Guitar pedal mods - Share your story

Middleman

Middleman

Professional Amateur
I just got through doing some mods to my guitar pedals. The most stand out improvement was making some changes to a regular Boss DS-1 distortion unit. If you have one of these you can make a few component changes and turn this little box into a monster crunching Marshall sounding pedal.

Here is the kit I used http://www.monteallums.com/Product_links.html

I highly recommend this kit if you have some soldering skills.

Another great mod is the one at the site above which adds some clarity and frequency range to the MXR dynacomp.

Also did the bypass mod to my crybaby. This one has been around awhile. I don't know why Dunlop doesn't just make this a part of their standard pedals. It really helps the signal down the chain.

Any one else have some killer mods?
 
I've never modded a pedal of mine. . . except the one's I've built. For more info on mods, or building your own, I highly recommend Aron's Stompbox Forum . I've built a dual-channel booster/FX loop pedal from a bord I got at www.generalguitargadgets.com, and it's really handy.

Having unique or at least "tweaked" gear is nice. Rarely does a stock manufactured pedal sound perfect for any given setup.
 
The DIYstompboxes.com is a great site. Thanks for that other link too. That Octava pedal is truely Hendrix inspired.
 
I modded my Dano Rocky Road pedal to control the insane volume-boost, but that wasn't exactly rocket-science. Still, made me feel cool for about ten minutes...
 
yeah!!

I added a switch to my TS-9DX. It swtiches the output stage from TS-9 to TS-808 spces.... I can't tell a difference... but it was fun to try... Maybe one of these days I'll test the frequecy spectrum of both of the settings....
 
Back in the day ('93 or so) I built a pedal out of a broken crybaby & an arion analog delay. It didn't last long, but it rocked while it did. I basically just ran the pot for the regen knob off a gear setup I made inside the crybaby chassis. It was totally half-assed, but I could get the craziest delay swells before anything like that was available at all. It lasted like, 2 gigs before disintegrating.
 
Pedal mod = Turd polishing. I find it far more satisfying to purchase gear that actually works correctly without having to tear it apart.
 
My gut reaction is to thrash you verbally about your lack of interest in creating new sounds versus buying your tone at Guitar Center.


Uhh...Nevermind.
 
exactly ..

why mod...

build your own first off... ive got 1 down and 2 on the way

i highly recommend www.tonepad.com .. you can also buy pre-etched boards there.. for relativly cheap ($14)
gl
 
I did mine 'cos there wasn't anything that would do that at the time. (that I could find) I was looking for a EH hotfoot pedal, but to no avail. Then I was gonna make a hotfoot, and was like, "why not just throw the delay in there and see what happens?"...
 
My take on this is that modding pedals may or may not be a waste of time, but it certainly isn't as stupid as spending up to a hundred bucks to have someone else swap out eighty cents worth of parts for you. That's insane.

Anyway, enjoy it while you can: Every day, more pedals are becoming extremely complex, robotically produced circuits with surface-mount subminiature components (some the size of coarse sand) which effectively renders them unmoddable and unserviceable...but cheaper and possibly better.
 
There are still guys out there doing handmade stuff. And the beauty of the net is now you can actually find them!

Personally, I just don't have the time to dig that far into it myself. It's enough just to figure out the pile of stuff that's already here. But name anybody that has their "own" tone that you readily recognize and chances are the guy has some technical input into that sound. It's not just buying boxes and chaining them together.

Although you can get some really great results like that, no doubt. There is some really far-out stuff available. Geoffrey Teese, Bill Finnegan at KLON, Lindy Fralin....... you call the phone numbers and these guy personally answer.

To me it's worth it to support these guys and encourage others to follow. It's tough I'm sure. My guess is the success of these guys' products has been a sharp double-edged sword. Making 500 stompboxes a year may not sound like a lot, but remember that's about 2 a day for 5-day workweek. And it's not just assembling a bag of parts. It's matching resistors and caps and on and on. These poor bastards are essentially chained to a bench making the same thing over and over again. Especially KLON. Talk about Groundhog Day!
 
I have modded multiple pedals of mine. Some were worth it others are just for looks.

The single most satisfying mod is simply swapping out the LED for a color no one else has. :D

But in terms of actual 'mods', I have done my MXR Distortion+ to be more like the old 'script' model. But I inserted a toggle to go back and forth between the current and the vintage style. Was it worth it? Yes. But only because of the toggle switch. Honestly, I wouldn't have been able to tell a difference had I not been able to "a/b" the thing. But that said, it does sound better.

I also modded my BigMuff to true bypass and did something else....I took the stupid reveresed wallwart plug and used the hole for a on/off switch. That way it could be left in the chain for months without draining the battery and without sucking tone. That one I wish I didn't sell. Man.... (i might buy another and do the mod again lol)

Modding pedal is fun, if only because now you have something most others don't, but I wouldn't pay someone to do it for me. I also wouldn't buy some expensive 'kit' for. The way I see it, its only worth it if you understand what is making it better through modding. And if you can hear it a/b'd, then I promise, unless the mod removes about 25% of the original parts or is something drastic, you won't be able to tell.
 
Outlaws said:
IThe single most satisfying mod is simply swapping out the LED for a color no one else has. :D
Click to expand...


True. The mod I did uses a hideous shade of green. I love it. :p

Modifying electronics is not for everyone. You have to have curiosity about how things work under the hood. That and a soldering iron.
 
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I'm working on my own line of pedal kits. If anybody read my "tube pedal DIY" thread a while back I posted some sketches there. Didn't seem like too many people were that interested here, so I stopped updating the thread, but my designs have gotten pretty far along :)

Re: making pedals for a living, I've had fun pulling together all the parts to make a nice kit. Dunno if I'll ever sell any, but it's a very low startup cost business, so there is really nothing to lose.

I'm not sure how many pedals I'll make vs. just offer kits, if I get bored I'll slap together a few & sell 'em assembled. Stuffing the boards and assembling the pedal I estimate will only take 1/2 hour once I get used to it, and my designs have more parts than a lot of the DIY kits I've seen.

Painting is what takes forever, which is why I just wanna sell kits :o
 
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