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Boutique ?!!

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Boutique!!???

Some years ago some builders started to make their own hand built pedals commercially available. With this development "Boutique" was born. Over time some of these guys managed to make money from this, most likely because they had a good set of ears on their heads, knew how to make a device that was roadworthy, came up with something new and exiting etcetera, etcetera.

Boutique seems to have gone sour over the last few years as more info became available on the net. Many existing circuits were copied and, due to the use of "better" components, always sounding so way much better than the original.The argument "better" on components is a tricky one by itself. It seems masses of fresh builders use specific types of components for no other reason than the fact that "everyone says".... Little hands on experience here. Apart from that, there are claims made which are only partially true and miss a firm basis. See the tech section on this page as well.

Furthermore great initiatives like www.generalguitargadgets.com and www.diystompboxes.com supplied designs that people could build themselves. Slowly these designs started to crawl to the surface and were being sold as "boutique" including the "much better" claims. I built one GGG project once, a Univibelike, and it required lot of tweaking before it could be compared to my Shin-Ei Phasetone. This doesn't mean the GGG project is bad but it makes a "better", let alone a "way better" claim doubtful.

The downside of this development is that it gets extremely difficult to surface for a builder who does have something new to offer. The boutiquemarket is, other than for the "early names" completely choked. If something must be sold it can only be done so if it's cheaper than all those others who claim similar sonic qualities which results in very low price tags.

Turn that around too!! I have spoken quite a few players who weren't interested in a certain commercially available box anymore after they saw the contents of that box. Some simple calculation tells that that box would cost some 10 dollars to produce of all stuff is bought in bulk. Selling price is a whopping 219 US$. That are very large margins! "Yeah sure", one might say, "They put a lot of time in the development of that box". This might be the case but if that same box is sold in quantities of thousands the R&D costs should flatten out. Also, if a simple 1 transistor (as an example) booster/preamp requires many hours of tweaking to get that specific sound one can wonder how consistent that sound is going to be over time. It might mean that with every batch of transistors the design must be adjusted to get that sound back. Personally I strongly believe in worst case designs where component tolerance influences on the sound are covered by the design for consistent performance.

Yet another perspective. I go to a specialized store/shop/supplier if I need something special or customized to my requirements. Think about a suit or something. I'd say that specialist, who is able to perform his craft to fit my requirements, is the holder of a boutique store. Now, I go to a music store specialized in boutique effets pedals which are imported from boutique effect builders around the world. Although undoubtly a nice collection but the "to my requirements" is no longer there. The seller is only able to suggest some thinhs which might fit my taste. Therefore the "boutique"-store is in fact a specialty store selling production models from small builders.

Now, let's run into some of those details which are claimed to be more "boutique" and start thinking about it with an open mind.

True bypass holds a load of pro's and con's. The statement that true bypass is always better is pure fiction. Unfortunately, over the last few years TB was so heavily marketed that after a while about everyone without technical background started to believe pedals must be TB. Even to such an extend that people, gathering info on a, perhaps to be purchased, pedal decide not to buy it because it's not TB.
True Bypass can be a solution to be considered in the following situations:
- The pedal has a relatively low input resistance which keeps connected to the circuit when the pedal is bypassed. Stock Dunlop wah's come to mind as the most commonly known example
- The original design has a gain control which stays in the circuit even when the pedal is bypassed. Examples are a Boss CE-1 or a Mutron 3. By making these pedals TB the gain can be adjusted to the optimal setting for the effect without being bothered that this setting may not be the best when the effect is switched off. - The effect has it's own power supply which is noisy but cannot be altered. For instance due to a lack of space in the enclosure. When the effect is used one can take this higher noise levels for granted. This does not mean that the effect, while not used, should still cause a higher noise level in the setup. TB it and be certain to be rid of that noise!

A great one picked up on a forum:

"I like that white washer around the footswitch. It tells me a quality switch was used".

Does it? How? First of all one can mount a white washer around any switch. Furthermore, in this specific case the person mentioned was referring to those blue 3PDT swithes we all use. Quality? Not per-se. Default choice, reasonable price and largely available. I cannot remember having anyone ever having done any investigation toward footswitches and concluding that these blue 3PDT's were the best quality of all different types examined. Don't get me wrong. These blue switches work remarkably well but referral as "the quality switch" is tricky. B.T.W, these switches are followed by remarkably high numbes of fallout..... online. Problem with this fallout is that one will only hear the stories about the defective ones. This means that there is no relation between defectve switches vs the total numbers sold. Only then it's possible to determine the fallout and therefore the quality.

The idea behind PCB mounted jacks being bad is that the solder that connects the jack leads to the PCB will break due to the mechanical force of plugs pushed in and pulled out. before deciding that PCB mounted jacks are therefore "always" bad one has to look at the total design. These leads may be connected to the PCB but that doesn't necessarily mean the force is applied to the leads. When the jack is mounted in the enclosure's case with a decent nut there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of broken soldering. All force applied to the jack will be directed to the enclosure and not to the solder. Only when the jack's only mechanical connection is via the PCB one can expect contact problems sooner or later.
In this mechanical perspective of analysing possible problems one important thing must be added; The combination of materials for this jack and it's nut. If the one is metal and the other is plastic problem's can arise. In this case, when mechanical force is applied, the plastic part of the combo will start to deform due to the metal part being pushed into the plastic. When the force is taken away it will keep this deformed shape meaning that the parts are (slowly) getting loose, resulting in the possibility of mechanical load on the PCB connection. If not parts are the same material (metal on metal, little chance of deforming, plasting on plastic, high flexibility) the chance of loose jacks are a lot less.

a) Does swapping the IC/Chip suggest that we're talking about Tubescreamerclone 10.000? Not for sure but quite likely. Nothing wrom in that but bear in mind that while you're reading the description of a marvelous fresh sounding pedal bla bla it will give you a tubescreamerish sound.
b) Hello!!!! Swapping IC's? I thought I was dealing with an expert in the field of tone! Now you're telling me that you, the expert, could not make up his mind ad leave an integral part of the tonal character of your creation up to the user? Ofcourse I understand the possibilities of chipswapping. What I mean to say is that this is something that is a possibility and should not stated as if it is a selling point.

