freestompboxes manifesto

i thought i'd print this bit of text that explains how and why my favorite forum- freestompboxes.org- was created. here ya go, the Freestompboxes Manifesto!


Freestompboxes.org Mission Statement (June 17th, 2007) Another Forum? It really takes nothing to set up a forum nowadays... No money, no knowledge, just a borrowed computer will do. There are more then plenty of them on every subject all over the internet. Probably rightfully so, because newsgroups and forums are the heart of the internet: people from all over the world with the same interest have the opportunity to exchange ideas. With libraries abound, the internet did not do so much of spreading the canon of official canonical information. Rather, it turned out to be a great medium for the exchange of underground stuff. Building your own guitar effect stompbox is a prime example. Stompbox project Info on the internet Most of the circuits have been around since the beginning, but mostly in DIY magazines and they never really caught the guitarists' eye. They just walked in and grabbed their Guitar Player magazine. The online guitarist googling for 'vintage stompboxes' nowadays is bound to meet the DIY stompbox community sooner or later. And if you are true tonefreak rather then a show-off name dropper you get very happy at the thought that you can build your own 'boutique' stompbox and tweak it to your own taste for a fraction of the money you would pay for a boutique box. Backlash of the DIY pedal craze Big commercial pedal manufacturers are dropping their prices like they're hot, boutique pedal makers are getting nervous and begging the diy community to safeguard them certain commercial death. Or so they think... Recent turbulences and censorship of certain commercial schematics (although they are all over the net) has caused great upheaval at the mother of all stompboxsites, aron's diystompboxes.com causing some 'heretic' discussion to flee to the kind German Musikding.de forum. Copyright, Patent and more Of course often the artwork and the graphical layout of the pcb of effect are protected, but redrawing or tracing a circuit is by no means illegal. Patents on effects do exist, but they are not some common. Most of them have expired by now. There are some examples here on the forum, so do check them out in you are interested. Maybe this quickly setup board can provide a space for unabridge, free discussion about any stompbox design.