electric mistress owners.....

[sjaltenb]

i was messing around today and it seems that the mistress does "more flanging" when the input volume is greater. is this my imagination, it almost seems like its touch sensative. seems especially true when running something high gain in front..??

 

also, is it easy to mod the mistress to get rid of the horrible volume drop

[Seth Carmody]

Howard Davis will do the mod. It's only a simple resistor value swap only somehow the mod hasn't leaked onto the net. I sent my unit elsewhere because it was slightly cheaper, then the guy turns around and tells me he can't fix it, after I've already forked out $80. And it took me many emails to get my unit back. In the end I sold it rather than spend another $100 sending it to Howard. Regret doing that in hindsight.

 

My experience was that the unit would sound like a flanger with the range knob between 0-60%, and sound like a chorus between 60-100%, the later so long as the color wasn't too high. Though my unit was crazy noisy with the range above 75% (EDIT: Just noticed yours is the Deluxe. It's the battery ones that are nosiy) All flangers respond to harmonics. Bridge pickup with a distortion running before it it will sound way more intense than if you switch to a clean signal from the neck. I didn't notice any differences with volume.

[Howard Davis]

Originally posted by Seth Carmody Howard Davis will do the mod. It's only a simple resistor value swap only somehow the mod hasn't leaked onto the net. I sent my unit elsewhere because it was slightly cheaper, then the guy turns around and tells me he can't fix it, after I've already forked out $80. And it took me many emails to get my unit back. In the end I sold it rather than spend another $100 sending it to Howard. Regret doing that in hindsight. My experience was that the unit would sound like a flanger with the range knob between 0-60%, and sound like a chorus between 60-100%, the later so long as the color wasn't too high. Though my unit was crazy noisy with the range above 75% (EDIT: Just noticed yours is the Deluxe. It's the battery ones that are nosiy) All flangers respond to harmonics. Bridge pickup with a distortion running before it it will sound way more intense than if you switch to a clean signal from the neck. I didn't notice any differences with volume.

 

The volume drop correction mod is often not just a simple resistor change. It depends on which model of Mistress or Deluxe Mistress you have, but in many cases when this mod is done the "loop gain" is increased enough so that for the unit to be stable, free of unwanted oscillations, another part or two must also be changed. I usually charge only around $65 total for parts and labor for this mod. Things get more costly though when someone else has attempted to do this mod, or a repair, which often does more harm than good and makes more work necessary to correct it.

 

Guitar pedal design engineering, repairs, and custom mods:

http://howard.davis2.home.att.net/