Where to find mod ideas & schematics?

[dacaumodo]

The title says it all. I haven't yet been able to locate a website specialising in pedal mod schematics and ideas. Any tips?
Guillaume

[Processaurus]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/
It's come through for me many times.

[dacaumodo]

I was thinking perhaps more mods-specific. Here it appears that it's mostly DIY / cloning from scratch (which is brilliant). I was thinking of an equivalent to GGG or ROG, but for mods only (or mostly)

OR (I've asked this before but it's now lost in the depths of the forum)
Has anyone got a good mod for an EHX mini qtron?

Thanks

Guillaume

[alteredsounds]

Mod for the mini QTron to do what though?  The whole mod thing is pretty out-of-hand imo.  Most pedals are great as stock, mods can fix flaws maybe, improve on poor components, give some tonal variations sometimes but if it aint broke dont fix it.  If it doesnt sound near good enough as stock, dont buy it and try something else.

[dacaumodo]

Errr... I'm looking for IDEAS. Fun things to do with this pedal. Ideas to improve things in ways I wouldn't have imagined. In other words, inspiration, which, as I understand it, DIY is mostly about.
The Mini qtron sounds great as it is, although there's the volume gap issue. But I have a feeling it can be improved or tweaked, to make it more f*cked up. If you get my drift.

[cd]

There's seven YEARS worth of ideas and inspiration contained in the search index.  Is that not enough for you?

[dacaumodo]

Well, just do a simple test. Go to this forum's search engine, select "advanced" options, then type "mod" and select to search topic subjects. How many correspoinding articles? 11.

Now do the same but choose to search message bodies as well. Now it's 200 pages of posts.

I wish I had the time and patience to sift through the 200 pages for inspiration, but I doubt I'll live old enough anyway.

Do you understand what I'm looking for now? If I want to find a build project, I use the "schematics" section of this forum, or tonepad, or GGG, or ROG, etc. If I want to find an idea for a mod, without any preconceived idea of what I'm going to do, I don't know where to go.

Thanks

Guillaume

[dacaumodo]

For example: http://aronnelson.com/gallery/The-Mod-Zone-%21

That's the kind of pages I'm looking for. Thanks Dragonfly!

Guillaume

[R.G.]

We developed a concept here that we call B.U.M. which stands for "Blind Urge to Mod".

I don't get it. For the life of me I don't understand the mental process which starts with "Hey, I kinda want to modify something. I don't know what I want to modify, so let me go look for ideas about what to modify." Especially when there is no preconceived idea of what to modify or the intended result.

For me, things always start as an idea that I want to change the sound some specific way. From that point, I review and concoct circuits that I think will change the sound the way I want.

How does the urge to modify something, separate from any idea of what the object is, happen?

[dacaumodo]

How does the urge to modify something, separate from any idea of what the object is, happen?

First, I take this DIY thing as a learning experience. I'm a beginner. So, basically, ANY project is good for my learning.
Secondly, I believe discovering new sounds is one of the great joys of music. Th

[dacaumodo]

(sorry for the amputated first part)
secondly, as I said, I believe discovering sounds unkown to me is one of the great joys of music. For instance, if I were to only try pedals or VST plugins whose sound I am already familiar with, I would deprive myself of a lot of fun.

Way I see it, the same goes for mods. You can of course say "I want this pedal to do this instead of that. Now let's see how to proceed". Or you can come across a mod idea and say "Wow, I would never have thought of doing this mod, but I love the result/the perspective it opens"! That's the kind of inspiration I'm looking for.

Finally, you experienced DIYers probably know the kinds of mods that can be done and those that can't. It's different with a beginner like me. I need experienced people to show me what can be done, and how to do it, that's the reason I'm here in the first place.
Hope I've clarified the source of my "blind urge"
Guillaume

[jeroen_verbeeck]

What is it exactly that you want ? A page that says exactly which parts to change ? You're not really gonne a find that.
MOD is short for Modify, and well you can modify basically every component in a pedal ...
It's up to you to decide what you want to do with the pedal. But most "mods" come down to changing values of components to change the tone or texture of the pedal to your taste.

Maybe you need to look at this page: MODs

[MartyMart]

Normal procedure is this :

You post something like :

"I have a WD40 MKII and I'm not happy with the tone control or the gain range, what can I do to improve this? "

You may even have to include a schematic link ( which helps )

Then hopefully, you'll get some responses, like " change XX cap and these two XX resistors to get better tone control "
and change XXX diodes and increase the gain pot to  1M XXX to get a better range"  etc etc ....
or even a link to some previous posts about the "WD40 MKII"

Just saying "I want to mod this" says nothing, doesn't give anyone a clue about "what" you want to change ... does it ??

It also would help to know in addition, your amp/gtr setup and "style" of music that you play.

Just some "tips" 

MM.

[dacaumodo]

Just saying "I want to mod this" says nothing, doesn't give anyone a clue about "what" you want to change ... does it ??

It also would help to know in addition, your amp/gtr setup and "style" of music that you play.

Just some "tips" 

MM.

Thanks for the tips. Like I said, I'm looking for inspiration. I could of course ask how to improve or change such or such specific feature of a pedal (I probably will sooner or later). But this way I might never hear of someone who, perhaps, added a crazy feature to the pedal, a feature I wouldn't have thought of, (these are the important words!)  but would like to build once I knew about it.
It's great to be able to tune a pedal to the exact sound you desire, but it's equally great to be surprised by new sounds. Don't you guys like to be surprised?

