QUOTE (Rock @ Jun 3 2007, 09:34 PM)
I tend to do a lot of research on the web. There is an enormous amount of information out there as you may know. I've only been playing about 3 months, so I am sure you are light years ahead of me in playing ability. It is going to take me some serious time, which is fine since I love playing so much. As far as effects, I have read quite a bit concerning which sound good and why and started checking into the Boss CS-3 compression pedal since I noticed there is quite a bit of background sound and I seem to lose some tone when I use it. Since I spent $90, I figured I would just sell it if I am not going to use it until I stumbled across quite a few threads concerning pedal mods through Keeley and Mark Humphrey. During the first month with my new guitar, I picked up several pedals and all the reviews indicate I can get much better sound on 4 out of my 7 pedals with some fairly simple mods to the PCBs. Well, it was going to cost me $200 to send 4 for modification to either Keeley or Humphrey. Then I noticed they also send out components to mod yourself for around $30 per pedal so I started looking further into doing it myself. I ended up buying the book for $15 from Indyguitarist which shows in detail which components to change out on over 50 different pedals. I purchased enough components through Digikey to modify all four plus some for about $25. Another $40 for a soldering iron, stand with magnifying glass, solder, solder wick and now I am in business to mod my own pedals for $80. I figure this way if I am not completely satisfied with the sound I can always reverse the modification or change out some values to get different sounds as well. Plus I will have a much better understanding of what it takes to get the different sounds and why. I will let you know how it goes. I'm all set up and the components will be in this week so most likely I will be trying out my first mod next Saturday. Wish me luck! If all goes well, I may start searching for used pedals for cheap that I can refurb, modify, and maybe even sell on ebay if I have fun with it.
cool beans man...sounds like fun to me
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and I changed out several components on 3 of my pedals with instructions from Indyguitarst. I have to say my CS3 is quiet as a mouse now, what a difference. I can't even hear it turn on or off, no hiss at all and no tone drain. I was also amazed how much better my DS2 sounds as well. It used to have a bit of a muffled sound, now it is more musical and much less background noise. I made the mods to my MT2 as well. I always liked the sound of this one but I think it is a bit quieter now with less hiss. and the distortion is fuller as well. Well worth the few bucks I spent to modify, especially my CS3 and DS2m which I hardly used. I already find myself using them much more when practicing.