May I bang that pedal of yours on the table a few times? Quite a chance your transistors just fall out. Socketed transistors and roadworthy just don't go together. Sockets are great for prototyping but please solder them in the final product. Chance of destroying the transistor? How about a) learning to solder (as in the 1 second max for applying heat) and B using a plier to cool that leg while soldering.

I won't be the last to deny that there's difference in component quality. However, when looking into the statement one can raise some questions. Over the last years I've seen some boutique pedals and boutique modded pedals in which this was te case. Components were replaced with components of the same value but manufactured in a different way to make them better suitable for specific applications. The boutique guys referred to used these components because of these specific characteristics and therefore got the desired sonic change, minimal as it in some cases may be.
Now, turning to the "would-be-tique" advertising this isn't so certain. OK, you used carbon comp resistors instead of metal film and can give a tonal change. The next question is if you used them everywhere and if so, why? Carbon comp tends to induce more thermal noise so one might consider not using them in bias supplies or high gain stages... just to give an example. Furthermore, wat did you do to determine that these resitors used were in fact high quality?? And those caps used? "They're film caps because they're the best". Are they for the application you're using them in right now? And those electrolythic caps? Are they the best available (again, for that application) or just the only type the supplier happened to have?

Have you ever noticed how older equipment (especially mixing consoles tend to be very sensitive) suddenly appear to be "warm" sounding? Especially when they get on sale? How does this work? The higher the price the warmer the sound or doesn't it work that way?
Anyone interested in a Boss DD-2? It's old so compared to all that modern junk (Psst! Modern is bad! Old is always better!) so it must sound warm. Fact is that DD2 will always be a 12 bit delay and therefore always a little harsher then a delay using a higer quantization. While the world is turning over to stuff like DVD-audio and SACD guitarplayers continue to praise older digital stuff as better sounding and... warm!

It's got a 4558 opamp like a Tubescreamer so it must sound good. It's got multiple 4558 opamps so it must sound better!

It seems that in a lot of cases arguments like this one are used for selling/praising stuff. Other than that the basic statement is wrong by itself, it also indicates that the person saying so doesn't have a clue what he/she's talking about. The problem with that is that other people read stuff like that and since everything that is written is true as per definition a new myth is born.

Back to that first statement on itself; The reason those 4558's do sound good in a tubescreamer circuit is because of the way they respond to the hard diode clipping in the circuit. The way a 4558 recovers from that clipping is part of the reasons we like the Tubescreamer's sound. Now, in many cases multiple of these opamps are used but in parts of the circuit where there's abolutely no clipping or whatever involved. Think about an active tonecontrol for instance. The argument that this part of the circuit will sound better because there's a 4558 is absolute crap. Wrapping up it can, exceptions aside, in most cases be stated that unless that 4558 is used in an active clipping circuit there's absolutely no reason to believe the effect is sounding better because the opamp is there.

What we can do for you!

Ever noticed all these "companies" and online shops popping out of nowhere? We give you the ultimate tone, we spent hours to select,... we we we

Unfortunately we have a backlog....
And where does this backlog come from? Basically because there is no "we". There's one person, the "builder", who has a a day time job and makes some money on the side building pedals. The "we" is supposed to look more "professional" for some obscure reason. One can wonder about thet since "I, the builder", implies talking to the source, the one fella that's going to do the job YOU requested for YOU to YOUR specifications. Since we're talking boutique that's where the focus should be. Short distance personal communications without getting the faintest suggestion that you're talking to a large company which is spending more time at looking at revenue, forecasting et al than at it's individual customer.

In many cases one can wonder after that where this sudden "builder" came from. Some just admit plain that they build DIY projects and tweak em to specifications. Nothing wrong with that.

This pedal is modded!

Nice, good for you. I hope it was modded in such a way that you like it or, when you're selling it, has at least served you well for some time.
Modding pedals is good fun. When having your pedal modded one can only hope that that was done to have it match more up to your taste. However, many have taken a look at those happy few who managed to build a business around modding and jumped into the conclusion that a modded pedal must be worth more than a stock one.

Wrong.
This may be the case for those happy few who have proven over and over again that they have control over their "product" as well as their marketing, leading to a gradually built reputation. That doesn't mean that it is the case for you, with your absent reputation. That means that where you spent time modding that pedal (naturally always with far better results than what that pedal was stock.. those pedal manufacturers are soooo tone deaf) it may only degrade the value of that pedal.

And if you had that pedal modded, do not expect that it will automatically will sell higher than the stock one.

The one thing that one can see happen pretty often is that alterations that alter the practical use of a pedal are valued more on the longer term than alterations that change the sonic capabilitiies. Think about adapter socket changes from 1/8" minijack to a standard Boss type adapter, a dry kill switch on a DD5 delay... stuff like that

To be continued...