Does Anyone Have A Pedal Graveyard I Can Plunder?

[Mr. Droopy-Drawers]

I'm cleaning up years of packrat 'stuff' and I'm looking for some pieces to complete these pedals so I have an excuse not to toss 'em. If anyone has any cadavers or small parts to sell me, I'm buying. First is a Memphis Distortion pedal, which is much like an old Distortion + which is to say more overdrive. It looks like this;

I am missing the bottom cover. I would paint any suitable cover to try and match the blue, or just leave it alone. Approximate size OSM is 2.3125" x 4.6875". Next I have a strange Compressor by 'Cutec', that inside is a dead ringer for any Ross/MXR Dyna Comp. A stock photo looks like this;

I am missing the battery cover and bottom plate. The battery cover is approximately 2.875" x 1/2" or so. The bottom plate is approximately 2.6875" x 4.75" or so. Any battery cover will do, and I can paint that if need be.The bottom plate is more important right now, so that if I ever decide to try it on my board, I have something to velcro to!
Anybody? I realize the pedals aren't worth much, but what the heck. A fun winter project for me getting them going and looking complete. Thanks in advance for any tips or leads.

[Tom R.]

I made a bottom plate from a piece of 18ga. galvanised tin for my MXR Phase 100 pedal. It works good. Since you list your measurements in thousands of a inch, is sounds like you may have the skills to do the same. Good luck with your projects.

[SMark]

I have the carcass of an old DOD 250 that you maybe could move the guts of your pedal into. It looks like it's about a half inch wider than that blue pedal, so the bottom plate is not a replacement for yours.

[Mr. Droopy-Drawers]

Oh, I have skills, alright  .... I know when to say 'when!'. I have the Memphis 'modded' slightly already with a 3PDT switch, LED indicator, and a DC power jack added, so if I can keep the box that's be swell. No, I'll find something, or make an 18ga. plate so I can velcro it to my board.
Surprisingly, asking at a lot of music shops here they ended up giving me dead pedals (Here; take 'em for parts and toss what you don't need!), including some Japanese Boss 'stuff'. Some I have going already, but they're missing foot pedal/battery cover screws or the rubber grommet, or something silly like that. But overall, there wasn't much too 'wrong' with them. Maybe a lifted solder pad, a blown diode across the power supply, whaterever. Seems too easy to jusy toss 'em out . Weird. So now I have to find a source for those grommets and screws without letting the music store know! Who said I was going to be bored this winter?

[orbiday09]

You could try a fuzz box, something like the ProCo Rat or maybe a double distortion pedal like the Tech21 DoubleDrive, Marshall Jackhammer or it could be just a matter of overdrive.
 What amp do you have?

[Mr. Droopy-Drawers]

The Memphis is turning out to be fun. I traced it out, and it is 100% an MXR Distortion+, just with a slightly different bias on the 741 IC. So, with a Devil-may-care attitude, I've been doing all the online Distortion+ mods, and a few ideas I had on my own. I also got an old Boss DS-1, and of course the IC was blown after the original owner put the wrong AC adaptor on it. I ended up getting a local NTE replacement, and away I go with the online DS-1 mods. Yee-haw! It's suprising what a little tweak does to the tone after all is said and done, even with a simple circuit like the Distortion+.
These are all my recording pedals now, since for live playing I already have two pedal boards pretty much loaded and decided on. But to record I can try a lot of different pedals and get a lot of different colors. The weird part is I'm recording with the Zoom 16-track digital recorder, which has all the Zoom effects inside already. But the built in effects just aren't as cool as some vintage pedals. And sometimes you get extra lucky; I got an old MIJ Boss CE-2 and a newer MIT one. The MIT CE-2 I did the Depth mod and the Chorus/Vibrato switch mod. So between two seemingly identical Chorus pedals I have a ton of options and can get a lot different sounds. Of course I left the MIJ pedal stock. And the Zoom chorus? It's OK, but not nearly as versatile as the two pedals that cost me a grand total of $12 to fix, maybe $2 to mod, and some time and effort. For amps, I have as many options, but I stick with low wattage to record, so I can crank them up at home. It's either a vintage Traynor Guitar-Mate that I moded for either Class A or ClassA/B operation, or a Crate V18 I had to have when they were blowing them out for $150. It takes pedals well, so I get a lot of great tones recorded. I'm going for old school rock or blues tones, so nothing with 'Metal' in the name excites me.

