Arion Bass Distortion, possible mod project?

[bovine mind]

Picked up an Arion Bass Distortion for $10. haven't had a chance to try it through my SVT-CL / 810e rig, but for some reason i have a feeling i'm going to like it with some tube saturation to back. unsurprisingly the few reviews i've found on the pedal are generally unfavorable, but i'm a fan of very aggressive bass distortion, so i can't resist. if anything i can imagine this could be fun to try as my first circuit bent/mod project.

few reviews on TB, but anyone a fan of this cheap pedal, or have any ideas on possible modifications? I can post a gut shot if anyone should care to see.

[bongomania]

Probably a great circuit for modding. My only concern would be that the housing, pots, jacks, and switches are so bad that by the time you replaced all those and modded the circuit for bass, you'd have spent time and money equivalent to just buying a boutique bass OD. But of course a project is fun for its own sake.

[gnasher1993]

Put in a 3 way tone circuit, a starve knob and a 4 way rotary knob so you can switch capacitors. Add a bass specific boos circuit and swap out some components to make it retain more low end.








Too much?

EDIT: yeah, show us a gut shot

[lethargytartare]

Happy to resurrect this thread since I recently got one of these too, and since it's largely a discreet circuit, I figured there's room for modding. I haven't found anything for it yet and haven't had time to just start experimenting.

Some pics:



In the component shot, the long black bar component in the middle is the opamp (NJM4558), and the big IC in the bottom right is a dual JK flip-flop...which I have no experience with. Controls L-R are Direct Level, Distortion Level, Tone, Distortion.

To answer some of the replies -- this is specifically a bass distortion pedal, so it is voiced for bass. And it has separate volume controls for dry and wet signals. 1 tone control, and 1 distortion level control.

My one complaint is that at low levels of distortion, you just get the tone of a distortion mixed a bit in the background -- so I haven't been able to get a more simple grit or overdrive feel, which would be nice. But you can get a pretty usable clean boost

I'm not really good at tracing circuits, but I'll be trying to map this one out at some point.

Suggestions or links heartily welcomed!

ltt

[basspig]

gday from SA! (South Australia) i just saw your thread and am watching with interest as a distortion junkie myself. i got tired of trying to find a pedal that did what i wanted so i made my own ( well a jaycar kit to be precise). spent a bit of time on an occilliscope and now i have my own sound!(?) i used to have an arion pedal and wish i still did. keep up the post cos im keen to do the same. cheers.