Boss C3 - Any love For it? Mods?

[soundchaser59]

Because it basically does nothing but achieve being a suck-tone box. :lol:

Check out the Monte Allums Opto mod. It turns a practically useless compressor into my favorite.

http://www.monteallums.com/pedal_mods.html

Well, I received the kit in the mail today, everything was going great, and the tone was awesome......UNTIL....

One of the (part "N") diodes broke in half in my fingertips. I was bending the leads with my fingers to fit into the holes, just like I do with resistors, and the diode simply fell apart, broke in half in my fingers. Everything works great up to this point, but now I have two old diodes removed from the pedal, 1 new diode is installed, 1 new diode is not used yet, and the other new diode broke. So the pedal is useless(?) unless I either get a replacement diode or put one of the old ones back in.

Suggestions? I really dont want to wait for Monte to mail me a replacement diode. If I can get one nearly as good at Radio Shack, I would prefer to get that now rather than wait for him to mail me one. Is there anything special I need to know? Or is it just a regular 1N34A diode? Voltage rating? Current rating? I think it is a Germanium? etc?

 

[Blackface tweed]

yep! it's regular 1n34a germanium diode, I think the one from radio shack should fit just right

 

[wastoid]

I agree with you, the mods do make them sound better but I don't wanna buy a pedal and then mod it. I want it to sound great without tweaking it. Pedal companies like Homebrew Electronics and Fulltone do it right to begin with, no mods needed.

If you ardently feel this way, you may be disappointed upon looking inside of some of those "no mods needed" pedals because you'll discover that they're often just minor tweaks to an existing design, and that you're paying an extract $100 for $5 worth of electrical components.

 

[soundchaser59]

Well, Radio Shack aint even close, those punk kids dont even know what a diode is.

 

[soundchaser59]

you'll discover that they're often just minor tweaks to an existing design, and that you're paying an extract $100 for $5 worth of electrical components.

This ties to my question......

If the mods make these things sound this much better (Amazing improvement!) then why in heck doesn't Boss just build them this way in the first place?? We are talking another $5 bucks in parts at the most, for Christ's sake. Charge me another 5 or 10 bucks for the pedal, put the modders out of business, and sell something that is already as good as it can be when I take it off the shelf.

 

[Blackface tweed]

If the mods make these things sound this much better (Amazing improvement!) then why in heck doesn't Boss just build them this way in the first place?? We are talking another $5 bucks in parts at the most, for Christ's sake. Charge me another 5 or 10 bucks for the pedal, put the modders out of business, and sell something that is already as good as it can be when I take it off the shelf.

Well, there is another question....
Let's take Dave Navarro... His boss stompboxes are modded(with high quality parts), or he just grabs stock ones?
In other words I think that it's all about money, Most of their stompbxes are cheap, but there may be some special versions for a special people

 

[wastoid]

Well, there is another question....
Let's take Dave Navarro... His boss stompboxes are modded(with high quality parts), or he just grabs stock ones?
In other words I think that it's all about money, Most of their stompbxes are cheap, but there may be some special versions for a special people

I don't think that really answers the question. I would have tried to answer myself if I had a good answer but I simply don't. If I had to start guessing, I would assume it's for a lot of reasons that we don't see on the consumer side. Things like:

- the established brand has a certain predictable selling power, and making changes to it may disrupt the business

- the automated manufacturing of these things would have to be adjusted to accommodate the different components, the cost of which may or may not exceed the cost of simply making the Same 'ol Pedal. Like perhaps only 5% of the people buying some pedal would care about or hear the mod and want to pay the extra $5, but it costs more to make than the 5% of folks are paying in extra.

- to some extent, the designs by boutique pedals, however simple, are still creative and often unique. so they would end up with copyrights. Given that the bigger companies can't just steal their designs, they are probably always doing a dance of trying to figure out how to release the next competitive product without any legal issues.

One of the more crazy ones I ran across is a mod for a Phase90. It's for the newer "block" text ones to make it sound more like a script Phase90 from yander years. All you do is remove a couple of capacitors, adjust the trim pot, and then it sounds better. This particular instance makes no sense at all to me: they own the original and the current, it's less work and money to make the better version, etc, so what the hell are they thinking? I have no answer.

Anyway, I'm sure it's more complex than we think it is for them to change a design but I agree it's a very good question. I also want to make clear that I don't believe all boutique stuff is crap and not worth the money, but a lot of it is pretty gimmicky.

 

[soundchaser59]

Well, whatever the reason is, I have to repeate......

This Monte Allums mod is superb. It is a whole new different pedal. It is so much better now that I'm tempted to sell my Black Finger compressor!

Nice tip, people, THANKS!