[Mr. Droopy-Drawers]

Hey, while I'm going here, I have a few DOD pedals missing the battery cover. Apparently 99% of all DOD pedals today are missing the battery cover. However, against all odds, I'll throw this out there. If anyone sees a dead DOD, or a parts one (even with the board missing), SELL ME THE BATTERY COVER!. Thanks.

[teledeluxe]

Don't know what mods you've tried on the Distortion+ circuit but between my bandmate and myself, we have 5 different vintage variations on that circuit including different pot values, different diodes, and different chips. Here are my recommendations.

Use a 50K volume pot. Use 1N270 diodes if it doesn't already have them. Add an extra 1N270 diode and a switch to remove it in and out of the circuit to go from symmetrical to asymmetrical clipping.

Diodes we have examples of: 1N270, 1N34A, 1N4148. The 1N4148 actually sounds pretty decent with a symmetrical array, but not so good asymmetrically. Has less low end than the 1N270 and is a little less compressed. Very slightly more volume.

I have a Ross Distortion that I've been experimenting with different chips. My findings won't be of much help there since the Memphis uses the single opamp (like MXR) instead of a dual opamp (like Ross).

Actually for those of you out there that have a variation on this circuit using the dual opamp here is my order of preference with what I've tried in there. 1 being what I liked the most. 4 being the least:
1. JRC2043D (nice lows with slight treble rolloff, fairly clean)
2. LM1458 (cleanest sound, least noise)
3. JRC4558D (most mids, highest noise floor)
4. RC4558P (most treble, kinda shrill, original Ross)

Incidentally, anyone know why people don't like the JRC2043D  in a Tube Screamer?

[zombiwoof]

Hey, while I'm going here, I have a few DOD pedals missing the battery cover. Apparently 99% of all DOD pedals today are missing the battery cover. However, against all odds, I'll throw this out there. If anyone sees a dead DOD, or a parts one (even with the board missing), SELL ME THE BATTERY COVER!. Thanks.

Watch Ebay for that battery cover, one just sold for $10 the other day.  Another thing to do is buy a non-working DOD pedal that has the cover.  I got a non-functioning pedal for about $12 because I needed a bottom plate for another pedal that had the label, and got all the other parts to keep for the future.

Al

[teledeluxe]

The cheapest option is to buy a $25 used DOD pedal on craigslist (it happens), take the cover, then resell the pedal. The key here is to avoid buying a model that no one likes and you'll be stuck with.

[Mr. Droopy-Drawers]

I thought that, too. But I've taken pedals with atrocious names like Thrash Master and with a few simple tweaks made it quite usable. I mean, it's not a bread-and-butter distortion, but usable. Anything like a chorus, flanger, delay, or compressor is usable. I used to think the cheezy distortion pedals were awesome candidates to donate their external parts so serious pedals could be whole again. But I have to say, with minor tweaking, even the blender tones of say a Boss HM-2 can be molded into something you would never imagine. Will it replace your $200 OCD? No. But if someone gives you a Thrash Master, you get a schematic and make it into something else. You have fun, learn about effects, and build up an arsenal on the cheap.

[zombiwoof]

I had just read your post when I saw a Memphis compressor on Ebay, and snagged it for $46.  Yeah, it sounds just like a vintage MXR DynaComp.  Cool pedal, and considering a 1974 RI DynaComp sells for about $175, a great deal.  I did some research before buying, and those Memphis pedals are assumed to be made by Maxon, and were marketed under several names (Storm, Memphis, and a couple of others).  I'm going to look for some more of them.

Al

[Mr. Droopy-Drawers]

Now look what I started! Yes, when I took the board out, it was a Distortion+ through and through. Not thinking it was worth much, I modded the beejezus out of it, and turned it into something that I think works a lot better for me and the tone I want to hear. It actually works pretty cool now, but I am still missing a bottom plate.