Aldi Chorus pedal mods?

[Willybomb]

Gudday all,

Aldi (in Australia) have the full gamut (OD, Metal, Distortion, Chorus, Flanger, Delay) of pedals going for $30 each this week.  Apparently the OD is pretty much identical to an SD-1, and the Dist is a copy of the DS-1.  Anyway, I picked up a chorus as a) I don't have a dedicated chorus, b) I wanted to see if it's any good, and c) see what can be improved on it.







Perhaps surprisingly, it actually sounds really good.  I think I'd like to put it in a better enclosure and replace the switch at least, but I'd like a few suggestions for mods or the like - there doesn't seem to be a lot of that sort of stuff on the web for choruses.  Cap replacement?  It certainly could have the pots replaced as they sound scratchy when turned.

Thanks all,
Willy.

[petemoore]

 30 is a decent price for a pedal with future of being taken apart and worked on with a soldering iron if it is accepting to such undertakings.
  It could be argued that more enjoyment is a possibility for the same 30 if the pedal is intended to be used as a chorus pedal.
  SMT populations are particularly modification prohibitive.
  For modding, a sturdy PCB and components is recommended as a second choice. First choice being find out what makes a chorus 'tick' and what compromises are deemed the best choice as a chorus and build or buy that.
  Many a pedal became non-functional, partially or even completely destroyed in an effort to impart a change to the circuitry.
  This type of construction doesn't welcome 'soldering iron' in the traditional sense, overheating, solder bridges and other hazards are difficult to avoid and often even much more difficult to repair, likelihood is excellent that a mess would become of it.
  Understanding how chorus's work [analog and digital work quite differently] and where a particular chorus [probably an owned one] is lacking a sorely wanted or needed certain feature, and what that entails [often times the BBD's have no 'extra' room, or the digital unit is prohibitive to modifications less than total reprogramming w/questionable <'improvement' result 1/2 expected..
  The plastic case is very good, it may be a long way around to make it different looking, perhaps house that in large wood case with other items and somehow make the controls accessible ?
  That said, perhaps just enjoyment of chorus sound until something else comes up.
  It just occured to me that it has 2 jacks [in/out for mono chorus] a routing box and perhaps external mixing of some proportion or proportions [like stereo chorus feature].
  Dry signal w/some chorus mix out the R side, L side lots of chorus with some dry mixed in...something like that.
  "Width'' can be increased to sound 'wide' with stereo chorus effect.

[Willybomb]

30 is a decent price for a pedal with future of being taken apart and worked on with a soldering iron if it is accepting to such undertakings.
  It could be argued that more enjoyment is a possibility for the same 30 if the pedal is intended to be used as a chorus pedal.

*shrug*  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.  $30 is dead cheap.  It's not necessarily missing any features beyond a sturdier case, switch, and better pots.

It just occured to me that it has 2 jacks [in/out for mono chorus] a routing box and perhaps external mixing of some proportion or proportions [like stereo chorus feature].

Yeah, just in/out.  Has a "level" control which isn't always found on chorus pedals.

Anyway, in a similar vein, here's the OD.  Does it look similar to anything?



Ideas on this one?

[deadastronaut]

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/hammer-1.jpg



only joking...

[petemoore]

  I think we may use different denominators:
 *shrug*  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
 Vs.
 One odd, three of the other.
 And that when boiled they equate to the same thing.
 The Aldi's are probably all SMT construction.
 That plastic was tortured pretty good by now [plastic like that on other pedals], although plastic pedals have been the repeated focus for review [for being other than metal], it seems to be hard enough to break because wind of plastic snappage would probably have breezed by here by now.
 Other than that the router pedal for pedals is a nice option, increased width is 'the possible mod' at this time.
 If the pots wires can be code-tape-marked then cut from the circuit and spliced to, options such as external nopot [photocell] or other control hardware can be attached to the [non-audio] LFO control inputs, outside the pedal without too much trouble.
 I'd just give the pots a good wash and treatment w/recommended spray-tube bottle and 0-10, 0-10 sweeps of the shaft as the treatment spray condensation and whatever grit is allowed a gravity path out the back/bottom opening...if there is one on these pots.
 Ie...with pedal in left hand, knob between T and FFinger, looking into the pedal from above [with side-sealed goggles is the recommendation, but a breeze or strong fan [from behind left shoulder] while holding the dispersing spray away from the body across the box gets the spray into the pot and doesn't irritate eyes or lungs. The dispersion pattern seems always to want to carry some backflow mist along the arm/body...
 Scritchy pots in the signal path is generally more annoying than scritch for non-audio-path effect control.
 Some say clean all pots then replace the bad ones, but disposal is the currently available option for exponential-multi-component devices which have one component partially or fully fail.
 My exp. has been that after some exp. it is sort possible to tell if a scritchy pot 'sits connected'...having 'scritched' hundreds of them into submitting output to thier output pin, and cleaning only about 1/10th that many pots...
 I have a couple scritchers in my Chorus amaf I was posting recently [Rockman Stereo Chorus/Delay]. I cleaned 'em from the back long ago, got the pedal back after many years borrowed', sprayed 'em from the front [they're slider pots/switches=scritches, old w/some rust now...to be expected], and that got the cleaner where it needed to be, cleaned their functions up to a great extent.
 But in these cases, intrusion isn't worth the risk or is it.
 If it was easy to change I'd change it, even if I could find an exact fit [required] and a plan, I failed to come up with either, and trust my ear-experience enough to just use the chorus because I like the way it sounds and I'm pretty sure a new pot there would sound exactly the same as one with a ''scritch at 3.2'', set to 4 or 7 [not right on the scritch]...if it was real bad then...I'd be more anxious about it.

[Willybomb]

Thanks.  I'll probably clean the pots first.

As far as the OD goes, I'll probably put in a switch for symmetrica/asymetrical clipping.

[nomorebetts]

These pedals are an even cheaper version of the Daphon/Swamp pedals found on ebay.com.au for roughly the same price.
However the Swamp pedals have hole through components, better jacks/pots and have metal enclosures. These are a great platform for modding.

For instance there is a long thread at the other forum for the digital delay to improve the delay time.
And I can confirm the Daphon OD is a SD-1 clone.  Lone Phantom has a good Daphon OD to TS-808 mod which sounds great.  I did this to mine.