Having built a Kadundra Distortion I was quite impressed with the overall sound, but found it way too gainy for a Gretsch player like me! I wondered if it could become virtually an overdrive. I also wanted some control over that ferocious low end.
R5 and C4 are, I suspect, a big part of the appeal of this pedal's tone. They make for a really nice midrange boost. So I didn't want to mess with that section. But I did do away with the Width trimmer and made R4 10K. That, with using a B250K Gain pot, has made a very useful difference in how I can use this pedal.
Then I decided that I would use C7 and R10 as the place for my bass control. I kept R10 at 33k, sent one end to pin 6 of the IC and the other end to pin 3 of a B25K Bass pot. Pin 3 of the Bass pot also went to a 10nF cap to ground, and pin 2 of the pot went to a 1µF cap to ground. You could obviously adjust these to taste, but this is what works for me. I also experimented with various values for C6 but 150pF or 220pF seem good for me. For clipping diodes I just used 1N4148s.
These simple mods have made it a really useful pedal for me. It gets as dirty as I could ever want - frankly the amount of gain on tap on the stock version is a little ridiculous! I can see the appeal but it just ends up as white noise when maxxed. For a lower gain player like me it's surprisingly usable when the gain is drastically reduced - this isn't often the case with higher gain distortion pedals. Now I can go from an aggressive "almost clean" sound to filthy, thumpy distortion. Good times!
R5 and C4 are, I suspect, a big part of the appeal of this pedal's tone. They make for a really nice midrange boost. So I didn't want to mess with that section. But I did do away with the Width trimmer and made R4 10K. That, with using a B250K Gain pot, has made a very useful difference in how I can use this pedal.
Then I decided that I would use C7 and R10 as the place for my bass control. I kept R10 at 33k, sent one end to pin 6 of the IC and the other end to pin 3 of a B25K Bass pot. Pin 3 of the Bass pot also went to a 10nF cap to ground, and pin 2 of the pot went to a 1µF cap to ground. You could obviously adjust these to taste, but this is what works for me. I also experimented with various values for C6 but 150pF or 220pF seem good for me. For clipping diodes I just used 1N4148s.
These simple mods have made it a really useful pedal for me. It gets as dirty as I could ever want - frankly the amount of gain on tap on the stock version is a little ridiculous! I can see the appeal but it just ends up as white noise when maxxed. For a lower gain player like me it's surprisingly usable when the gain is drastically reduced - this isn't often the case with higher gain distortion pedals. Now I can go from an aggressive "almost clean" sound to filthy, thumpy distortion. Good times!
