A comprehensive guide to electric guitar effects ("stompboxes"), with plans for 38 advanced effects, including shematics, printed circuit-board patterns, wiring layouts, and prototype photos; plus a detailed guide to cooking up entirely new stompbox effects from scratch. Illustrated with over 600 photos, diagrams, and schematics; 8.5 x 11, 259 pages.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Nicholas Boscorelli has been Editor of Stompboxology, the world's most advanced pedal newsletter, since 1990.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
where no stompbox book has gone before,
By frank b. (washington state) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Stompbox Cookbook: Build Advanced Effects for Electric Guitar & Bass (Paperback)
With so many books these days aimed at beginners it's refreshing to find one that doesn't coddle. The Stompbox Cookbook: Build Advanced Effects for Electric Guitar & Bass declares "for advanced builders" on its rear cover. The preface reads in part:Canned effects live with limits imposed by retail viability. Building from scratch breaks those limits, and that's what this book is about. The text is written at the level of those who understand basic electronics, and who have mastered the skills needed to build intermediate to advanced projects. ... Beginners would profit from building simpler projects than these. As a retired engineer my biases lean to just this approach. Yet some persons might not share my slant, so let's catalog the facts. The book contains plans for 38 projects, 35 of them effects or processors, or accessories such as splitters and mixers. They break down as: distortion boxes (6), tremolos (6), vibrato (1), phase (1), compressors (2), sustainers (2), tone/EQ (4), axe-based effects (2), and miscellaneous (11, including noise gate, companding system, envelope-driven filter, transformer isolation circuit, several others). The remaining three projects are a power supply, an audio burst generator, and a ramp generator. The book presents the projects in a uniform style that includes a circuit description, schematic, parts list, printed circuit pattern, and a parts placement and wiring diagram. Most projects add a photo of the soldered prototype. Many projects include photos of oscilloscope waveforms that shed light on the workings of the circuit. The projects use parts available through well known mailorder suppliers. Some projects take a conventional approach, while others leave the beaten path. For example, the SSM2120 dynamic control chip has been the subject of several do-it-yourself compressors and noise gates over the past decade. This book takes the SSM2120's control path outside the chip, giving the player command of attack, decay, threshold, and ratio. Some of its '2120 projects incorporate program-responsive attack and decay, and soft- knee compression. Speaking as someone who's followed electronics for nearly five decades, these features represent firsts for do-it-yourselfers. Throw in several effects that are gated or internally companded and, yes, this work qualifies as advanced. Besides projects, the book dishes up a generous serving of what it calls "ingredients"--circuit blocks that perform specific audio or control functions, the stated end being to equip the builder to create new effects. The ingredients are divided into dynamic processors, distortion, tone control, tremolo, vibrato & phase, noise reduction, and delay modes, plus several minor categories and a chapter on tube sound. The book includes a particularly rich treatment of placing stompbox functions under voltage control, and a lucid essay on compression. The book boasts a lavish complement of photos and diagrams, most conveying useful information. It concludes with a brief discussion of troubleshooting, and a robust reference list for those inclined to dig deeper. Boscorelli's writing is concise and clear, occasionally stylish, and largely devoid of hyperbole. Soft spots? Little on wah effects, less on frequency dividers, and only the most basic treatment of ring modulators. But what this book takes on it renders with breadth and depth. I'm tempted to judge The Stompbox Cookbook by its target audience and stated objectives, in which case it rates 9.9 out of 10. But reviews ultimately prove their worth by how well they inform prospective buyers. This book's content speaks for itself. Prospective buyers should weigh whether that content is likely to meet their needs. Novices will find frustration, for the book speaks electronic jargon and doesn't stop to teach fundamentals. But for adept builders looking to devise their own effects, or wishing to learn in some detail how stompboxes work, nothing else in print delivers what this book does.
23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A niche book without a niche,
By A Customer
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Stompbox Cookbook: Build Advanced Effects for Electric Guitar & Bass (Paperback)
Boscorelli's book is not designed for beginners, as he states from the outset, but the projects contained therein wouldn't satisfy the "advanced builder" he claims to be targeting. The projects largely accomplish simple, well-established processing tasks but use circuits that are overly component-heavy, and you'll often find obscure parts that require mail-ordering. Many projects require wall-wart power supplies of varying current and voltage when a design COULD have been made with a 9v battery and "standard" components in mind. There is an interesting section on effects theory, for those that wish to make their own designs from scratch, but I don't find it superior to the information widely available on the better homebrew FX builders' pages. A few slight adjustments or added explanatory sections, and this book could have been perfectly suitable for beginners, which would make this book seem a lot more relevant-- after all, most advanced builders are likely to have already built several basic distortions, compressors, and the like, which is the majority of what he offers here. Overall, beginners would be much better off starting with anything from Craig Anderton, while the advanced users should stick to the homebrew pages. For thirty bucks, this book is a real disappointment.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Stomp Box Cookbook,
By
This review is from: The Stompbox Cookbook: Build Advanced Effects for Electric Guitar & Bass (Paperback)
An excellent book which has given me lots of ideas. Unfortunately the project I chose to work on (the Squeeze-o-matic II guitar compressor) has an error in the PCB layout which is unfortunate, so I give only four stars.
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