Solenoid Mid Boost Control - Works... oddly?

[adbernal]

Hi friends,
Big time PedalPCB lover and first time poster. My Xotic Soul Driven (Pcb: solenoid overdrive) works and sounds killer! But I’m curious if my Mid boost knob is not functioning as intended. Knob all the way to left is big sound and the high frequencies are all there. But as I roll it to the right it doesn’t seem to boost mid or thicken up but instead get muddy. Maybe boost mids a little? But the impact to the high end is what’s noticeable.
you might be thinkin, “is he using the toneknob instead and just has it wired in reverse?” No, my friends, I don’t. The tone knob works like a toneknob. BUT! Even when the tone is all the way to the right, if the “mid boost” is to the right there is still massive high end rolloff.

Important note: I am using an A10k pot instead of C10k. However would the taper make a different in what I’m hearing ? I will get C10k pot and report on changes but interested in your comments beforehand.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Did you insulate the back of the pot with some electrical tape/cardboard so it’s not contacting anything?

 

[adbernal]

Awh, good point. I cleaned the PCB and then used Electrical tape on the back of the pcb. However since the tape isn’t the best , I’ll add some insulation and see if that fixes it.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Some higher resolution pictures may help too, upload to imgbb.com or something if they are too big (though the limit here is now 5mb so it should be fine.

 

[adbernal]

I better insulated the pots and pcb, checked solder joints and wired the Audio pot backwards for a “mid cut” but with the correct taper. After trying it with some different amps and guitars I think the knob is functioning accurately. I was thinking that it was more of a 500-800hz ts like mid boost but it’s really upper mids like 1k hz maybe even higher boost. Some of it may be chalked up to part tolerances who knows. Thanks for the help Nostradoomus!