Danelectro Fab Tone True Bypass question

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zeravla
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Danelectro Fab Tone True Bypass question

Post by zeravla »

Hey folks. Total neophyte here. One of my favorite pedals ever is that skronky dirty-ass Danelectro Fab Tone.
(this guy)
Image
It's just so awful it's amazing. The problem is its buffer destroys my tone. I've kept it in the loop of my TBD for now, but I'd like to have it elsewhere in my chain.
I've looked around and I found a site with a picture showing how someone modded this thing for true bypass. My question is does this look legit or am I going to destroy my pedal doing this? I know they're cheap but there's no point ruining a good pedal for nothing. I've got a 3dpt switch and everything I need, just looking for your opinions.

Here's the link http://ambientelectronics.blogspot.com/ ... s-mod.html

Here's a schematic if it helps http://www.geocities.ws/diygescorp/dane ... abtone.gif
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Dr Satan
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Re: Danelectro Fab Tone True Bypass question

Post by Dr Satan »

Just cut the traces closer to the pads so that if you want to undo it, all you have to do is scrape off a little bit of the mask and flow some solder over the gap. Also, don't cut ginormous gaps like in that picture, jeez Louise. That's like cutting off your arm at the shoulder because you got a splinter in your index finger.
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Re: Danelectro Fab Tone True Bypass question

Post by eatyourguitar »

scraping soldermask without destroying 8mil traces can be difficult for a beginner. I don't see a reason to revert back after you do the mod. in my opinion the biggest concern is if he can do the work himself. no one likes burning money. even with my experience I killed the first behringer mod I did. good thing it was only $22 to replace.
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Re: Danelectro Fab Tone True Bypass question

Post by zeravla »

Hey guys. Thanks for the replies. I tried it and managed to get the signal to work through the 3dpt switch but not the power. I drilled a hole for the switch (my poor poor dremel, this enclosure is THICK) so now I just leave the effect on all the time and hit the new switch to bypass it. Hopefully once I get some more experience I'll be able to figure out how to make the new switch cut the power on/off. Next step is to find some jacks that will fit between the two pcbs. I'm sure I'll just give in and rehouse the thing at some point, but I was hoping to keep it in this box for sentimental reasons.
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Re: Danelectro Fab Tone True Bypass question

Post by Dr Satan »

If you're talking about the LED, the easiest thing to do would be add another LED to show when it's bypassed or not. What you've done is essentially wired a true bypass looper into the pedal. Adding another LED will tell you if it's bypassed and on, or bypassed and off, if that makes any sense.
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