What a Difference a Valve Makes

Got a Mullard ECC83 off Mr. Foxen to try in the Blackstar HT-DistX he traded me. It doesn't "completely open up the EQ" as I've seen claimed on the interwebz about replacing the valves in the HT pedals (a pox on over exaggeration), but it does make the gain sound nicer which is a big plus.

Now follows some gutshots and notes.


Fuck your warranties.

The immediately obvious thing when taking the boards out of the HT-DistX is that they're generic. Theoretically this means the pedal is very, very moddable. In practice it appears no bugger has even bothered and schematics are pretty much hen's teeth, so that's something to ponder for another time.




As on the other board there is a lot of space other components, including two more switches. Shown is the stock Sovtek valve




I had wanted to get the pot values as they would be the most immediately useful mod I could potentially make, but there are no values visible. I doubt these are particularly great pots, which makes it even more of a pain. L-R: Gain, Bass, Mid, Treble, 'Infinite* Shaping Feature**', Level.

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*Not actually infinite.
**Possibly as in 'it's not a bug, it's a...' as I haven't found the point where it does anything awesome.

Quickie - Danelectro Fabtone

My first ever pedal was a Danelectro Fabtone, and I still have it. When I was 19 it was the best thing ever. At 30 it was a horrible hissy gain monster I never used. I took out the diodes D4 & D5 and capacitor C2 and the gain became a bit more controllable but the pedal was still very noisy.

Recently though I found this video which suggests putting an LED in the place of the D5. I've just done this and the extraneous noise is all gone!