Mod for Way Huge Pork Loin pedal (cuts bass)

[Steve A.]

One more question...

There is a part of the circuit I ignored because I was just using it as a treble cut control. The Filter internal trim pot also boosts the bass when turned further clockwise... D'oh!

R9(10k) and C3(47nf) in series to ground boost the bass as the Filter control is turned CW. What values would lessen the bass boost? At 30% the bass is full and by 50% it is too much for me. I guess that replacing R9 with something like a 27k or 33k resistor would make the trim pot more usable for me.

BTW with the Filter control set fully CCW the sound is thin, but without much brilliance. Could replacing C18 or R3 help in that regard?

I've including the gut shot showing the rectangular mylar cap C3 right next to the transistor... any suggestions on removing it? I've been clipping a hemostat on them and wiggling them as I heat up the copper pad. Unfortunately I have damaged a few copper pads doing that, perhaps from using too high of tip temperature. What is a good setting for RoHS lead-free solder? I guess once I have lifted the cap enough I should clip the lead and then work on the other terminal?

Any suggestions would be appreciated! (The pedal is almost there... just a little fine tuning is left.)









Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Still not satisfied with the bass reduction there was one coupling cap left in the Pork Loin that I hadn't changed yet: C7. It was a 1.0uF rectangular poly cap and I've had nothing but problems removing them without damaging traces. I decided to go for it and this time reduce it to 0.1uF and not to 0.22uF like the others. Sure enough I screwed up a trace and there was no continuity to C8, a 220pf ceramic cap. So I replaced C8 leaving one lead long enough to solder to C7... that should do it, right?

I brought the pedal back to my music room to try it out at 11PM, an hour after "curfew." Yep, the bass isn't as boomy anymore. Great. I tried adjusting the Filter control, fully CCW is bright, turning it CW increases the bass... but nothing happened! Geez, the Filter control is connected to C7 & C8 so I must have screwed something up. Further testing revealed that adjusting the OD channel had no effect and when I disengaged the foot switch the LED turned off but the sound did not change.

"Shit, I just trashed my $100 pedal! Not a good day at all..."

And then I realized that the 10' cable from my amp was plugged directly into my guitar and that the 6' cable I usually connect to my guitar was plugged into both the Input and Output of the Pork Loin FX pedal.

Had the exact same thing not happened to me two weeks ago I should have been surprised, but fool me twice, shame on me!

Steve Ahola

P.S. Pedal seems to be working as it should - I'll give it a real test tommorrow.

[Dave H]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

..Won't get fooled again.

I think the input impedance of that transistor triple will be high because of the negative feedback so the RC for bass roll of is R8 C7 (68k 1u) which is 2.3Hz or 23Hz for 0.1u. If 0.1u doesn't do it you could go lower.

[Steve A.]

So after last night's heart-stopping episode thinking I killed my pedal I compared the latest Pork Loin mod to what I had considered to be the "gold standard" for Jeorge Tripp's clean preamp (his version of the Neve 1973) - the Way Huge Saucy Box. Well, the disciple has outperformed the master and now I want the Saucy Box clean preamp to sound more like the modded Pork Loin. Success!

A fresh search for a Saucy Box schematic turned up zilch so I decided to wing it. The dual-ganged Drive control gives you 100% clean in the fully CCW setting and 100% OD in the fully CW setting so I was able to figure out which coupling cap was feeding the clean signal: C35, a 0.1uF box capacitor.

I used a Kester #951 No-clean flux pen to remove the box cap and clean up the copper pads to install a 0.022uF mylar cap which worked perfectly.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EWLIK5A/

While I am always mentioning excessive bass response with a neck humbucker the sound I am really going for is a bluesy clean tone with a little hair on it using the bridge pickup or both pickups together. With the Drive control on the Saucy Box set to 9:00 it mixes in enough OD signal to capture the very responsive sound I'm looking for.

Steve Ahola