dod fx17 mods? (wah/volume/voltage controller)

[methodofcontrol]

hey guys...
i recently picked up one of these on ebay. very cool pedal. i wanted to check it out because of it's small footprint, and the fact that it seems to be so versatile. i mainly use it as a wah, i don't care about inductor vs inductor-less wahs. the sound of this pedal works fine for me. i have a somewhat unique use for wahs in my sound. the fact that this pedal switches on/off in the heel down position is also great for me. until the FX17 came into my life, i always had to put my overly large wah pedal in it's own bypass loop via a separate looping pedal. i'd leave the wah on in the heel down position and switch it into the signal path with the separate loop box. i'm REALLY happy to have traded those two pedals and extra cables for the FX17.
anyway...here's the trouble in paradise:
while the physical movement of the foot treadle on the FX17 has a great broad range exceeding every other wah i've ever seen. the sonic range of the wah takes place in a very small portion of the range of motion. i probably have 40 degrees of movement between heel-down and toe-down. but the first (bass) 10 degrees sounds the same, the next 15 degrees is very lively, and the last (treble) 15 degrees sounds the same.
if this were a regular wah, i'd want a different taper to the pot. but the FX17 doesn't have a pot. it uses variable capacitance to get it's sound. any ideas on how i could could achieve my ideal taper with this pedal? i think redrawing the trace on the circuit board that controls the capacitance would work....but i wouldn't know in what way to change the curve, or how.
if there's something i can do to mod the circuit instead, that would be easier. suggestions?
here's FX17 info, including schematic:
http://www.diyguitarist.com/DIYStompboxes/FX-17.htm

[52 Bill]

...i probably have 40 degrees of movement between heel-down and toe-down. but the first (bass) 10 degrees sounds the same, the next 15 degrees is very lively, and the last (treble) 15 degrees sounds the same.

It's been a while since I've worked on one of these, but I'm guessing that if you are playing guitar through it, do to the limited freq. range of the guitar signal, you are just not hearing the effect that it has on the signal at the ends of the sweep range.

If I remember this circuit, the variable capacitance changes the freq. of an oscillator, the output of which is converted to a voltage by a freq-to-voltage circuit. Then the control voltage is used to sweep a voltage controlled filter stage. There are two trimpots located at the front of the pedal. One controls the maximum output of the freq-to-voltage circuit and the other controls the voltage going in to the filter stage.

As long as you don't care that the pedal won't be able to output the full 5 volts from the CV jack, you could first move the usable area to one end of the sweep and then try to adjust the other end of the sweep with the filter input control.

[methodofcontrol]

thanks bill! i thought i had adjusted the pedal's trimpots to my liking, but i've readjusted them since posting and found a more usable setting.
now, here's the real problem....
since it's just a low cut filter...when i get to the treble side of the sweep, there's a loss of volume. if i can get a strong signal volume-wise from front to back, this pedal will be perfect for me.
what do you think? possible? all i can think of is installing a pot mechanism that turns the volume up as i sweep the pedal forward. but that kind of defeats the purpose of a pot-less circuit. if that's my only option, i'll just build a colorsound wah clone from scratch.
but maybe there's a way to tweak the circuit in the DOD to boost the volume as the pedal sweeps into treble range? thanks again.

[52 Bill]

...but maybe there's a way to tweak the circuit in the DOD to boost the volume as the pedal sweeps into treble range?

Maybe the filter circuit can be tweeked to give you better results.

There was a site where someone worked out the filter circuit values. If it's still out there, maybe you can Google it. It may lead you to the answer.

[methodofcontrol]

i'm not totally following you, bill.
if i found the filter values, i'm not sure i'd know what to do with that info. i'm more of a, "you tell me what to solder and i'll do it" kind of guy.
i know where a schematic for the fx17 is, but the complexity of the circuit is over my head in terms of what's actually going on in there.
it's almost like i need a compressor controlling the volume of this pedal so it's more consistent. does that make sense?
i don't know of a compressor circuit subtle enough to handle this task without destroying picking dynamics.