PEDAL MODIFICATIONS (MODS)

Here's a guest editorial (from colleague Scott McKnight) on the subject of modified pedals, or "modded" pedals for those of you who get tired of saying (or typing) long words like "modification".

I've written a bit about this topic, and everything I know is based on my experience having my pedals modified by "Analog Mike" Pieri at analogman.com. I have nothing but positive things to say about Mike's quality work; I think the sound coming out of my amp is better than it ever was before I started using buying stuff from analogman.

However-- the work of Mike Pieri (and other established online guys like Robert Keeley)
is not cheap. I do think Mike's work is worth the money, for two main reasons. You know you'll get quality, and the pedals will have good resale value. (A side note-- I suspect, based on the endless reading I've done on the analogman site, that there are some very specific modifications that he can make that would be slightly better, or at least different, from what you could get from any other individual. This is because he has a lot of time invested in R&D, and has some personal approaches on some pedals. I do not claim to be able to tell the difference with stuff like this, by the way. I admit to taking much of what Mike Pieri says on faith. If you boil down my take on it, it comes to this-- I know that there are guys out there, Arch Alcantara being one of them, that can do quality work on your pedals, and you will be happy with this work, and you will save some money. Whether Arch, or anyone else, can literally offer you every single thing Analog Mike can, I don't know but I doubt it.) Nevertheless, most people who play guitar know that "worth the money" and "affordable" are often two different things. For this reason, I'm passing along the thoughts of my colleague Scott McKnight. If analogman and Keeley are out of your price range, you may want to talk to someone like Arch Alcantara, who has done some excellent modification work on pedals in the D.C. area. (Incidentally, analogman pedal mod work for me did not involve long wait times; the turnaround was pretty quick, even with the shipping time included.)

"I think there are two basic aspects/benefits to modded pedals. The first is a fairly objective improvement achieved when cheap parts are replaced with better ones. The sound is more hi-fi, you tend to get more ability to control the sound with how you play. This is due largely to decreased compression and wider frequency range. I think modded pedals sound more clear and less artificial. People tend to think that modded Boss/Ibanez/etc. pedals sound and feel more like going straight into an amp. The second aspect/benefit is more subjective. Modders may change the pedal to emphasize certain frequencies or otherwise change aspects of the sound. An example is getting rid of the classic mid-range hump in the Tubescreamer pedals. Another would be changing a pedal from symmetrical to asymmetrical clipping or vice versa. With these, one person's idea of an improvement may not be another's.

Guys like Keeley and Analogman deserve props for realizing that pedals can be modified fairly easily to obtain significant improvement in sound. These guys were the explorers that lead the way. That said, there are a lot of people who can mod pedals based on the knowledge that's available out there on the 'net, and their own experimenting. There are people who can modify pedals much less expensively than the famous guys. Advantages of using the famous guys is that you can be sure they know what they're doing, and (I assume) resale values hold up pretty well. Disadvantages include higher costs, shipping charges and long wait times. Assuming a local modder doesn't damage the pedal, I don't see any real downside in finding someone locally to do it, or doing it yourself if you're pretty handy.

I have a friend and bandmate by the name of Arch Alcantara who got into modding pedals. He's done several for me. These pedals include three overdrives, a distortion, a tremolo and a wah-wah pedal. His prices have been very reasonable and I've been very happy with the mods he's done. I've loaned some of these to several friends and every time they rave about them and want one of their own. Arch can be reached at arch@electricheadguitar.com.

-Scott McKnight