Foxrox Octron Mod?? Yeah..I wanna go there.

Eric! · #1 01-06-2010, 01:22 AM

So I FINALLY have one on the way (got it for a steal on the 'Bay..

) but anyway,

One of the big selling factors for me were all those trimpots as well! perfect dialing in of an excellent tone! But, I'm a tweaker. I want to add external pots and a switch. However, closest thing to a schematic I can find is

And the material accessed by clicking the diagram. I know typically trimpots have lower resistances, thus harder to find actual pots for.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Input? Criticism? Really want to tell me "shut up and enjoy it for what it is"? Be my guest

Taylor Livingston · #2 01-06-2010, 01:35 AM

I don't know that trimpots generally have smaller resistances - I usually run across 20k and 100k trimmers. But anyway.

You can easily find 1k and 5k panel mount pots, in the usual solder lug, PCB pin, right angle, etc. formats. I doubt you'll ever see a trimmer in a pedal less than 1k, so you should have no problems finding pots that work.

In a lot of pedals, most settings of a trimpot either don't sound good, kill the signal entirely, introduce lots of clock noise, etc. so generally they don't work well as panel mounted pots, but a quick look at that page suggests that these trims are meant to be tweaked by the user, so the results should be fairly workable.

blendermassacre · #3 01-06-2010, 01:50 AM

Please do before and after clips....

Pitbull Growl · #4 01-06-2010, 02:14 AM

Also FWIW... Smallbear has trimpots that will extend thru the enclosure (think swollen pickle mk2). Only bitch about 'em tho is you'd have to solder 'em on the trace side in an smd kinda way. Prolly more aggravation than you really need.

Remember, if a builder uses a trimpot for a pot, it's usually cuz it's a set it & forget it type of scenario, so using a pot for it might be a waste of enclosure space and make other knobs just too crowded... but hey, it's YOUR pedal so by all means have at it.

jetofuj · #5 01-06-2010, 02:17 AM

I'm not sure if such Octron mod would be really useful.

gnasher1993 · #6 01-06-2010, 05:03 AM

I really don't think it would be worth it at all to be honest. Alot of work and not alot of benefit. If you're planning on keeping forever then do the mods if you think you'll benefit. It would definitely lower resale value.

**DosiYanarchy** · #7 01-06-2010, 04:16 PM

i spent about 10-15 minutes tweaking my octron's trimpots yesterday - i found that once i've tweaked the octave up to not sound so nasally and abrasive (rolling off the tone), then the only other thing worth tweaking is the octave down tone (which is a simple enough choice: Mid heavy or bass heavy or any proportion of the two). Once you've picked the tones you want I couldnt really imagine wanting to tweak it any more.

Obviously, If you wanted to make the trimpots external - then show us how it looks when its done!! Personally i feel that modding it to OctronII would be much more useful - shame i cant seem to find an Octron II these days.

smo · #8 01-07-2010, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DosiYanarchy

i spent about 10-15 minutes tweaking my octron's trimpots yesterday - Once you've picked the tones you want I couldnt really imagine wanting to tweak it any more.

shame i cant seem to find an Octron II these days.

Couldn't agree more.
I have an Octron2, and normally I'm a tweaker, but I find once you've got it set, it just sounds too good to fiddle further.
Modding one would be fun, but I'd use a different enclosure in case you wanna go back and sell it.

RE: the octron2, I heard recently that Dave @ Foxrox has caught up with the waitlist, and you can get them again.

Eric! · #9 01-07-2010, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smo

Couldn't agree more.
I have an Octron2, and normally I'm a tweaker, but I find once you've got it set, it just sounds too good to fiddle further.
Modding one would be fun, but I'd use a different enclosure in case you wanna go back and sell it.

RE: the octron2, I heard recently that Dave @ Foxrox has caught up with the waitlist, and you can get them again.

Interesting points presented by everyone..
I'll probably leave it fairly clean, I'll be knee-deep in dirt soon as-is.
$300 for an Octron2...ack. I'm sure it's worth it, but being a student and a musician is pretty rough-goings