Dare I Say The B-Word?

[wheyface]

Behringer.  THERE. I SAID IT.

Has anybody ever figured out a fix to the volume drop in these Behringer pedals without completely tearing it apart and making a new switching system? I understand that dealing with surface mount pieces is a pain, but people figured it out for the DL4 and I can't imagine that any of these pedals are particularly different from one another.  Some sort of resistors in the output stage that could be changed?

[Fender3D]

Isn't this DIYstompboxes?
Or am I missing something?

Maybe we should change the meaning of the sentence "do it yourself", since, nowadays, looks like it means "let others do it for myself".

Have you a Behringer pedal not satisfying?
Bring it back , and invest in anything (surely more expensive...) better,
OR
pay someone for the job,
OR
try reverse engineering it YOURSELF, at least anyone might have a schematic to follow

[anchovie]

Isn't this DIYstompboxes?
Or am I missing something?

Maybe we should change the meaning of the sentence "do it yourself", since, nowadays, looks like it means "let others do it for myself".

Have you a Behringer pedal not satisfying?
Bring it back , and invest in anything (surely more expensive...) better,
OR
pay someone for the job,
OR
try reverse engineering it YOURSELF, at least anyone might have a schematic to follow

Too harsh.

Do you want to lay into people who assemble kits as well, seeing as they haven't reverse-engineered something? Or people who use a layout that someone else kindly shared rather than designing their own? Best to ban anyone who asks for help with debugging too, let them do their own research. 

Doing the physical building or modding yourself by following instructions provided by another is still DIY.

Anyway - wheyface, don't bother. Sell them and build/buy something nicer and more reliable, if you raise the output level you'll be boosting the above-average background noise and will have invested far too much time in a cheap plastic pedal.

My only personal gripe with this post is that acting like Behringer is a dirty word is pretty boring after several years.

[merlinb]

Behringer.  THERE. I SAID IT.
Has anybody ever figured out a fix to the volume drop in these Behringer pedals without completely tearing it apart and making a new switching system? I understand that dealing with surface mount pieces is a pain, but people figured it out for the DL4 and I can't imagine that any of these pedals are particularly different from one another.  Some sort of resistors in the output stage that could be changed?

Which pedals are you talking about? If we have a schem then we can fix the problem. Most of them are direct clones of Boss...

[Fender3D]

Too harsh.

You're right James...
but

...people who assemble kits as well... Or people who use a layout that someone else kindly shared rather than designing their own

To me they do something, then, if something goes wrong, maybe ask for help and I think it's fair and I'm happy to help whenever I can.

I think it's different buy a bargain pedal then asking other to mod...
I 've always the suspect the bargain pedal was bought on purpose, since someone somewhere, surely has modded it for cheap...
Workshops exist for that too, or not?

[Mark Hammer]

People buy PCBs from commercial providers, even when they could make their own.  They buy pre-machined powder-coated Hammond boxes when they could machine and paint them themselves.  Not that big a step to buying a Behringer box and modding it.  You know, just because you have a tent that is easily erected, and a propane stove that is easily lit, doesn't mean you aren't camping.

I bought myself a VB-1 Bass Balls clone two weekend back and added a few easy mods that improved.  It was thirty bucks, and saved me at least 8 hours of my time.  I invested an hour and had a far more usable and flexible pedal.  Money well spent.

That said, modding their SMD boards can be very tricky.  The small size of the components is but one of the challenges.  The other challenges include the difficulty of identifying corresponding parts, based on the schematic of whatever they've cloned (since the routing of traces is not very obvious), and the fragility of the teeny traces and pads used on surface-mount boards. 

I was able to mod the decay time on the VB-1 because there is only one 330k resistor in the entire circuit.  It was easy to spot and in a convenient location; the 2k7 mixing resistors much less so.  I tried modding the P90 clone they make, and it has a LOT of 150k resistors, which severely limited the mods I was able to safely make.

[therecordingart]

Isn't this DIYstompboxes?
Or am I missing something?

Maybe we should change the meaning of the sentence "do it yourself", since, nowadays, looks like it means "let others do it for myself".

Have you a Behringer pedal not satisfying?
Bring it back , and invest in anything (surely more expensive...) better,
OR
pay someone for the job,
OR
try reverse engineering it YOURSELF, at least anyone might have a schematic to follow

Way too harsh and not helpful at all. When I first started coming to this forum about 10 years ago I knew zero about electronics. I asked a lot of questions (some stupid) and I received a lot of help. Nowadays, I'm working on my EE degree, and I do in-house PCB fabrication for one of the largest audio manufacturers in the world. I probably wouldn't be doing what I do today without the helpful people of this community. Get over yourself. You know more than someone else on the internet (or maybe you don't). Not everyone wants to reinvent the wheel, and most learning starts with bits of knowledge gained from another source. It accumulates. R.G., PRR, Mark Hammer, etc weren't born awesome...they really were...but you get what I'm saying.

