I haven’t done any meaningful soldering since making last summer’s Thereatari, but I’m getting ready to. The other day I modified my Caroline Guitar Company Meteore reverb.
I always liked (and haven’t changed!) the sound of this pedal, but I had a couple problems using it: the sweep of the reverb volume knob made it hard to dial in the amount of reverb I want, and the “Havoc” switch went to instant oscillating madness when the size, regeneration, and gain controls were above about halfway.
To address the first issue, I switched out the stock anti-logarithmic “C” taper potentiometer for a linear “B” taper. No change in sound, but more fine control over low and medium reverb volumes.
For the second, I put a potentiometer wired as a variable resistor in the “Havoc” switch feedback path. This is the new knob on the side of the pedal. At maximum, it gives the stock sounds. As it’s rolled back, it reduces the feedback when “Havoc” is engaged. This is great because I can set the reverb how I want, and still get a useable sound from the “Havoc” switch (instead of immediate blaring chaos… though it can still do that, too!).
Had no problems, other than cleaning off my iron’s tip, so it was a good warm-up for summer projects like a pair of semi-modular delays for Drew and I, my AX-60 power supply (finally), and maybe a short run of pedals (probably a transistor boost). We’ll see how far I get on that list.