Any Pedal Mod Gurus Can Help? (TS7)

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soundchaser59

Reluctant Commander
Let's make no mistake, my favorite pedal mod guru at this time is Monte Allums. I have installed 4 or 5 of his kits on my pedals, and they are keepers.

In negotiations with my brother, one of the items I forked over was an Ibanez TS7 Tubescreamer. I tested it before I gave it up, and I was actually pleasantly surprised at the sound quality and tone out of the box, stock. I wanted to keep it, but in side by side with my Allums modded SD1 and BD2 it was not quite "there" so I let me brother have it.

But last night I had the brilliant though belated idea to check and see if Allums has a TS7 mod. I was disappointed in my impatience to find that he did have one, but it is currently not available. He even goes so far as to beg people NOT to write asking when it will be available.

But to add to my contusion, I found testimonials on his site where people are raving about - you guessed it - the TS7 mod. They are not dated, nothing on the site appears to be dated, so I have no way of knowing if (1) his web site is simply not updated, and the TS7 mod really is available? Or (2) if those testimonials were from mod kits he sold previously, and now he is updating the mod kit, so the web site is actually correct?

Anyway, I am letting my impatience get the best of me again, and I decided to check with the people most likely to know.

The only thing I really had a complaint about with the TS7 is the noise/hiss level at higher gain settings. Nothing wrong with the tone, and I have the SD1 and BD2 anyway to cover any tone gaps.

So do any of you inclined on the electronic analysis side of things know what one (or two or three) thing I could change inside the TS7 to reduce or eliminate the noise level? Is it simply a matter of using a better chip? Maybe changing a cap? I dont really want to change the tone or the timbre, just getting rid of the noise would be 90% of the TS7 battle, as far as I'm concerned.

Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
 
the ts7 sucks balls stock its shrilly and sounds like ass

TS-7 Tone Lok Mods

So here's what to do to make a TS7 a real --|:|-- Screamer!!!

Change R85 to a value between 2.2kohm and 3.5kohm for More Drive. The lower the value the higher the distortion. The top end of your drive control now has an extended range! It will be a resistor one the main board that is marked yellow, violet red gold

Change C34 to fix the darn bass response! The Tone Cap mod. Change it to a value between 0.68uF and 0.1uF. Use a good film capacitor. The 0.1uF is a more common value. Changing it to either value will not affect the singing midrange tone of this pedal. Changing this value is not a bass boost, it is a frequency response fix. The roll off is not designed to take into effect the fact that guitar players tune down, there are 7 string guitars with a low B string, etc. The 0.68uF will barely fix the problem if are worried. I wouldn't be though. Out of hundreds of mods only 2 people have said that it was to much bass. That is probably a 0.5% chance that the 0.1uF would be too much.

Change R27 to a value between 22kohm and 27kohm. The lower the value the Less Drive you have when the overdrive knob is turned down. This is a very important mod if you want a clean boost or to drive the input of a tube amp into saturation without the effect of the TS7.

Change R58 to a 10kohm and change R55 to a 100 ohm. This is the old standard TS808 mod. It changes the output impedance of the circuit. It was designed to drive a tube input. The engineer that designed the TS808 said that he changed it to its current value to eliminate some static electricity effects. Has anyone experienced some sporadic ticks or pops with a TS808? Email me if you have. He says it doesn't affect the tone of the circuit. I can tell you that a change of impedance will affect how it works with other effects or amps and that of course will make a change in volume, tone, or both.

Change D3 or D4 for some More 2nd Order Harmonic Content. Just change one of them in my opinion. I like the sound of asymmetrical clipping. These diodes are in the negative feedback loop of the op-amp. It takes a certain amount of voltage to get them to forward conduct (turn on). If the two diodes are different the top or the bottom of the sine wave will clip sooner or later depending on the voltage needed to turn on the diode and how sharp the knee is. I like the sound of the standard Ibanez diode in one position and the 1N4002 in the other.

if your a good player you can switch the chip for a lm833 it will cean the noise up but it will make all the notes stand out as well but it's better for recording it gives a lot of clarity I've sold about 20 pedals this way zero complaints use metal film resistors for lower noise as well

if anyone wants a pedal like this I have one sitting here with a new old stock vintage mallory orange drop cap at.082uf the lm833 metal film resistors and the stock reisue chip as well I'll let it go cheap I like building my pedals and amps form scratch so I move out the modded ones ill give you the best deal on modded pedals just email me doulos_21@yahoo.com
 
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AWESOME INFO! THANK YOU!!

