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Spent $300 on an oscilloscope that just collects dust now
I bought a digital oscilloscope a couple years back thinking I’d use it to debug every fuzz pedal build I did, but honestly I only needed it once for a weird clock noise issue in a LFO circuit. It just sits on my shelf now, and I keep reaching for my little audio probe and multimeter instead. Anyone else drop cash on a test tool they thought they’d use more but ended up going back to the basics?
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the_logan18d ago
99% of what we do it's just a heavy paperweight" ... that's kind of a hot take, @sageburns. I mean, an audio probe works fine for signal tracing, but if you're building anything with digital clocks or switching power supplies, you're going to be cursing that paperweight when you can't see what's happening. Maybe it's just not that serious for simple fuzz circuits though.
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sageburns18d ago
Used to be one of those guys who swore you NEEDED an oscilloscope for guitar pedal work, but seeing posts like this and then trying to fix a simple pedal with just my DMM changed my mind completely. Spent $250 on a cheap DSO150 kit and used it exactly twice before realizing a $10 audio probe tells me everything I need to know about where the signal is dying. I will say the scope was nice for catching that one weird LFO glitch like you mentioned, but for 99% of what we do it's just a heavy paperweight. Multimeter and a couple of alligator clips have never let me down.
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