EHX Holy Grail volume mod

[ural]

Hi! Holy Grail sounds nice, but it's volume drop is very annoying.
Is there any mod exist to fix it?
One idea could be to put a small booster inside... Has anybody did something like this?
Suggestions and examples are welcome...

[TweedBassman]

the HG has a passive blend control, so yeah you'd need some sort of boost tacked on. there's no way around it without adding a boost/buffer, as the circuit literally goes input>blend>giant computer chip> output.

[pothole]

as the circuit literally goes input>blend>giant computer chip> output.

That is almost sig worthy.

[nbabmf]

I don't recall what kind of footswitch it uses, but it wouldn't be difficult at all to use a 3PDT or 4PDT to turn a boost on along with the reverb.

[Scruffie]

I don't recall what kind of footswitch it uses, but it wouldn't be difficult at all to use a 3PDT or 4PDT to turn a boost on along with the reverb.

Should be a 3PDT.

Feel like soldering with some SMD? Might be able to cure it with a resistor change.

[ural]

Inside of Holy Body...

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[ural]

the HG has a passive blend control, so yeah you'd need some sort of boost tacked on. there's no way around it without adding a boost/buffer, as the circuit literally goes input>blend>giant computer chip> output.

Thanks to everybody for help!

What kind of booster or buffer do you recommend to use?
I'd like to put HG probably first in pedal chain (before fuzz pedals) and I'd like to save low and low-mid frequencies as much as possible..

[nbabmf]

A MOSFET boost (ie. Zvex SHO) will probably be your best bet as it's pretty flat aside from that lovely high end sparkle and presence. If you're using any traditional fuzzes (Fuzz Face, Tone Bender), I would put the reverb and boost after them if you want to keep your dynamics and volume control clean-up.

[TweedBassman]

A MOSFET boost (ie. Zvex SHO) will probably be your best bet as it's pretty flat aside from that lovely high end sparkle and presence. If you're using any traditional fuzzes (Fuzz Face, Tone Bender), I would put the reverb and boost after them if you want to keep your dynamics and volume control clean-up.

^ This. small enough to fit in the same enclosure, easy build, and can be set to unity gain/buffer if you end up only needing that (the perceived volume drop may just be an impedance mis-match that squashes the dry signal). I also 2nd the reverb post-fuzz (and most other effects).

[nbabmf]

I built one with a trimpot a while back instead of a regular pot to preset the output to use for this very purpose. It's a piece of cake to modify the various layouts floating around to incorporate a trimpot.

[McSpunckle]

Inside of Holy Body...

Seriously? A leica M8 for gut shots?

I mean REALLY

REALLY

h8u

[/camera envy]

I don't think any schematics really exist for mods (I'd assume it has to have some sort of preamp/buffer stage), but there's plenty of room in there to add a simple booster circuit, that you can tune to fit your needs.

+1 on the MOSFET based booster, though you'll likely want to filter off a tiny bit of high end if you use one (unless you like it, of course!)

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

sweet Elektron in the back there

[Scruffie]

I don't think any schematics really exist for mods (I'd assume it has to have some sort of preamp/buffer stage)

There does... there's 2 x LM358s in there at the input, output and around the Blend Stage but as I said above, he'd have to solder some SMD parts... worth the effort as opposed to the booster? Probably Not...

[ural]

A MOSFET boost (ie. Zvex SHO) will probably be your best bet as it's pretty flat aside from that lovely high end sparkle and presence. If you're using any traditional fuzzes (Fuzz Face, Tone Bender), I would put the reverb and boost after them if you want to keep your dynamics and volume control clean-up.

^ This. small enough to fit in the same enclosure, easy build, and can be set to unity gain/buffer if you end up only needing that (the perceived volume drop may just be an impedance mis-match that squashes the dry signal). I also 2nd the reverb post-fuzz (and most other effects).

Thanks for great suggestions!

I'm actually tried several "outside" boosters what I have nearby - like Analogman Juicer & slightly moded Zvex SHO (I got an Inventobox as birthday present..). To my taste Juicer works better. But SHO is smaller of course.

Have somebody any experience with those boosters/buffers from http://www.generalguitargadgets.com ?

I'm not sure that HG volume and low freq drop is caused by impendance mis-match. It happens also in simple guitar->HG->AMP chain. I tried all 3 guitars (and 3 amps) I have - the same results. Sometimes I think to myself this "drop thing" might be consider as effect by itself - like quieter eternal part of entire guitar line...

Also I have tried every possible placement of HG in pedals chain. The best results (again to my subjective taste) happened when HG comes first after guitar. Yesterday I recorded some parts and chain was this: GuitarTunedDownToA->HG->Juicer->EHX BassBigMuf->BigMufGGGtunedversion->Hiwatt400.
I prefer very saturated tone with lot of overtones and natural feedbacks to play.

There were several takes with HG on and off. Without HG it sounded perfect, but with HG on - there was some unusual kind of mid range overtones and it better fitted in mix with bass guitar.

However, HG volume on low freq drop still make me little angry.

[ural]

Inside of Holy Body...

Seriously? A leica M8 for gut shots?

I mean REALLY

REALLY

h8u

[/camera envy]

I don't think any schematics really exist for mods (I'd assume it has to have some sort of preamp/buffer stage), but there's plenty of room in there to add a simple booster circuit, that you can tune to fit your needs.

+1 on the MOSFET based booster, though you'll likely want to filter off a tiny bit of high end if you use one (unless you like it, of course!)

Yes, those 2 are very quick out on focus low light captures with M8...