Softii - subtle gain reduction in “Stoner” mode

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Petethefuzz

Active member
Hi Guys! Isolated with corona and bored 😑. Is it by any chance possible to make subtle gain reduction in “Stoner” mode on the Softii pedal? I love it to bits but I feel like the gain on the stoner mode quickly gets out of hand. I rarely use it past noon and mostly at 8-9’ish so I would love to take it back a notch. Kindly remember I’m a noob but I can swap a resistor or two if that could make a difference.

 
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Try tacking a high value resistor (2M if you have it, or 1M) to lugs 1 and 3 of the gain pot to see if you like that better. Easy to do without swapping any parts, and easily undone if you want to experiment with other values.
 
EA75E263-907C-4B91-BF40-4556FA3E4B97.jpeg Great! I know I’ve got 1M. So I can just put it here? That seems easy. Thanks a lot. This will of course also affect Stones mode but that’s ok.
 
Give it a try and see if it gives you more range from your gain control. It if still has more gain than you would like you could try the next smallest resistor value below 1M that you have instead of the 1M. If the 1M resistor loses too much gain you could put two 1M resistors in series between lugs 1 and 3 on the gain pot and see if you like that better. Should be a good "try it and see" project while you are isolating. Hope your symptoms are all easily managed.
 
zgrav said:
Give it a try and see if it gives you more range from your gain control. It if still has more gain than you would like you could try the next smallest resistor value below 1M that you have instead of the 1M. If the 1M resistor loses too much gain you could put two 1M resistors in series between lugs 1 and 3 on the gain pot and see if you like that better. Should be a good "try it and see" project while you are isolating. Hope your symptoms are all easily managed.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. No hard symptoms -just a little tired and a stuffed nose :-). Your info is just what I needed. I’ll give it a go and fiddle around with the values. So lower value resistor means more gain? Seems counter intuitive to me but what do I know 😂
 
If you look at the gain pot in the schematic, it creates a 1M resistance to ground through lugs 1 and 3 (plus the 22K from R8). What you are doing when you add another resistor across lugs 1 and 3 is decreasing the resistance to ground by putting additional path for the signal to go through. Whatever signal that does not go to ground is increased in the feedback loop when you increase the resistance with the gain pot, but only the part of the signal that is not already going to ground.

It is worth trying this approach because it is easy although it will also change the taper on the pot a bit. Could be a change that gives you even more fine adjustment over the last part of the rotation.

If you were interested in seeing how the taper might change you could also put a 1M resistor between lugs 1 and 2, and maybe also 2 and 3. This kind of trial and error ideal for breadboarding, but not too hard when you are just adding resistors between lugs on a pot.
 
That makes sense. Thanks for the elaborate explanation. “Try and see” it is then. Interesting if the taper changes too. It works fine in stones mode but in stoner it seems like not much happens after noon. Sort of like with a big muffs sustain control.
 
zgrav said:
If you look at the gain pot in the schematic, it creates a 1M resistance to ground through lugs 1 and 3 (plus the 22K from R8). What you are doing when you add another resistor across lugs 1 and 3 is decreasing the resistance to ground by putting additional path for the signal to go through. Whatever signal that does not go to ground is increased in the feedback loop when you increase the resistance with the gain pot, but only the part of the signal that is not already going to ground.

It is worth trying this approach because it is easy although it will also change the taper on the pot a bit. Could be a change that gives you even more fine adjustment over the last part of the rotation.

If you were interested in seeing how the taper might change you could also put a 1M resistor between lugs 1 and 2, and maybe also 2 and 3. This kind of trial and error ideal for breadboarding, but not too hard when you are just adding resistors between lugs on a pot.
Click to expand...
Tried a bunch of different resistors today in different positions as you described. It was fun but unfortunately only resulted in varying degrees of extra gain and a lot of noise. At one point I got a sub octave going on! Thank you anyway - maybe I’ll figure something out eventually.
 
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