Tear apart a PD7 and make it an onboard preamp?

[Vic Winters]

In clean mode, a PD7 only uses the Level (Volume), Lo and Hi equalization, basically making it a 9 volt preamp. Say you had an extra laying around, how difficult do you think it would be to turn it into an onboard preamp?

[PilbaraBass]

Originally Posted by Vic Winters

In clean mode, a PD7 only uses the Level (Volume), Lo and Hi equalization, basically making it a 9 volt preamp. Say you had an extra laying around, how difficult do you think it would be to turn it into an onboard preamp?

show me some photos of the board...I'm not familiar with a PD7...

[Vic Winters]

[PilbaraBass]

that's a fairly large board...

you'd have to remove quite a bit of wood, but it definitely is doable.

can you show some photos to scale? (boards next to your bass with an open controls cavity)

[Vic Winters]

Do you think I could trim down some of the PCB or do you think the whole thing is needed?

[PilbaraBass]

Originally Posted by Vic Winters

Do you think I could trim down some of the PCB or do you think the whole thing is needed?

my guess is that the whole thing is needed...

judging from all the empty space on the existing PCB's, these units are built sort of "generically" (several types of effects pedals from the same boards)...

unfortunately, this means, that the boards have not been designed for the most compact, rather the most economic to produce.

If you can copy the circuitry, you can certainly redesign a PCB that will be much more compact...but this isn't what you're looking to accomplish...

[Shoewreck]

Bypass circuit, buffers and some unused (in clean mode) components will degrade battery life and sound quality. Why do you want to install this particular board into your bass? A dedicated preamp would be much better.

[Vic Winters]

Just curious about the possibility of it. They go fairly cheap used and it could be a fun experiment. I was thinking of trying it in my OLP MM2, but there is no where near the amount of room needed to fit that in there, anywhere, and I'm not comfortable routing it for something I'm just want to test out.

[4Mal]

good thinking there ...