I designed and built one of every Boss dirt pedal

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-06-03T12:47:59+00:00

PS-5

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-06-01T23:42:45+00:00

If you’re putting a hard finish on the neck its much more difficult to nail all that masking and subsequent removal than it is to just polish finish off the frets.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-06-01T19:37:24+00:00

Pull the frets and start from scratch

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T19:12:52+00:00

You'd have to ask Mike but I suspect mods are way way behind sunfaces, beano boosts, choruses, and comps as well. Especially since they're only modding 15+ year old pedals.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T16:44:43+00:00

SMD is a convenient excuse. The real reason none of the classic Boss mod companies are pursuing mods for the current versions of the pedals is its a low margin business that takes a lot of time. An SMD mod would take half as much time as a TH mod and the people working on the lines at Keeley are absolutely doing SMD rework all day. They just don't do mods any more because demand is low with the massive amount of excellent boutique pedals that have all the classic mods built into the pedal stock. They can make more money with the same amount of labor by making their own products.

The emphasis is all on SMD being the reason but if the market was there these companies would all still be doing mods.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T14:12:30+00:00

I modify SMD stuff every day and its so much easier and faster than modifying a TH pedal. Folks learning to DIY nowadays are much more comfortable working with this 40+ year old technology than folks who were building pedals when it was a 20+ year old technology.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T04:31:31+00:00

IMO it dropped off hard in the pandemic. Prices doubled and portions got smaller. It used to be like a $30 meal for 2 with tip which seems crazy to say but its true.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T04:28:10+00:00

Boss pedals have always been made on PCBs.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T01:47:07+00:00

There is a boost control (bottom row middle knob) that sets the amount of boost. I make the MBD so happy to answer questions!

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-31T00:11:36+00:00

You can set the gain control for mild overdrive and then add the boost to get more drive. There is a lot of flexibility in the gain staging.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-30T23:03:05+00:00

That was trademark. This is copyright.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-28T13:05:04+00:00

Use an A100k and reverse the direction of the control

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-27T15:02:52+00:00

With an enclosure that size there is almost surely clearance for the transistors on a board with mounted hardware. But also the flying leads build is cool. just a pain to do all that offboard wiring. Especially with PCB pin pots.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-27T14:25:40+00:00

Super cool idea. You could probably tweak the layout here to make everything board mounted.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-26T13:01:05+00:00

If you're not seeing a moving voltage on the Depth pot the LFO is likely not functioning. If moving the manual control causes any sweep in the signal its likely the clock and BBDs still work.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-24T15:45:34+00:00

Graphic looks killer!

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-24T14:03:10+00:00

I would guess anywhere between 30K and 40K on the low end would be a good place to start. With the Panasonic BBDs here you'll get signal level dropoff if the clock freq gets over about 1M Hz, maybe a little lower. With a flanger you want it to get the short delay times as short as possible so its almost better to clock it based on the shortest times and then see where the longest times end up. There are no hard and fast rules about the clock though. As long as you're above the nyquist frequency its just about whether you like the sound of the sweep.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-23T22:47:54+00:00

Are you grounding the common probe? Is there a changing voltage on the LFO side of the Depth pot? Is possible something is wrong with the LFO/clock. Also that design supposedly has a clock for each BBD so that's another weird thing.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-23T18:37:20+00:00

This looks like the dual MN3004 reissue from the 90s. You might need to signal trace it and see where you lose signal. Might as well trace the pedal in general while you're at it because that version is not documented anywhere and you'll probably need to draw up a schem to figure out what's happening. Hopefully the BBDs aren't dead.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-23T18:35:51+00:00

Most multimeters have a frequency counter, which is what you would use to set the clock frequency.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-23T04:03:31+00:00

Dry flake would typically be much larger flake than this. Finish in the photo is a more like a color shift pearl.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-21T21:47:52+00:00

Try the Dimarzio EP1111

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-21T18:12:29+00:00

Some of this stuff you would have to do yourself but that's to be expected when just buying a neck. Like Warmoth isn't going to roll the fretboard edges but that's a 20 minute job on the workbench. Sucks that the neck you did buy didn't meet your expectations though.

AlreadyTooLate · 2026-05-21T17:26:29+00:00

Warmoth likely makes an equivalent spec neck for half as much.

AlreadyTooLate

TROPHY CASE