Monte Allums opamp adapters

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I bought a couple of those adapters from Monte Allums. Bought a couple of Burr Brown chips to go with them. I heard that the DS-1 was built around whatever chip it is that they use stock. Well I tore that out of there and soldered in one of those adapters and socketed a burr brown onto it. I was happy with the Tri-gain mod that I did to the DS-1, man when you put a bur brown in there as well, this pedal sounds great. Doing all these mods lately is really feeding a tone hunger.

 

Lots of BOSS pedals use those crappy inline opamps. BD-2, OD-3, CS-3, HM-2, HM-3, MT-2, GE-7 all have those opamps on their PCBs. I've already modded both of my GE-7s using Montes kits before he started supplying these adapters. there is 2 of those inline opamps in the GE-7.

 

monte comes through again.

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the CS-3 Compressor has 4 of those inline opamps to swap out. the MT-2 has 4 of those inline opamps to swap out. If I remember correctly the HM-2 and HM-3 have 3 inline opamps.

 

I don't know what the inside a lot of the other BOSS pedals look like. SO those of you who own a BOSS tremelo or fuzz or analog delay or whatever else. Really good chance you will benefit from swapping out those stock chips. only reason BOSS used those is because of saving space, not because somebody thought they sound good. it's something to consider.

[bvester]

I was looking at these the other day, and I don't quite get what they do. Are they only for "in-line" op-amps? So in some non-boss pedals these aren't necessary to switch the op-amp right?

I'd love to hear clips of your DS-1

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those in-line op amps in BOSS pedals have 8 pins. the adapter that Monte Allums has in stock converts the 8 in-line pin pattern to the 8 square pin pattern. So you can use a common variety of chips such as the burr brown or the TS-808 chip or that chip that people rave about to be used in a Proco Rat. lots and lots of square pin pattern chips to choose from.

[byteblock]

I just swapped the stock op amp near the bottom of the PCB on my MT-2. It's out of the way from other parts of the pedal so that was easy. The middle op amp in the MT-2 will be an easy one to swap out also. The 2 op amps near the opposite sides of the PCB will be the tough ones to swap out because the input and output jacks are in the way of putting the pedal case back together.

 

I'm gonna look into getting some 8 path ribbon cable. Just solder the ends of the ribbon cable into each hole of the PCB and then solder the op amp to the other end of the ribbon cable. That way the op amp will be out of the way of the input and output jacks and you can close the pedal back up when finished with the mod.

[bvester]

Where do you buy op-amps? Radioshack?

[cloudscapes]

radioshack has {censored} these days. youre unlikely to find opamps, especially ones as good as butrr-browns.

 

I've been meaning to get a few dozen of those chips to experiment. a burr brown in a ds-1 seems kind of odd though. it's a hi-fi chip, not something you'd normally need in a dirt pedal

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true the Burr Brown is an odd choice to for distortion pedal but its the only op amps that I ordered from small bear electronics but it still sounds killer. I'm gonna order some TS-808 chips and the chips that some say sound great in a PROCO RAT.

 

Small Bear Electronics will have any op amp you'd like to try in a pedal mod.

[bvester]

Thanks. I'm going to try popping a burr brown in my barber direct drive (which, I think, has square pins). And then eventually modding a DS-1, especially if I can find my old one..