EveryCircuit

Available online and as an app (Android | Apple), EveryCircuit is a great electronics simulation sandbox that really helps in visualising what’s going on within a circuit. It allows you to build a circuit with common components, each with plenty of flexibility in its parameterisation, and plot the current and voltage values over time at different points in the circuit. Compared with command-based SPICE simulators, EveryCircuit is far easier to use and to understand, but obviously with a more limited scope if you want to explore much more complex circuitry.

Above are two circuits that I built in the online version of EveryCircuit. On the left is a circuit that manipulates a binary counter, and on the right is an AC power supply rectification circuit (the plot at the top of the image shows the variations in current over time through the highlighted components in the circuit).

Understanding what’s happening in your circuit before you commit it to hardware is very useful. It could save your components from failing, and it gives you the opportunity to watch and think about what’s actually going on. A simulation tool like EveryCircuit also allows you to vary component parameters whilst the simulation runs so you can see what effect these variations have on your output. It is worth noting that like many simulation tools, the components in the EveryCircuit library are idealised, and so some of the difficult behaviours of the real-world are ignored. We’ll think about some of these when we get around to designing our circuits.

If you have no intention of actually building any of the circuits in this guide, you can replicate them in EveryCircuit and plot the input and output voltages (and maybe some intermediate voltages too) to see what’s really happening to your guitar signal as it passes through these effects pedals.

EveryCircuit is free to use. A one-time $15 (~£12.15 at time of writing) fee can be paid for lifetime access to the full service (a community of publicly shared circuits, a larger workspace, cross-device syncing of your circuits). Personally, I paid the full-access fee 2 years ago and I’ve been very impressed at how useful this tool has been for me.

All About Circuits

Most of what follows in this guide will make use of some common components and fundamental electronics concepts. Whilst some details on components and concepts are included, it would be impossible to include all the necessary information whilst keeping the guide satisfactorily concise. However, All About Circuits is dedicated to the quality communication of these electronics fundamentals. The textbooks area covers a wide variety of tutorials from beginner-level understanding to more advanced content. It’s all presented in an easy to follow manner, and in combination with the provided worksheets and video tutorials, it’s the place to be if you fancy brushing up on your electronics understanding.

Above is a preview of some of the content of the textbook on the left, and a preview of a page on operational amplifier feedback on the right.

An then if you’re struggling with something or just want a deeper understanding, you can just pop the question in the forums and a community of experienced and friendly people will try their best to help you out. Whilst writing this guide I was having some trouble with a circuit that I’d built using an operational amplifier (yes, they are important components! We’ll come back to them later). After a long hard search for an answer online (not helped by the fact that I really didn’t know what to search for), I asked nicely for some help in the forums. In less than an hour of posting, someone pointed me to a webpage explaining exactly what my issue was!

The website also offers technical articles, giveaways, datasheets – it really lives up to its name!

DIY Stomp Box Forum

The All About Circuits forums are useful for general electronics information. A more specialised forum is the DIY Stomp Boxes forum. As the name suggests, this is a community of those making their own effects pedals, and so if you have any questions specific to your builds, here is the place to ask them! It also provides a platform for those looking to show off what they’re making, and so it’s also a good place to look for inspiration and see just how much is possible.

Their Wiki page is also full of helpful resources. It includes information on debugging problems you might encounter, example schematics, audio clips of various pedals – go and have a browse!

Below you'll see just a small section of the many boards on this forum (note: some of these might look quite scary and advanced – I’ve personally had a really good experience fielding beginner questions. The forum contains helpful people of all abilities, and so it’s a great place to ask anything!).