Have you had to tweak values to fix a stompbox over time?

[80k]

I recently took out a lot of my old pedals after about 8-10 years in storage. I was surprised to find a number of pedals needing a bit of service.

None of them had any bad joints or failed hardware, but I had to tweak trimpots and change resistors to get them to sound good again.

The three that I had to fix:
- Dragonfly Sparkle Boost... the J201 jfet needed to be rebiased. It was at 4.1V and I had to tweak it back to 4.5V, where I originally set it.
- Two separate 4ms Phaseur Fleur circuits. They were much weaker sounding. I had to tweak resistors to get the ringing, siren sound to come back (and then dial it back with the trimpot). I also had to tweak resistors to get the height knob to get the full range of sounds.

Similarly, I had a non-DIY pedal (MXR Flanger) that got a lot weaker after less than 2 years in storage. I read some guides on how to tweak the trimpots to no avail. I then attempted to get service from Jim Dunlop, but they declined to help me because apparently, I voided the warranty when I touched the trimpots.

After a long time of using analog effects without problems, I was surprised to see so many pedals drift in function over the years. I'm curious how common this is? I've heard of electrolytic capacitors going bad... I wonder if I should have changed those first before tweaking resistors, but I did end up getting the phasers to sound how I wanted, so I consider it a success at this point.

[ElectricDruid]

I recently pulled out a Rangemaster clone that I built and haven't played with for about seven years. It worked fine for about twenty minutes, and then packed up and now won't make any sound at all. I haven't had a chance to determine why exactly. There's nothing obviously broken, and there's almost nothing in the box, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Aside from that, I don't have a lot of experience with stuffing things in the cupboard for years and then seeing if they work or not, but  my general experience with old analog electronics tells me that most gear needs periodic maintenance of some sort or another to keep it running properly and in full working order.

[stallik]

I've got a lot of pedals that have been in storage for a long time. Mainly because I liked them so little they never made it to my pedalboard. If I try them again now, they're just as bad though occasionally I can fettle one enough to improve it.
Not noticed a storage variation though I wonder if my hearing (and musical taste) have changed over the years

[Mark Hammer]

It strikes me there are two things that can go on.  One is that, yes, a component, such as an electrolytic cap, has aged and drifted off spec, requiring replacement, or that a trimmer has budged a little off where it should be.  But another is that, if we haven't used a pedal in a very long time, it can sound less amazing and earth-shattering than we remembered it as sounding.

Though my diabetes meds have trimmed me back a good 40lbs in the last few years, well before that ever happened, people who hadn't seen me in a few years would routinely say "Wow, you lost a lot of weight!".  In fact, I was within a pound of the same weight for some 20+ years.  But in their recollection, I was "chubby".  And when they saw me again, I wasn't nearly as chubby as they had pictured in their memory.  The same thing likely happens with pedals, guitars, amps, etc.

[anotherjim]

Careful Mark, that chubby story is how nicknames are earned. Had a workmate affectionately known as "chunky" for the same reason.
Electro caps can go bad for leakage in storage, but they can fix themselves (alu electros only) if left to soak on power for a while. A bad tant' might get hot - they don't heal.
For storage generally, dry and mild conditions are essential. Humidity can get into the plastic encapsulation used on most semiconductors.

I recently had to modify one of my own designs - the LFO clock was audible on bypass. Never noticed it before because it was nearly always used engaged. Turned out easy to use the stompswitch to ground the LFO cap to stop it from running. A bonus (it's a digital flanger) is that it always starts from zero delay when engaged just like tape flanging will. This isn't an example of storage decay, but of different circumstances exposing an issue - and now I want to mod it again to make the LFO run super slow.

[GibsonGM]

I spent a lot of time on an Easyvibe in a wah shell that I used quite a bit onstage over a decade.  Then it sat on the shelf for 5 years.  I plugged it in recently, and yup...the LFO is O'ing, but the vibes aren't there anymore.    Going to have to crack that baby open soon, it was a good build, and pretty extensive for perf!
Probably shouldn't have used duct tape to connect the LFO to the home-rolled vactrols...I moved LFO to a daughter board to cure ticking and the leads were too short, ran outta shrink tube...

[80k]

Thanks for the responses :-)

It was kind of fun bringing the phasers back to life! I'm sure things did drift and it wasn't my imagination, since I did do some recordings with it and got it to oscillate quite wildly on some settings, and the effect got weaker after being in storage.

[Processaurus]

Analog audio circuits are funny, something can be wrong and it can still make sound, albeit not great sound. Over the years I've had a lot of semi-functioning stuff that just sounded underwhelming.