#pedal mods

[musicianseekingmusicians]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ADDED PENIS?

I caught your ad selling an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi and have to ask what you meant in the ad when you said it came with "added penis?" Just a concerned uncle here, trying to look for a good distortion pedal for my niece's Fender rig, and I'd prefer to know what I'm buying exactly. If penis is some kind of mod or aftermarket addition, let me know. Here's the copy I'm referencing: "For sale: one mint in-box Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Deluxe with added Penis. Used twice in a smokeless studio for a recording project. Otherwise in as-new condition, including Penis. Will throw in power supply for additional $5." The picture looks like a regular, no-penis-included guitar distortion pedal, so I'm wondering what the penis is all about? If I want the pedal without the penis, is this a possibility? That would be my preference. If I get the pedal and the penis is included, will it be easy to remove? Please remember, this is for my niece, and I'm trying to get her into playing guitar without introducing her to any adult content. No offense, but I probably will just wind up needing to take the penis off. Let me know what the deal is. If the price really is $70 and the penis is removable, or I can just buy without the penis, I'd love to meet up to buy.

[baritones]

Tonights project: Double tapping the switch to stop the loop was frustrating for a singing guitarist so this ehx 360 looper got a simple loop mute switch. This guy gets used for drones so starting/stopping in time is not a concern at all. Simple and effective. Furthermore anyone considering a ditto, jamman express, or rc1 should just get one of these. Why wouldn't you want the ability to save loops?

[baritones]

Today’s projects. First I rebuilt the dirt circuit in the reverb path of my holy grail. I’d originally used a modified one knob fuzz circuit but found it could be too boomy at higher settings. Solution? A super high gain distortion plus variant with LED clipping. The nice thing about the d+ is that as you increase the gain, low frequencies are gradually filtered out. I selected high pass RC values to give me full range at minimum gain and a roll off at 400hz at maximum gain. The tone control is the stupidly wonderful tone control with values selected to sweep from 1.5khz all the way down to 300hz. And I heard it and it was good. Then I did it all again for Jim from The Weir (http://theweir.bandcamp.com) who has been after one of these for a long time. And yes, the two in series is unreal.

[baritones]

Last nights project: Build a DE7 inspired echo mode into the PDS 1002. I love dirty digital delay.

[baritones]

Today’s lazy project was making something much more useful out of an MS10 which is the same circuit as the SM9 and SML. It’s a very interesting circuit with 3 stages of clipping and tons of tonal control. First was getting some more volume and some better gain range. Replaced d3 through d6 with 3mm LEDs. Easy. Now there’s tons of output and the gain control sweeps from mellow overdrive through crunchy high gain. I probably could have just swapped out the hard clippers and got enough output considering the additional output the next step got me… Second was getting some more flexibility out of the “edge” control. This control is fairly similar to the hi tone control in an HM-2 in that it controls the boost/cut of 2 separate gyrators with a single control although the frequencies selected here are much higher making it essentially a fizz control. The high end gyrator is set to around 3khz while the supposed mid band is set to about 1.5khz. I consider anything over 1k to be treble (especially when playing low tuned instruments) so I left the mid gyrator alone and dropped the frequency of the hi gyrator to around 600hz to control the actual mid range. R26 became 680ohms C21 became 0.22uf C27 became 0.0047uf Now the “edge” control contains MASSIVE mid range boost and when cut does a decent douchey metal scoop. This thing can now match my favourite settings from most of my favourite dirt pedals but with its 3 stages of clipping the break up is a bit more complex.

[baritones]

Darrell rants about the Proco Rat and the ruetz mod.

