This is my scruffy old analog signal generator that I picked up for $15 or $20. I was actually surprised it still worked, given the apparent age.
If you don't have a signal generator and you see one going cheap, I'd suggest buying it if you are going to be building a few FX pedals. While it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the new digital ones, it just sits there and kicks out a nice sine or the occasional square wave - I never actually turn it off.
There's something to be said for having a reliable reference signal that never changes when fault-finding or testing pedals. Given that I'm a big fan of oscilloscopes for testing pedals, it goes without saying that a good signal generator is a must-have (at least for me, anyway).
I always run it at 440hz, and 130mv TRMS. While 1kHz is usually considered a standard test wave, it annoys me after a while. As you probably realise, 440hz is actually the A string of a guitar.
I use sine waves for testing most things, except for filters or equalisation that actually need harmonic content to filter, which is where I use a square wave.
Sine waves are great for testing any kind of overdrive/fuzz/distortion, as you can actually see the harmonics generated by distorting the wave, as sine waves have no harmonics by definition, just the fundamental frequency.
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