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I really like my hoof reaper and the tone of the hoof, but there just doesn't seem to be enough gain for me. is there any mod i can do that will increase the gain?

Is there a schematic we can look at?

heres for the hoof side, but on the hoof reaper its one big pcb.

Please accept my apologies, but I'm not in the position to unfold strip layouts. Is it based on a big muff? I found this schematic via a quick search:



If so, you can try strapping an electrolytic capacitor across some of the emitter resistors, though at 100 ohms they are already fairly small (say a 10 uf cap with the + facing the transistor will amount to roughly zero ohms as far as signal is concerned). You can also reduce the 8K2 resistors between clipping stages.

Increasing gain may change the voice substantially, or introduce instability.

You can also take the "hard to beat cubic inches" approach and wedge a couple more stages in there.

everything you do to it will change the sound. the reason for this is mostly that you are limited in volume by every stage that has clipping. it matters not how much gain you have before a clipping stage. the volume is the same only the distortion amount changes. there may be a slight perceived increase in volume but this is mostly due to increased brightness (from distortion) at the same volume. the tone stack is obviously cutting your volume in half. typical mid attenuation is -6db or more depending on what version of a BMP tonestack you are working with. in this "HOOWF" schematic, removing R19 will increase clipping at Q3. removing R12 will increase clipping at Q2.

if you remove C10, R9, R22, R21, R10, you will have shit loads of gain before clipping but it will be noisy feedback hum and weak mesa boogie tripple rectifier tones.

if you remove C8 and R5 you will likely get the volume you want but the tonestack will do little or nothing when you adjust it and the mid scoop is gone.

my guess is that you are using active pickups or a clean boost right after the guitar. your signal is way louder than it should be to be compatible with everything else on your pedal board. use more gain on the amp and feed your hoof a smaller more normal signal so it can work as intended.

the only real solution if you don't want to lower your input volume is to boost the hoof output with a clean opamp. I would avoid another transistor gain stage but thats my preference.

If by gain you mean distortion rather than volume than run a clean boost or mild overdrive in front of the pedal.

so I actually sold the Hoof Reaper, and just got a Hoof, and it sounds completely different than the hoof side in the hoof reaper. (in a good way) definitely more gain, more open sounding.

nieh wrote:so I actually sold the Hoof Reaper, and just got a Hoof, and it sounds completely different than the hoof side in the hoof reaper. (in a good way) definitely more gain, more open sounding.

it probably has less gain if it sounds less compressed. I'm not there so hard to say from here. at this point I would email the manufacturer and try to tell them what PCB or serial number so they can confirm or deny exactly what the differences are.