InstrumentLIBRARY
A finished white guitar pedal with knobs next to an open enclosure showing the circuit board inside
Photo: Sam Knight, from the project repository on GitHub (credited and linked; not under a Creative Commons licence). Resized and converted to WebP.
Strings · Effects pedal Other DIY

How to Make a Digital Guitar Pedal (course)

A free 10-episode video course: from a Daisy Seed on a breadboard to your own circuit board and finished pedal

Designed by Sam Knight, published on GitHub

GPL-3.0 Commercial use OK Build info 4/5

Licence verified on GitHub, 21 October 2026.

Get the plans on GitHub ↗ Watch the course
Build type
Electronics, code and PCB design (not 3D-printed)
Difficulty
Medium-hard: some coding and PCB ordering
Brain
Daisy Seed audio board
Parts cost
About $76 for one pedal, per the designer's January 2026 parts list
Format
10 free video episodes plus a GitHub repo

About the digital pedal course

This isn't plans for one particular pedal. Sam Knight's free course teaches the whole process of designing your own digital pedal, and builds a chorus pedal as the worked example. You start with a Daisy Seed (a small audio microcontroller board) on a breadboard, write simple hard- and soft-clipping distortion, then use the DaisySP library for effects.

The later episodes cover the hardware: planning the holes in an aluminium 125B enclosure, drawing the schematic and board in KiCad, checking the fit, ordering the circuit board, designing artwork for a UV-printed front, and soldering it all together. The GitHub repo has the code, the KiCad hardware files, a parts list and links for further learning.

The designer's parts list orders the enclosure, drilling and UV printing from Tayda Electronics and the board from PCBWay, but those are just his choices: the parts are ordinary, and the files work with any supplier.

Who it's for. Guitarists and makers who want to design their own pedals. The designer says it's aimed at beginners, but it helps to know basic programming and what a resistor is. Code and files are GPL-3.0. This page summarises the course; we haven't built one ourselves.

What you'll need

Bought parts

  • A Daisy Seed board
  • A 125B-size aluminium enclosure
  • 3 × 10 kΩ linear potentiometers
  • 2 × 1/4" mono jacks and a 2.1 mm DC power jack
  • A soft-touch momentary footswitch
  • Female pin headers, an LED and a 1 kΩ resistor
  • A circuit board made from your KiCad design (the designer ordered five, the usual minimum)

Tools

  • A computer for coding and KiCad (free)
  • A breadboard and jumper wires for prototyping
  • A soldering iron
  • A drill, if you don't use a drilling service

Build overview

Our own outline of the 10 episodes. The repo with code and files is on GitHub.

  1. Picking parts (ep. 1). Set up the Daisy Seed on a breadboard with knobs and switches.
  2. Basic DSP (ep. 2). Write hard- and soft-clipping distortion in the audio callback.
  3. DaisySP (ep. 3). Use the library to build a chorus effect.
  4. Enclosure drilling plan (ep. 4). Lay out the holes for the enclosure.
  5. Schematic, footprints and layout (eps. 5–7). Draw the circuit in KiCad, make any missing footprints, and lay out a board that fits the enclosure.
  6. Review and order (eps. 8–9). Check the fit, order the board and parts, and design the front artwork.
  7. Final assembly (ep. 10). Solder it together, test it and finish the firmware.

Video

Play video: The full course (loads YouTube)
The full course, Sam Knight (the designer). Plays from youtube-nocookie.com after you click.

Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Video thumbnails are © their creators.

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