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I'm still a litte puzzled about the tone bypass mod. I tried again connecting the collector of Q3 to one end of a SPDT switch (on/off) and the other end to C12. I quite like the way it sounded so might do it anyway, however I don't think it fully bypassed the tone section as the tone knob still worked and affected the tone.
Shouldn't a mod like this completely remove the tone knob? I guess as Elijah-Bailey above said, I would need to remove the trace on the PCB as the tone section is still connected. I might have to try some other tone modification.
NO, you don't have to cut traces on the PCB.
YES, a tone-bypass mod should totally remove the tone knob. Some other Muff-PCBs that are available have provision for the tone-bypass mod whereas the Muffin PCB does not.
SO!
Here's what
I would do for tone-bypass on a PedalPCB Muffin board:
I would
NOT CUT any traces on the Muffin Board.
I would REFRAIN from populating the Muffin PCB with any of the tone controls, ie
C10, C11, R17, R18, TONE-POT
I would solder my tone-bypass switch DPDT on-on lug 2 to one of the nodes that is directly off Q3's collector, namely whichever side of C10 or R17 makes a beep on my DMM.
Lug 1 of the switch then goes to a 150k resistor soldered across to lug 4:
1 4
2 5
3 6
Lug 3 of the switch would then go either to a standalone TONE-pot wired up with the C10, C11, R17 and R18 such as on this
Beavis Audio Muff Tone Diagram:
OR
If you're not comfortable with P2P wiring as per the Beavis diagram, then you could mount the components and pot to a small piece of perf-board (column on the left below, ignore the one with transistor recovery-stage) ala
ELS:
OR
You could buy PedalPCB's "
PEDALBLOCK TONE CONTROL" PCB and use that instead of P2P or Perf:
Once the TONE-pot is sorted...
The output of the tonestack goes to lug 6 of the DPDT.
DPDT lug 5 goes to Muffin-PCB's
TONE PAD 2 .
Done. No traces were hurt in the making of this bypass. You'll have to decide which TONE method above (P2P/Perf/PCB) works best for you and where to put it in the enclosure. Might have to scoot the Muffin PCB down in the enclosure and place the offboard TONE above to form an inverted control-triangle, compared to stock.
To maintain the stock control-layout of the Muffin PCB I would opt for a lugged TONE pot with the components soldered around it rather than on the pot's back (as the PCB will be right underneath the pot) — but only IF there's enough clearance — and cover it in Goo or Tape to keep anything from shorting out on the nibs of the PCB;
If there's not enough room for P2P, then just have wires to/from the TONE-pot to a scrap of perf with C10, C11, R17 and R18 and double-sided sticky tape the perf to the enclosure wall.
Subjectively speaking, the better option is to build your Muffin board "stock" and select one of the other Muff-based PCBs that more easily accommodates the mods you wish to employ, such as the
Muffin Factory — you weren't ever planning on only building ONE Muff, were you?