Whammy Pitch Limiter and Blend Mods

[kcstratslinger]

I am wanting to do the Pitch Limiter and Blend Mods to my Whammy IV pedal. Has anyone had these mods done? If so, could someone explain how to do them or just send detailed pics of the wiring and pot values? I can post pics of the circuit board if that helps. Thanks in advance.

[Mojsisije]

Don't know about the pitch limiting, haven't tried that yet but might, I have a fair Idea, but the blend mod is as follows:

You'll have to cut the trace that leads from the effect to the wet and dry out jacks, it should be the last trace before it hits the jack's tip connection.
Take those as your wet and dry signals, and wire them to two ends of a potentiometer. Experiment with the value, I tried it with a B250K and stuck with it,
Wire the wiper of the pot to the other side of where you cut, so that it connects to the tip of one of the jacks.

I should mention, I've done this mod only after applying a true bypass modification, so unless you plan on doing that too, proceed with caution. These are all from memory, I'd have to take apart my whammy which I don't have by me right now to make sure.

[kcstratslinger]

Thanks for the info. The pitch limiter allows you to adjust the max pitch that it can reach. So you can set it to 2 octaves and dial in anything below that. That and the blend mod would allow me to get just about any possible sound. It would make more sense if Digitech just had a pedal without presets. They could just have pitch up, pitch down, and a dry blend knob. That way the user could do whatever they want with it. I did the true-bypass mod a while ago and ever since it has been extremely noisy (even when bypassed?). I even went back and shielded all of the wires. In the process of shielding I accidentally lifted one of the tiny pads off the board. I used my continuity tester and found another spot to put the wire. It was still noisy. I then tried to put more electrolytic caps across the power supply, but may have messed up by putting them at the AC power instead of post-rectification. I'm fairly new at this stuff. If I would have used my brain I would have just ran the wires from the existing caps. Instead I ran them straight from the power jack, not thinking about AC power. Now it won't work after removing the caps. When I plug it in half the lights light up and the pedal doesn't do anything. I have since given up on it. I may or may not buy the Whammy V. I don't use it that much, so it's hard to justify spending the money. If they made a pedal that implemented my ideas I would be all over it. Thanks for taking the time to help me out though. I really appreciate it.

[Mojsisije]

Yes I've seen the pitch limiter mods, but I don't know how to perform them, that's what I meant. Probably something about setting the LDR's value to a pre-set value so that it doesn't get full range. Actually I think that's exactly it, and I'll try and do that and see what happens.
As for your problem, maybe some pictures around the affected area could shed some light on the issue?

Oh, and there is in fact a pedal that does what you describe - it's called an Eventide Pitchfactor. Costs about twice as much as a Whammy, but it's worth every penny.
Cheers!

[spinalpat]

Don't know about the pitch limiting, haven't tried that yet but might, I have a fair Idea, but the blend mod is as follows:

You'll have to cut the trace that leads from the effect to the wet and dry out jacks, it should be the last trace before it hits the jack's tip connection.
Take those as your wet and dry signals, and wire them to two ends of a potentiometer. Experiment with the value, I tried it with a B250K and stuck with it,
Wire the wiper of the pot to the other side of where you cut, so that it connects to the tip of one of the jacks.

Hi, I'm approaching on doing the true bypass mod and I'm very intrigued to do the blend mod too so, as I'm not very sure on doing those just by reading, do you have or can you do a little drawing (a little sketch is ok) of the mods in question? Would be very appreciated!!

Thanks a lot!!

Pat