[dacaumodo]

Maybe you need to look at this page: MODs

Thanks! this helps!
Guillaume

[The Tone God]

You seem to be a prime example of B.U.M. since you don't know what you want to do hence the "blind" part of B.U.M. You have to forgive people from being alittle frustrated with your B.U.M. request as it is the equivalent of going to a garage and asking "I just bought this car. I don't know anything about cars so what can I change ?" It is a VERY general question and is nearly impossible to answer without some research and work on your part to provide a more specific formed request.

You also need to learn to use a search engine better. Typing in "mod" is not an effective use of a search engine. Would you go to an automotive forum and type in "change" ? Did you try the effect name ? Did you try the effect type ? Did you try other similar functioning effects ?

Also be aware that some effect schematics/details, like the newer EH effects, are protected and will not be discussed here.

Andrew

[petemoore]

Thanks for the tips. Like I said, I'm looking for inspiration.
   ..you are not alone.
   What can I change on my car to make it more likable?
  ...Useful subcontexts may include.
  A picture of the car
  Naming the Car
  Showing diagrams of the car
  What type engine is in the car
  What type and size tires are on the car
  What do you use the car for
  What kind of surfaces will the car be operated on
  What all do you like about the car
  What don't you like about the car
  Many of these things need to be known to make an intelligent response to "how do I improve my car'.
  The same type of information about stompboxes is applicable.
  From what I've read, you either want a complete dissection of the circuit and related mods analysis [pretty hard to even start on without a schematic] or...hard to say what...
  In the case of just about any effect...
  Putting a booster that is bypassable and has above/below unity gain capability...perhaps even a compressor...can change the way it works.
  ITCase of the  The Mini qtron, because there's probably an envelope detector, a compressor will make that act differently.
  Starting with a schematic [if available]...well...that's the best place to look to find places to mod, because it's concise, abbreviated information can be referred to when all have a schematic to reference.
  This makes it alot easier to indicate which part is being referred to when explaining what that part does/could do.

[jimbob]

I look at mods as choices to the original. If I already like the original but want it to possible do a few more things, such as a toggle switch for more highs, lows, mids, gain, ect. than all the better. I might be the only one that admits this but I really like that effects Ive seen around here such as a tube screamer with 3 extra switches for more choices in the sound while still retaining its original sound. I think they look really cool! Some are almost monsterous with 10 switches! I also like the look of commercial pedals with added switches such as Analogman and Keeleys.

I REALLY like Dragonflys mod page. Its down to earth and well put togather so that anyone could understand it. The term BUM is sort of a funny way of describing those who want to do something and go about blindly doing it without any specific reason. I dont really agree with it because this to me is all about experimenting and having fun, and getting all i can (sounds choices)  out of my DIY and commercial pedals. I say go blindly mod the hell out of everything. Why not? Its your pedal. Have fun. If you screw it up- you atleast learned something and had fun doing it.

[dacaumodo]

You seem to be a prime example of B.U.M. since you don't know what you want to do hence the "blind" part of B.U.M. You have to forgive people from being alittle frustrated with your B.U.M. request as it is the equivalent of going to a garage and asking "I just bought this car. I don't know anything about cars so what can I change ?" It is a VERY general question and is nearly impossible to answer without some research and work on your part to provide a more specific formed request.

Thanks Andrew, but I beg to differ.

Why are there sites where schematics and layouts and projects are easily arranged in categories for people to browse through? Even on this forum (cf. "schematics & layouts)? Perhaps so people (beginners, I suppose) can discover things they might want to try their hands at even if they didn't start with a specific idea.

Otherwise, if people always knew exactly what they wanted to build, a simple search engine, to search the archives of this forum for instance, would be enough.

Nobody ( I suppose) would fire at a newbie searching for interesting effects to build from scratch. I'm sure you guys would kindly point them to ggg and such, or to the relevant categories on this forum. I'm sure you wouldn't say "I can't answer you unless you tell me exactly what effect you want to build". At least I hope you wouldn't.

It is beyond me why the same could not happen when one looks for mods ideas.

Imagine the situation. I've got a few pedals lying around. I'm willing to experiment with those (rather than, or as well as, build effects from scratch). I come across a site that lists interesting mods arranged by pedal. I find one that looks/sounds promising and, luckily, applies to a pedal I own. I go ahead with it. Simple. I don't really see what's irritating about the process.

Finally concerning the mini q tron, I could rephrase my question like this: has anyone done any interesting modifications to this pedal? And would you like to tell me what?

If that's an odious question on this forum, then the path is pretty narrow...

You also need to learn to use a search engine better. Typing in "mod" is not an effective use of a search engine. Would you go to an automotive forum and type in "change" ? Did you try the effect name ? Did you try the effect type ? Did you try other similar functioning effects ?

Precisely, I'm not looking for something specific, rather trying to educate myself as to what's been done with various pedals (some, perhaps, I already own), whether it's worthwhile, etc. Search engines are great but don't answer all the needs of someone looking for general info or inspiration- which the reason why, for instance, Google and such also propose to navigate by category... That's also maybe the reason why very often in libraries , books are presented on shelves for people to look through. Sometimes you know you'd like a good read but don't really know what. But that's a bit off topic I suppose

Thanks,

Guillaume

[dacaumodo]

I REALLY like Dragonflys mod page. Its down to earth and well put togather so that anyone could understand it. The term BUM is sort of a funny way of describing those who want to do something and go about blindly doing it without any specific reason. I dont really agree with it because this to me is all about experimenting and having fun, and getting all i can (sounds choices)  out of my DIY and commercial pedals. I say go blindly mod the hell out of everything. Why not? Its your pedal. Have fun. If you screw it up- you atleast learned something and had fun doing it.

Exactli. Thanks. I was beginning to feel a bit lonely here...

Guillaume