The two most popular ways of building guitar effects on are PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) and veroboard (a.k.a. Stripboard). I'll go through the pro's and con's of each so you can decide which is best for you. So let's start with...

Veroboard (a.k.a. Stripboard)

Veroboard is essentially a series of parallel copper strips with holes drilled through them. Any components soldered in the same row will share a connection. You can cut the copper traces on the veroboard to expand the number of possible junctions for components or you can run jumper wires from one to another to expand a row. A lot of DIY sites use veroboard to create layouts. The reason being that it's fairly easy to modify and adapt to different circuits. Since veroboard was developed as a prototyping tool, it isn't bound to doing one circuit or style or design. It's also very inexpensive (0.66 a piece at Tayda Electronics)

The downside of veroboard is that it can be finicky. If your circuit doesn't work then it could be that you didn't cut the trace properly, or you accidentally soldered two rows together, or  you soldered your jumper wires to the wrong rows, etc. The board becomes something you have to troubleshoot in addition to the normal checks for a PCB.

In the end, the price and adaptability of veroboard makes it a very common framework for DIYers. If you decide to mode your Tubescreamer with a couple more resistors then you can simply add another row or column to the layout and your good to go. Just be ready to spend a little more time when fault diagnosing your circuit if it doesn't work right away.

PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards)

PCBs are usually designed for a single circuit. Traces are etched into copper and then a coating and silk screen are placed over top to prevent the traces being damaged (amongst other things). Some cool things about PCBs are that they often have board mounted components like switches and potentiometers which saves having to solder a bunch of wires. It also makes fault finding a lot easier since your layout ends up being a lot cleaner since you're not having to trace as many wires around the enclosure. If the board doesn't work then they are usually easier to troubleshoot than veroboard since you know the layout works (if you're buying from a good PCB vendor) so it narrows things down. In addition, they also have figures on the top showing you where all of your parts go so it can be significantly faster to populate a PCB with parts since you don't have to count out to which hole you're putting the part in like you do on veroboard.

On the other hand, they are pricier than stripboard because they have to go through a design and fabrication process. But they are much more reliable because of this. Designers also have an easier time implementing noise reducing techniques than in veroboard so you can get a quieter circuit.

I thoroughly enjoy building a pedal from a well designed PCB (although having veroboard is great when I want to build something in a hurry). They usual work the first time around and if they don't then you know you screwed something up. If you're looking for a good place to order PCBs then here are a couple of my favorites.

• 1776 Effects
• Aion Electronics
• Fuzz Dog
• Madbean Pedals 

Once you've decided which way you want to build, you can start looking at Parts Sourcing