If something doesn’t suit your needs, just change it. That’s a motto we live by, and it looks like [Doug] took up the same creed when he modified a cheap effects pedal.
The victim of [Doug]’s soldering iron is a Danelectro BLT Slap Echo – a tiny, cheap pedal in Danelectro’s mini ‘food named’ pedal series. Stock, this pedal’s slap back echo is set to a fixed amount of time. [Doug]’s mod changes that.
The mod consists of desoldering a single SMD resistor and replacing that with a 50k pot [Doug] had lying around. After mounting the pot between the two stock knobs, the new and improved pedal had a variable length echo. There are a few more mods possible with this pedal – changing some of the resistors on the filter for a better sound, or even connecting the rate pot to a wah-style rocker pedal for some wobbly Echoplex or Space Echo action.
You can check out [Doug]’s gallery of pics here.
Way Cool… +1
“If something doesn’t suit your needs, just change it” – I love that concept.
In a similar vein; I’ve been working on a multi effect pedal made from Danelectro FAB pedals. Pic on link:
http://i.imgur.com/5Yn1o8Z.jpg
Would love to see the write up on that project.
Uh… yeah, I’m gonna need to see a writeup on that.
I’ve seen these food pedals stuffed into an actual guitar, as well. Everything – EQ, phaser, chorus, overdrive, distortion, was hidden under a pickguard with a million buttons and switches.
I guess I’m not the only one with Thanksgiving leftovers on his mind =p
If anyone’s interested:
http://levysounddesign.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/fab-pedal-multi-effects.html
+1 I always love to see people “hacking” existing hardware to suit their needs. Especially if it’s guitar related.
The echo duration on the pt2399 chip used in this pedal can be controlled though a current sink on pin 6, just be careful not to connect the pin directly to ground when the pot is fully closed or you could latch up the chip and need a “reboot” (switch off and back on) to make it work again. Someone warns about damaging the chip as well but I have no data about that. Anyway Princeton Corp (the chip manufacturer) states 1K as the minimum guaranteed value for the resistor to ground, therefore it is advisable to add a 1K resistor in series with pin6 and connect the center pin of the pot after that resistor.
Wow great info! Thanks qwerty!
danelectro is evil
Hi,
You said that here are a few more mods possible with this pedal. I would be interested in changing some of the resistors on the filter for a better sound. Could you tell us more about this mod?
Thanks
Anybody ?