Components to buy

[TV-Set]

Hullo everyone!

I've been gearing up for a few days now and already successfully built a BC Si FF variant of my own with a tone control. Now that I have like 500 caps of various capacitances neatly stored on my desk I kinda started to wonder about those and some of the other componets that I bought or am going to buy.

I see varius types of every component on ebay, like for caps it's ceramic, polyester, tantalium, multilayer, etc. and it's the same thing with the resistors as well... most of all they vary greatly in price.

Q1 So, do those have a significant impact on the sound or pedal performance or anything at all? or am I not to be worried and just pick whatever is cheaper?
Q2 I'm intending to buy a stock of carbon film 1/4 W, 5% tollerance resistors (100 pcs, each value), those r really cheap. R they ok?
Q3 I am using electrolytic (cylinder-like) and ceramic (small round ones) caps. Those ok? or should I get to spend more on other types?

Just want to get it to sound good and not buy something that I'll have to thtough away after some time.

PS: sorry my bad english

[Nocentelli]

Q1 - cap type is a contentious issue (check out "the sound of capacitors" thread in this sub-forum to view to differnt opinions on ths subject). I would say that for a beginner, cap type is not particularly important other than to make sure the part will fit the layout you're using. I tend to use electrolytics for power filtering and fuzz gain pots (because polarised caps in the microfarad range are needed for this application), poly "box" caps for signal coupling (because these are generally in the nanofarad range, and box caps are easy to solder in place) and I use ceramics anything under 1n (i.e. picofarad values). There are some exceptions, like many old fuzz circuits have huge electro caps at the input, and sometimes I'll use a ceramic nanofarad cap if it fits the layout better.

There are a few often-repeated principals regarding cap type, the most common being that electro- and ceramic types should not be used for audio paths due to their poor quality, on the other hand, ceramics are often viewed as critical to getting the sound of a vintage big muff pi.

Q2 - 1/4w, 5% resistors are fine for almost all 9 volt pedal circuits. The only time you might want higher tolerance is if you are desperate to make your clone exactly the same as a particular reverse engineered pedal where someone has actually measured and published the exact values OR if the circuit requires two or more resistors to be closely matched to work properly, e.g. For certain octave effects. However, you can always buy a big bag of 5% and spent a bit of time measuring them until you find a closely matched pair (or use a fixed resistor and a trimmer to match it exactly).

[Nocentelli]

Q3 - as stated above, I don't think cap type is that important for a beginner. As you build more and more pedals, you will almost certainly realise that buying a breadboard and trying loads of schematics out before you build is vital. Once you have a breadboard, it is very easy to try out different cap types and see if you have a preference (or can actually tell the difference). I'd suggest getting some box caps purely because they take up less space, are easier to solder, and you don't have to worry about whether you have got the polarity oriented correctly!

[TV-Set]

Just as I thought. Thx 4 the reply

[CHEEZOR]

Q1: In my experience, the right value matters WAY more than the material, but I haven't tested this too much. Get a ton of ceramics in small values. I think I got assorted values for under 15 bucks. Might have even been under 10 bucks. They have served me great for when I just need a small cap somewhere. I use "better" quality ones for higher capacitance values. All the higher quality ones I scavenged from from random dead electronic circuits.