ilovefuzz.com

I've talked about this before somewhere on the forum, but I wanted to start a thread about it.
But I was on between two overdrives, the EQD Palisades and the DrSci Elements. I like the sound of the Elements more, but the Palisades does have somethings I would love on the Elements. What I'm talking about is mainly the foot switchable gain modes and the boost, which would make this a holy grail pedal to me.
So I guess what I'm saying is how hard/ethical would it be to make the Gain switch a footswitch and add a boost, maybe even with the option to switch the order of the two? The case would probably have to be bigger, but that's fine, I have a large foot. I'd guess it would also have to have a low and a high gain knob, but I'm pretty sure that would be a bit harder. :|

Did you know that the gain is expression pedal controllable? That should take care of that. I don't know how many other controls you want on that pedal. Six knobs and four switches is already pretty crazy for a dirt pedal. Get a tube screamer or something to boost it if you really need that.

Ask the good doc himself! I highly doubt he'd be able to do it for you because of how busy he is, but he could give you an idea as to if its even possible

Or failing that.......
2 elements.........

(Or an elements + a cleanness)

I actually didn't know about the expression pedal, that could be an alternate avenue I could take.
I was planning to try to mod it myself, not knowing I didn't even need to. I didn't even imagine asking him directly thinking he'd be too busy.

You can control the mix with an expression pedal. If you've seen the guts you'd know its going to be tough to mod it...

A rad solution, ignoring cost, is to pick up a second Elements. Set your EQ and lowest gain with the first, then set your highest gain by stacking the first with the second, set to a flat eq then use the mix control of the second to blend in your second gain stage seamlessly with an expression pedal.

Hmm... Maybe I should redo my board....

Hi

It would actually be really easy to switch the gain toggle for a footswitch.
You would need to move up to the next "box size" which would be a 1590 BB or similar, perhaps a larger one if you want 3 footswitches. Hammond make a popular size called 1590XX which I use for lovetone clones which is about 145 x 120mm

You could then remove the toggle switch that is used for the low/hi gain mode and wire in a footswitch - you can simply add an LED to this too.
For me this would work quite well, as I find that if I set everything else right, you can get a good compromise between a light OD and a heavy OD by simply just flipping the toggle, so takes out the need for 2 gain pots.

However, if you just want two different "gain pots", you would keep the toggle for the mode, and then remove the potentiometer that controls gain from the Elements PCB.
The you would wire the pot pads on the pcb to a switch, which itself if feeding off to two different pots.
similiar idea here:

if you wanted to go extra-crazy, you could have the gain mode on a footswitch too - so switcable mode and switchable gain setting for each mode = 4 levels of gain control. Awesome.


Adding a boost pedal is as easy as deciuding what boost you like, fabricating that circuit (vero, any number of PCB fabs from Madbean etc) and building that in as you would any other pedal.

Adding an order change switch is a bit more complex. To do this you would need to remove the board mount in/out hardware from the Elements PCB to allow you to wire the 3PDT "flipper" toggle to the Elements.
similar to this:
You can read up more, here: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/inde ... pic=4169.0


As has been noted, the expression jack only changes the mix of gain with clean, NOT the amount of Gain.
I think the easiest option is to just trade out the toggle for a footswitch for the gain... Its the least amount of fucking around.

I considered going down this path, but just purchased a second elements. The pedal is so beautiful I didnt want to desecrate it.
You could always ask Ryan if he ever just builds the PCB, then get a talented builder here to finish it in the box of your choice. In fact, if Ryan would do that, get him to leave the old gain toggle and/or pot unpopulated so you dont have to desolder it. That way you wouldnt be paying for a beautiful box either. I reckon he might be amenble to that.

Ian

While I can't offer any technical advice, I will say you should never be afraid to ask Ryan anything - he is hands-down one of the nicest people I've ever dealt with.

Two Elements? That's just nuts.

I'm dumb. Clean blend is expression controllable. Not gain. I never used that. Anyway, sorry about that. Also, it seems like the tone of my previous post may have come off sounding like a jerk. I didn't mean it that way. Glad some other people gave helpful answers.