Effects - Pedals, Multi-Effects, and Floor Boxes

[thesouthernfire]

I know nearly nothing of circuitry, but I'm dying to try modding this Behringer TO800 ($30 TS9 clone) that I have. So I was wondering if even just switching out the capacitors would be enough to squeeze some better tone out of the thing. Anyone have any ideas of a specific cap to use if it's even worth it?

Thanks!

[Reaganomics!]

If you're deliberately changing the value of a certain cap - say there's a 47u cap somewhere that you change to a 100u cap - that would make a noticeable difference.

If you're just switching caps for "mojo" material caps of the same value I'm not convinced it's a worthwhile mod in most cases.

The only exception is if you swapped ceramic and electrolytic caps for higher quality metal film caps you could possibly get a reduction in noise from the circuit. I guess in that case you would get a cleaner 'sound' and thus different tone with less noise, but not some magic mojo tone to make TGP jealous.

[BrentMpls]

[lefort_1]

Brent, take your pick:

1. you can forget those blackcat 50's-era caps I was gonna toss in...it's all +50/-30 ceramics for you.
2. ....and I had no idea you had an aquarium...
3. Made in Jamaica

[BrentMpls]

---

lefort_1 wrote:

Brent, take your pick:

1. you can forget those blackcat 50's-era caps I was gonna toss in...it's all +50/-30 ceramics for you.
2. ....and I had no idea you had an aquarium...
3. Made in Jamaica

---

Care for an orange drop?

[lefort_1]

---

BrentMpls wrote:

---

lefort_1 wrote:

Brent, take your pick:

1. you can forget those blackcat 50's-era caps I was gonna toss in...it's all +50/-30 ceramics for you.
2. ....and I had no idea you had an aquarium...
3. Made in Jamaica

---

Care for an orange drop?

---

Tantalum?

I barely know'em.

[thesouthernfire]

Thanks for the help! And also lol

[Mr.Grumpy]

It's not going to be worth the epic hassle, in my humble opinion. I say "epic hassle" because the Behringer is built with SMD - surface mount devices. Instead of stripey blobs with wires sticking out of them, imagine little black squared off grains of rice glued to a green playing card. Those little squared off grains of rice are the SMD resistors, capacitors and transistors in the circuit. These pedals can be modded, but it's not a good project for a beginner. 70% chance you'll ruin the pedal, 29% chance it will work and sound the same, 1% chance of epic toanz. I don't like those odds. 

Just get a tubescreamer kit from BYOC, GGG, or Mammoth, $55 - $70 or so. 

 *edit* another alternative would be the Ibanez TS5 SoundTank version of the tubescreamer - they're available for cheap because of the funky plastic case, but it's the same circuit as the TS9 and it's regular through-hole construction so it can be modded with regular electronic tools. 

[starmansam]

+1 to the concerns about actually upgrading the cap being way more trouble than it is worth. behringer pedals are not easy to mod.