It’s no secret that the rat is my favourite pedal to ever exist. It’s only drawback is the fact that it can cut a bit too much bottom end for use with low tuned instruments such as baritone guitars, heavily detuned guitars, or bass. The most common mod to remedy this is the ruetz mod. It was the first pedal mod I ever did and the thing that got me hooked on messing around inside pedals. I’ve played around with this mod and the whole rat circuit a ton and am obsessive about getting as much usable low end as possible out of every pedal. The ruetz mod basically consists of messing around with the 47ohm resistor (R6) that is part of one of two rc (resistor/capacitor) filter networks from the opamps feedback loop to ground. Sometimes this resistor is literally just snipped leaving only the 560ohm/4u7 rc pair to set the gain and low end roll off. Other times that 47 ohm resistor is replaced with a pot. Usually around 1k. My problem with both versions is that bass is never actually increased. Instead the gain of treble frequencies is actually being decreased by varying degrees. This does give the perception of more low end but in my opinion the decrease of gain in the high end actually robs the rat of its true character. The are tons of “boutique” rat derivatives and rat inspired pedals out there that incorporate some version of the ruetz mod and it boggles my mind. So what’s the solution? Well if you know anything about rc filters and especially rc filters in opamp based dirt circuits, you know that the capacitor in that rc pair has an equal impact on the frequencies amplified by the opamp which are then clipped by the diodes. Typically the resistor sets the gain and that resistors relation to the capacitor sets the frequency roll off. If we look into the rc filters in a rat we’ll see that the 47ohm/2u2 rc pair sets one high pass filter roll off at around 1500hz while the 560ohm/4u7 pair sets a second roll off point around 60hz although with much lower gain. There are tons of popular mods for equally classic pedals (tubescreamer, distortion plus etc) that involve tweaking the value of the cap in the opamps rc filter to get more bass out of the circuit while leaving gain levels alone. So why does that seem uncommon in a rat circuit? Why do we ignore the capacitors? Because I don’t think anyone has written it on the internet yet and a large part of the boutique/DIY pedal community can’t do anything until someone else does it first and tells them how it’s done. The idea of understanding concepts applicable across the board is just beyond some. So back to these rc pairs… My favourite version of the ruetz mod was always just replacing the 47ohm resistor with something around 400 ohms which gives a roll off about 180hz while sacrificing a fair bit of gain but If you increase the value of the 2u2 cap instead you can get your low end back without sacrificing ANY gain. 22uf will give you a roll off of around 150hz which is low enough to let most bass frequencies through. This definitely adds quite a bit of gain and compression. The new FatRat by Proco uses a 6.8uf cap in parallel with the 2.2uf cap for a total of 9uf. That value is absolutely a perfect usable value without getting too mushy in the low end. If you want a tweakable version you could wire up a capacitor blend pot (usually used at the input or output of a circuit) to blend between the stock 2u2 and a much larger cap or any 2 values you want. I’ve used this in several of my own builds and it is massively usable. Leaving the amount of gain in the circuit alone also makes diode changes much more obvious. Put a big cap (or cap blend pot) in there and a 3 way diode toggle (or even a diode blend pot) and you’ve got a super flexible rat that still has all the amazing qualities of the best rats.

Also check out the comparative rat schematic demonstrating why the “vintage” rat circuit isn’t all that special (with the exception of the lm308). It’d take anyone who can solder 20 minutes or less to covert any rat to vintage specs. My rat 2 was already “vintage spec” other than the missing lm308.

Rats rule. Use your head. End rant.

[tonemakers]

Rant about pedal mods.

Hey there! First post. Decided I'd write these on a whim and see where that takes me. Can't plan to save my life. Anyways, I came across a troubling attribute of the gear nerd community. People seem to like to mod their pedals right after they get the pedals. I'm not sure what that means, really. Did you just hear this pedal modded? Or do you think the mod will make the pedal inherently better? The latter is a big issue I think. You see, a lot of guitarists don't really know what their pedals are really doing, or how to get a better tone with what they already have or have access to. There's a general consensus that more money equals better tone. That's not always true. Electro-Harmonix just came out with a Klon Centaur “Klone” called the Soul Food. It only costs $70, and sounds absolutely fantastic. Personally, I have a Walrus Audio Voyager on my board, a $170 Klon-like boutique drive, and my brother bought the Soul Food. We tested each pedal out, and managed to get nearly the same sound (and definitely the same caliber sound) out of each pedal at the same settings. My guess is that the EHX is made of less expensive components that don't sound that different. The thing is, JHS came up with a mod for the Soul Food. Likely it changes the way it sounds a good bit. I haven't heard it personally. Now it seems like it's the cool thing to do to have it modded. There's people buying the Soul Food from JHS already modded! Mods don't make anything inherently better unless it's utilitarian like making the status LED on a Tube Screamer bright white instead of dim red. The best conclusion I can make is that these guitarists that are buying a Soul Food to turn around and have it modded nearly immediately think that a modded pedal is inherently better, and will make them sound better. That's not necessarily true. I can only think that if you buy pedals to mod them just because you think the mod will make it better, you don't know what you're doing. Take some time, play with the pedals as is, find which one you like. If there's a mod you like, sure, go ahead and mod your pedal. But please understand that mods aren't going to magically make everything better. I know I'm not touching on a lot of mods that sincerely make the pedals sound better, but the point is about the attitude behind modding pedals. Gotta put thought into the sound you want before the status. Thanks for enduring my rant. Tone talk to follow!

[baritones]

Unholy Grail demo #2

Reverb mix just past half. Gain and treble backed off a bit and then increased later.

You can hear the reverb feeding back a bit in places which is my absolute favourite thing about this pedal.

Anyone interested can send me a message and I can give you a rundown of how to mod this guy. You could insert any effect you want or even add an effects loop instead.

other vid here. http://baritones.tumblr.com/post/70719019186/i-finally-made-a-crappy-demo-of-my-unholy-grail