| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Sunburst
Silver Member
427 Posts |
 Posted - 01/30/2006 : 08:27:37
|
Every once in a while posts regarding tweaking of trimpots comes up. Both from curiosity and trying to "improve" the sound. Now I wonder what are your opinions on this?
I say leave those trimpots alone! There is no point in risk ruining a vintage pedal.
They were set at the factory by Boss in such a way so the pedal would produce the sound it was intended to.
I first and foremost have this opinion when it comes to discontinued pedals. |
Edited by - Sunburst on 01/30/2006 08:54:42 |
|
|
Goran
Double Platinum Member
Sweden
2203 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2006 : 08:58:43
|
As Sunburst I say NO on rare pedals but if it�s a less rare and I have doubles I could think about doing some tweaking just for the fun of it.
I have been on my way several times, I had a newer BF-2 I would have �sacrificed�, but I sold that one before I opened it up for tweaking.
The same goes for modding by entrepreneurs, no rare pedals either. I had a BD-2 modded by Stinkfoot and the result was very good, I�ll do that again, I also have an original BD-2 in the collection.
As I have two MIT DS-1, I sent Stinkfoot one of them last week to see what he can do about it. Can�t wait to get it�.
|
 |
|
|
bossarea
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
3652 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2006 : 09:20:19
|
I would say: "Know what you're doing before you begin".
Get hold of the schematic and find out what the trimpot does. You don't want to adjust trimpots that doesn't affect the sound directly and you want to make sure that you can get back to the point where you started from. |
|
|
|
Sunburst
Silver Member
427 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2006 : 12:51:06
|
| Modifying done by experts such as Stinkfoot and Keeley is another thing. Their modifications are soundwise a facelift for many pedals. I was just talking about tweaking done out of curiosity by people who are not experts in the area. |
Edited by - Sunburst on 01/30/2006 12:52:31 |
|
|
|
visserman
Platinum Member
1072 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2006 : 12:48:13
|
I agree with what Bossarea mentioned about "know what you do before you begin"
In a way I also feel you cannot do any damage, as you can turn the trimpot back to its orginial setting.
Most pedals probably do not need any tweaking as their trimpots have been set to optimal performance before leaving the factory.
For some reason all my choruspedals do sound different, and I know they all have trimpots, been wondering what makes them sound different. Cannot hear any of these differences in my distortion or overdrive pedals apart from the OD-1.
Thinking about Chorus and the controls you see on usual chorus pedals, they are depth, speed, and some of them may even have a tonecontrol as well. Most likely the trimpots for these effects will govern Signal, Speed and Depth. When you would tweak the trimpots the controls on top of the pedal will take over a different setting:
For instance before tweaking pedal may have sounded fine at all the controls at 12 o'clock, after tweaking this will probably be different, so when you tweak, make sure you can listen to the pedal at the same time, so you know how you are changing its sound. Steve suggested getting someone else to play while you do the tweaking, I have done this myself with a testtone running through the pedal so I could hear where the sound went while I was changing the settings on some of the trimpots.
True, testtones have different signal to guitar, so it may not be a good method, as a guitarsignal is a lot hotter than a comparitively weak sound from a metronome. So far I have tweaked a DOD delay, and the difference is now that it can self-occilate, the orginal sound is still there and the pedal still sounds clean, so really I have only added a small feature to this pedal. Do not use this feature that much, but when I want to it is there so..................................
Just think about what you doing before you even start, make a note of the settings of the trimpot before you start your tweaking, make sure you have enough light [it is important that you can see what you are doing!!], and when you are not sure about any changes in the sound, move trimpots back to how they were originally.
People who claim they ruined their pedal by tweaking their trimpots have probably not followed all these steps. If your pedal is "ruined" I am sure it is still possible [with a lot of patience] to get the pedal back to its original sound. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
To tweak or not to...that is the question