*print* *print* *print* *print*


doulos24 said:
the ts7 sucks balls stock its shrilly and sounds like ass

TS-7 Tone Lok Mods

So here's what to do to make a TS7 a real --|:|-- Screamer!!!

Change R85 to a value between 2.2kohm and 3.5kohm for More Drive. The lower the value the higher the distortion. The top end of your drive control now has an extended range! It will be a resistor one the main board that is marked yellow, violet red gold

Change C34 to fix the darn bass response! The Tone Cap mod. Change it to a value between 0.68uF and 0.1uF. Use a good film capacitor. The 0.1uF is a more common value. Changing it to either value will not affect the singing midrange tone of this pedal. Changing this value is not a bass boost, it is a frequency response fix. The roll off is not designed to take into effect the fact that guitar players tune down, there are 7 string guitars with a low B string, etc. The 0.68uF will barely fix the problem if are worried. I wouldn't be though. Out of hundreds of mods only 2 people have said that it was to much bass. That is probably a 0.5% chance that the 0.1uF would be too much.

Change R27 to a value between 22kohm and 27kohm. The lower the value the Less Drive you have when the overdrive knob is turned down. This is a very important mod if you want a clean boost or to drive the input of a tube amp into saturation without the effect of the TS7.

Change R58 to a 10kohm and change R55 to a 100 ohm. This is the old standard TS808 mod. It changes the output impedance of the circuit. It was designed to drive a tube input. The engineer that designed the TS808 said that he changed it to its current value to eliminate some static electricity effects. Has anyone experienced some sporadic ticks or pops with a TS808? Email me if you have. He says it doesn't affect the tone of the circuit. I can tell you that a change of impedance will affect how it works with other effects or amps and that of course will make a change in volume, tone, or both.

Change D3 or D4 for some More 2nd Order Harmonic Content. Just change one of them in my opinion. I like the sound of asymmetrical clipping. These diodes are in the negative feedback loop of the op-amp. It takes a certain amount of voltage to get them to forward conduct (turn on). If the two diodes are different the top or the bottom of the sine wave will clip sooner or later depending on the voltage needed to turn on the diode and how sharp the knee is. I like the sound of the standard Ibanez diode in one position and the 1N4002 in the other.

if your a good player you can switch the chip for a lm833 it will cean the noise up but it will make all the notes stand out as well but it's better for recording it gives a lot of clarity I've sold about 20 pedals this way zero complaints use metal film resistors for lower noise as well

if anyone wants a pedal like this I have one sitting here with a new old stock vintage mallory orange drop cap at.082uf the lm833 metal film resistors and the stock reisue chip as well I'll let it go cheap I like building my pedals and amps form scratch so I move out the modded ones ill give you the best deal on modded pedals
Click to expand...


:cool: :cool: :cool:
 
Another guy you might want to talk to is Joe Bodenhamer over at http://www.bodenhamer-electronics.com/ I have a "Chaos Mod" TS9 done by him which is excellent. He mods his pedals specifically to be used as boosts in front of an already distorted amp (the Andy Sneap TS9 into a Recto school of thought), and additionally tailors the low end slightly more towards a seven string, but I can also confirm that it does a great blues tone as well.
 
pedal modding is not rocket science. When you learn the fundementals you can mod any pedal you have a schematic to. You want a clean boost simply put a switch taking the diodes out of the circuit. Either side works but you want to have both disconnected which will require a dpdt switch. Here is one of my mods for any distortion pedal. Its a clipping switch array you can change the flavor of distortion for a ts7 this way to tons of combinations 4 sets of diodes crammed into 1.25 inches of space i know the pic only shows 3but i was out of 4001s
diodeboard5.jpg
 
that's cool!!!! Is that in the battery bay?
Click to expand...

yep it is i leave mine like this cause i like to change between them for recording you can make it bigger and rehouse the pedal though the concept is the same
 
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I never should have taken that programming job.

If I hadn't spent the last 8 years staring at code, I might still be good at reading schematics. I might even still be employed...... :eek:
 
Explanation please....

doulos24 said:
pedal modding is not rocket science. When you learn the fundementals you can mod any pedal you have a schematic to. You want a clean boost simply put a switch taking the diodes out of the circuit. Either side works but you want to have both disconnected which will require a dpdt switch. Here is one of my mods for any distortion pedal. Its a clipping switch array you can change the flavor of distortion for a ts7 this way to tons of combinations 4 sets of diodes crammed into 1.25 inches of space i know the pic only shows 3but i was out of 4001s
diodeboard5.jpg
Click to expand...

That's great stuff! Quick question... where can you purchase that switch array? Also, I see four wires going from the pcb to inside the pedal... where do you solder those wires? Awesome stuff!
 
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