Vintage Pedal Modifications

Vintage Pedal Mods

Vintage pedals are not like modern integrated circuit or digital designs that sound consistently the same from one unit to another. They have a lot more individual personality and can vary tremendously from one to the other. With certain pedals you'ld be hard put to find two that are similar.

Univibe Clones

There are many reissues of the famous and elusive Uni-Vibe being produced today. Some clone the original printed circuit board and and faithfully use the same transistors, yet the resulting sound is considerably different.

The problem is that the critical components used in the opto-coupling circuit are no longer produced and were never very well documented to begin with. Various makers today improvise with different components but the effect often sounds "off-centered" .

These clones can be improved by a bit of redesigning to compensate for modern components and finding the various sweet spots for the oscillator trimmer, LDR placement, bulb placement etc.

Fuzz Face

Being a big Hendrix fan the Fuzz Face has always been of interest to me. This is a simple circuit that has very high gain and is highly sensitive to any component variations.

I individually optimize the circuit to compensate for changes in transistor gain and component tolerances tolerances. RF elimination is a must with this pedal, particularly some newer reissue ones.

Electric Mistress

The Electric Mistress flanger by Electro-Harmonix suffers from a drop of volume and considerable loss of bottom end compared to the bypassed guitar sound. I designed this mod to correct these problems without adding any additional active components. No increase in noise or power consumption.

(not for Deluxe Electric Mistress)

Colorsound Wah

Colorsound wahs from the seventies have their own decidedly funky tone. This mod will transform a colorsound into a Vox Wah. By adding a toggle switch you can keep the original sound as well