC’s customers included.
When pressed about the ethics of his endeavor, legality aside, Vonderhulls answers rationally, “Is it unethical? I don’t think so—a lot of
these designs come from pedals that aren’t in
production anymore. We’re not violating any
Build Your Own Clone
trademarks and the demand is there.”
Which, in a looping, circular sort of way,
brings the entire story back to its populist
roots; BYOC is hard at work taking these
highly rarefied designs, these long-sought
sounds of another age, and giving them back
to the people who deserve them, without
screwing anyone in the process. Along the
way he’s learned an extraordinary amount
about the history and design of classic circuits,
although Vonderhulls maintains that he isn’t
to be considered an authority on any of it—in
his mind, he is the average Joe next door with
a soldering iron and broadband connection.
He still looks up to builders like Zachary Vex
and Robert Keeley and admires the new crop
of shiny boutique pedals that emerge from
the industry at regular intervals; the only difference is that now he enables guitarists to
obtain great sounds without the price tag. He
is dedicated to tonal fidelity, not circuit originality. He gives the people exactly what they
want. In that way, BYOC could be described
as the un-boutique, ultimately created for the
people and built by the people. And what
could be more populist than that?
