Thomas Organ Crybaby CC Resistors

[tmichutka]

Hiya,

  I've been debating swapping out the Carbon Comp resistors for 1% Metal Film resistors in my Thomas Organ Crybaby I recently purchased.  After reading RG's article on Carbon Comp resistors I'm convinced more than ever that I should do so.  Anyone see any reason to the contrary to keep all or some in there?

  Also, I've been looking at the Whipple Inductor available on eBay.  Has anyone tried these out with good/bad/neutral results?  I did a search here for prior posts but there wasn't really much opinion on it one way or another.  I haven't been able to find any comparable inductors available anywhere else.  My Crybaby is all stock, with the TDK 5103 in it and so far I'm not too in love with the stock sound of the pedal.  Also, is it possible to A/B/AB the two inductors in the wah by mounting a DPDT on-on-on toggle switch and hook up the 2 hot pins to the throws of the switch and the poles to the PCB?  Would it work to have 2 inductors simultaneously or is that crazy talk?

  Oh, one more thing.  I'm thinking of putting in a trimpot or potentiometer to adjust the 1.5k resistor (the "mid-boost mod").  If I wire a 2k trimpot with a 490 ohm resistor in series and a 1k resistor in parallel that will make the range of the trimpot approx 1k to 2.5k, correct?  Sorry, I'm still fairly new to ohms law    I know it probably seems like more trouble than necessary but I mostly just want to do it because I haven't wired a pot like that before and I want to experiment... plus that seems like a good range for this particular mod.


Thanks so much in advance for any and all help with this!

Trayton

[Dai H.]

you can do what you want but if it was mine I wouldn't bother changing the carbon comp unless they were bad or something. Easy tweaks IMO would be diddling the value of the 470 ohm, then (a bit more work) changing the 1st transistor for one of different gain (the gain of the first one can affect the sound--I personally liked ones that gave more action in the bass frequencies). Too low a value for the inductor apparently contributes to thin sound, so if it's at all possible to access an LCR meter and measure the inductor to check that it's close to 500mH or more (more inductance seems more acceptable than less as far as being off tolerance) might give a reason to change it out. A wah to a buffer to a fuzz can sound extremely pleasing also IMO (super accentuated distorted wah). Oh, and of course the cap values--the .01uFs and 4uF(the .01uF I expect will sound more obviously different).

[tmichutka]

you can do what you want but if it was mine I wouldn't bother changing the carbon comp unless they were bad or something.

Yeah, that's an interesting point.  I'll probably start with some other tweaks first, and unless it's super noisy I'll just leave the carbon comps in there.

A wah to a buffer to a fuzz can sound extremely pleasing also IMO (super accentuated distorted wah).

I was thinking about building a buffer into the wah before the output... the only issue is that I'm installing this into a Hammond 1590BB to be controlled remotely and with the pots, jacks, etc I don't think there'll be close to enough room for a buffer circuit.  I may build a separate buffer though and put it after the wah.


Thanks so much for all the recommendations!  I'll definitely try out all of these and see if I can't get a good sounding wah!  Regarding the inductor... does anyone know the approx value of the TDK 5103 inductors?  I definitely don't have an LCR meter to test it, and I'd been thinking about the Whipple Inductor which is supposed to be between 500 - 520 mH... aka "the sweet spot" 

Thanks again!

Trayton