Behringer UV300 vibrato modded and rehoused

[Lapicide]

While perusing some forums I ran across several recommendations for the Behringer UV300 vibrato, especially when a new one can be had for about $30. Well worthwhile if you want to get a vibrato but not spend a lot of money. I also ran across a post to modify the rate to slow it down, sounded interesting so I bought one. The stock UV300 does sound quite good, very nice vibrato. I can see the desire to have a slower rate though. Using it on bass, I like to have the rate sloowwww with high depth. It adds a bit of dimension, the same for chorus for me. A few other things with the stock UV300 is that it is not true bypass, if that matters to some, and the housing is rather unattractive and plastic. Although it would probably hold up, as I have had an old Arion plastic pedal that shows no wear. Nevertheless, I decided to do a few modifications and rehousing. Thanks to Uma Floresta on the TGP for the info on which capacitors control the rate. Sure saved me time tracing through the schematic and investigating the layout.
The mods:
I added a foot switch to place in parallel with the rate modulation capacitor C15 so they would slow the rate down considerably in one position and stock rate in the other. I removed the pc mount pots in place of chassis mount pots. Values are Rise 250k (a) audio, Rate 250k (c) reverse log, Depth 50k (B) linear. You could use the existing pots, however with the rehouse and using a larger box it seemed best to space the controls out a bit. The stock jacks could be used also; I opted to replace with new chassis mount. I added a true bypass switch. The stock pedal has a mode switch to switch between latch (typical step on pedal once effect is on, step on pedal effect is off), bypass (no vibrato), unlatched (effect is only active when you press the pedal). I put the mode in unlatch, added the true bypass, and shorted across the stock effect pedal footswitch. If anyone looks to mod a UV300 a few things to consider: The rise really doesn’t seem to have much effect, you could set and forget and only have the rate and depth as accessible controls. The input jack needs to be a stereo switch type jack with the tip switched. If the tip is not switched, when the unit is powered and you plug in, there will be oscillation that can only be rid of by power cycling. These are simple mods and rehouse to make the pedal attractive and more usable. In the pics you see several wires jumpered to C15 and C12. In the end I only placed a cap in parallel with c15, the black/red wires. I decided upon having footswitch place in parallel with c15 a 0.37 mf cap. This yields a very slow rate at the ccw position, to a moderate speed at cw position. The speed readily switches between the fast/slow speeds with the footswitch. I cut the pcb a bit to fit the new box. And that’s the finished modded, rehoused UV300+*. The graphics were created on the computer, printed onto decal paper, applied and shot with several coats of gloss lacquer.
Here a few pics of the build: the modded caps, shortened pcb, completed, completed in use.
Enjoy…… Lapicide

[grovest]

Very creative, thanks for sharing.

[Thunderscreech]

Awesome rehouse, man!

[SteveMcB]

Very nice work!
Did you try the UV300 it without TB? How did you find the buffer/bypass? The reason I ask is that I'm about to try a multipedal rehouse with a behringer slowgear clone included, and that will be the only buffer, with 4 true bypass pedals. I'm wondering whether I should true-bypass mod the Behringer, or whether I might leave it as the only buffer in the chain.

Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Steve

[Lapicide]

SteveMcB,
I did use the UV300 for a time using it's buffered bypass. It sounded fine to me, no coloration. I decided to add the true bypass primarily because with rehousing I would need to repalce the footswitch anyway, as the original footswitch is a small pcb mounted momentary button that really only works with the original housing. The pedal has a tab that comes into contact with the pcb mounted momentary switch when depressed. The other option would also to simply get a momentary footswitch in the typical style, but I have a bunch of 3pdt footswitches laying around, and went that direction.
How is the Behringer slow gear clone? I am thinking about doing that one too. Keep us posted on the multipedal rehouse. I'm very interested...... Lapicide

[SteveMcB]

Thanks Lapicide.
I have ordered but have yet to receive my slow gear clone, so I'm not sure how it is yet. To be honest it was an impulse buy while ordering other pedals. I am currently bassless, having moved from New Zealand to the UK for a period and left my instruments (and pedals) behind, but I do have a guitar, Akai Headrush and a modeller, which has a slow-gear type setting on the compressor. I've been having a lot of fun with the slow-gear type sound for layering textures in loops. Sadly I have to pretend to play bass by octave-dropping my guitar , which is nowhere near the same as playing bass . I miss my basses...

The multipedal rehouse will be my first rehouse, and a total experiment! But it will include the slowgear clone (hopefully if there is room) as well as several others. I will update!

[sillyfabe]

ZOMBIE! Ok so I just pulled the plug on a UV-300 and this mod looks like a win! Any other advice, maybe a nice step by step? It's my first re-house so wanna do it right!

[sillyfabe]

more zombie goodness...so here is what I have on the way and was hoping for some insight from some peeps around here...

125B enclosure
3PDT switch
.33 uf caps

also have currently:
solder
soldering iron
a couple SPDT and DPDT switches

I was hoping to salvage the jacks and use them to mod it for true bypass.
Also was gonna do the speed mod with the cap in parallel with a SPDT switch and use that for switching between stock and slower speeds. Was gonna use the stock pots,power supply and LED to make it a little easier and drill the enclosure once the circuit fit in there with the mods to be done. I was gonna trim the circuit down a bit by the PCB footswitch (tiny button)

QUESTIONS:
Could I re-use the jacks on the UV-300? Should I?

I really enjoy the unlatch mode with the rise feature and want to keep that intact.. would it be better to get a momentary switch as described above? Also if I do how do you place one?

Now I'm a noob with this whole cap thing...(parallel means having one side wired to the C15 and the other to a cap?) I cant understand it I'm more visual unless you spell it out word for word.

Any other advice?

[Lapicide]

You can reuse the current jacks. You could simply mount them on the chassis then run wire the pcb connection to the jack connection. If you want to keep the unlatch ability with the rise function it would be best to keep the same latch/unlatch select switch and keep the stock footswitch function. If you want a more durable footswitch, you can replace the small button momentary footswitch with a momentary large footswitch similar to what you see on most pedals. Just be sure to use a momentary switch. With regards to wiring the additional cap for dual speed, one end of the new cap goes to one end of C15, the other end of the new cap goes to a switch, other end of the switch to the other end of the cap. When you step on the footswitch, it will then put the new cap in parallel with C15.
...... Lapicide

[sillyfabe]

thanks very very much so far for all the sound advice. I got a package yesterday from pedalpartsplus and will start this mod/re-house this afternoon!