[wheyface]

Way too harsh and not helpful at all. When I first started coming to this forum about 10 years ago I knew zero about electronics. I asked a lot of questions (some stupid) and I received a lot of help. Nowadays, I'm working on my EE degree, and I do in-house PCB fabrication for one of the largest audio manufacturers in the world. I probably wouldn't be doing what I do today without the helpful people of this community. Get over yourself. You know more than someone else on the internet (or maybe you don't). Not everyone wants to reinvent the wheel, and most learning starts with bits of knowledge gained from another source. It accumulates. R.G., PRR, Mark Hammer, etc weren't born awesome...they really were...but you get what I'm saying.

Thanks for backing me up here.  I'm still learning.  I've enrolled myself in an audio electronics class, I'm doing well and learning quickly.  I've made a few builds but I don't completely understand what I'm doing yet. Schematics are EXTREMELY hard to get a hold of and I haven't seen any of them anywhere really.  I could try to reverse engineering but tell you what Fender3D, why not try to help me out how to do so. 

It's also harder to learn on these forums now than they were 10 years ago.  There's MILLIONS of posts here, and it's difficult to find information (although it's true that it is easier to find information elsewhere on the internet) but please trust me, I've done some searching for this.

[therecordingart]

Way too harsh and not helpful at all. When I first started coming to this forum about 10 years ago I knew zero about electronics. I asked a lot of questions (some stupid) and I received a lot of help. Nowadays, I'm working on my EE degree, and I do in-house PCB fabrication for one of the largest audio manufacturers in the world. I probably wouldn't be doing what I do today without the helpful people of this community. Get over yourself. You know more than someone else on the internet (or maybe you don't). Not everyone wants to reinvent the wheel, and most learning starts with bits of knowledge gained from another source. It accumulates. R.G., PRR, Mark Hammer, etc weren't born awesome...they really were...but you get what I'm saying.

Thanks for backing me up here.  I'm still learning.  I've enrolled myself in an audio electronics class, I'm doing well and learning quickly.  I've made a few builds but I don't completely understand what I'm doing yet. Schematics are EXTREMELY hard to get a hold of and I haven't seen any of them anywhere really.  I could try to reverse engineering but tell you what Fender3D, why not try to help me out how to do so. 

It's also harder to learn on these forums now than they were 10 years ago.  There's MILLIONS of posts here, and it's difficult to find information (although it's true that it is easier to find information elsewhere on the internet) but please trust me, I've done some searching for this.

EVERYONE is still learning. There is something new in the electronic field every single day. I work side by side with some of the brightest engineers in the world who get stumped on a regular basis. Ask questions, learn stuff, and have fun.

[Mark Hammer]

Ask questions, learn stuff, and have fun.

If there was ever a motto banner for this site, that's a strong candidate.

[therecordingart]

You can build a true bypass box with a boost on the end of the fx loop portion of it. That way you have another tool on your pedalboard that can be used for other pedals too instead of just having a modded B-word.

http://imgur.com/FH2QA9O

[Johan]

Many of the behringer digital stompers appear to be the same basic platform with only the programing being different.  I have a dd100 digital delay and the level knob is in reality a pan knob paning between direct and fx sound. Before i realized that "little detail" i was very frustrated with how the level AND feedback knobs responded. Just knowing made it easier to get the sound i wanted. . One of these days i will pull it apart and see if i can make it level instead of pan. ...But I've thought about it for a year, so. ..One of these days. ...
J

[wavley]

You can build a true bypass box with a boost on the end of the fx loop portion of it. That way you have another tool on your pedalboard that can be used for other pedals too instead of just having a modded B-word.

http://imgur.com/FH2QA9O

That was actually the first thing I built from here.  I wanted more volume from my Big Muff so I built the beginner project and put it on the return of a bypass box, I called it the Muffin Stuffin and built a few for friends.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I've learned more from folks around here and excellent mentors at a couple of jobs than I ever did in school.  School just gave me the math to understand what I was already doing.

[wildebelor]

I myself have a two behringer pedals, the Super Fuzz (a pretty close Boss FZ-2 clone) and the Ultra Feedback / Distortion (a great Boss DF-2 clone).
I bought them because they were super cheap and helped me decide if I really wanted to buy those actual pedals.
Did I end up buying the real things? NO!
Did the fuzz on the FZ-2 clone track well? Not exactly!
BUT I did rehouse the DF-2 clone with a volume boost in the same enclosure as I found that it lacked some serious volume.
Probably the easiest way to solve your problem without stressing too hard.

Behringer, whilst cheap, they sometimes surprise with a great clone!

[Hatredman]

Problem with the B's is not that they sound bad. Sometimes they do, but sometimes you get lucky.

The real problem is that they don't last long. They fall to pieces after a year or two if you're on the road. For bedrom guitarrists, I can't see why not buying them, though.

I had in the past some B recording gear (in fact, the well-known ADA800), not the best thing around, but worked well -- until it failed bad and it was cheaper to buy another one.

[Mark Hammer]

The place where I bought my VB-1 was selling their Vintage Time Machine (a DMM clone) for $78! http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/VM1.aspx

I assume it uses Coolaudio MN3205 equivalents, but then so is pretty much everybody else who makes an analog delay of some sort.

[StephenGiles]

I bought a Behringer MXB 1002 mixer 12 years ago, it's still excellent with very low noise mic amps.

Frankly there is a great deal of bollocks said about their stuff!