Freezing pedals?

[Sunset Shalom]

Alright I know this is random, anyways I was talking with s cool older musician lady on YouTube awhile back. She mentioned how one time she left a phaser out int he cold on accident, then went to use it and plugged it in before realizing it was literally frozen!

But she tried it out anyways and said it made some very strange and unique sounds she has never heard before. Probably from malfunctioning partly but I thought it was interesting.

Has anyone ever experienced something similar? I wish I had a cheap modulation pedal I could freeze to test this.

 

[Alien8]

A phaser would be an interesting "frozen" pedal, but in general electronics reach an equilibrium state with respect to temperature.

When components are outside of their working ranges they behave differently. Sometimes this can be to the detriment of the circuit, sometimes just makes thing sound off, other times not much changes.

Condensation could also be a concern, causing shorts. Or on LDRs (like in old phasers) changes the optical path slightly, meaning the sound may swing differently.

Fun for an experiment, however like my bass, I generally let my gear climatize before powering on, so it works this time and the next.

 

[Sunset Shalom]

Yeah I would never dream of trying this on a remotely nice pedal, just some cheap stuff for a fun experiment.

Condensation is a good point, I imagine as long as you kept it frozen or let it thaw out in a dehydrator or something it should be fine but who knows.

 

[fly agaric]

I have an old Boss phase shifter that stopped working years ago. I just came across it the other day.

Going to toss it in the freezer. Chances are it will stay broken. But who knows?

 

[Sunset Shalom]

I have an old Boss phase shifter that stopped working years ago. I just came across it the other day.

Going to toss it in the freezer. Chances are it will stay broken. But who knows?

Have you ever opened it up? I would be surprised if freezing a pedal fixed whatever the issue is but who knows.

 

[fly agaric]

I should open it up and see if there is something obviously wrong with it first. If I can fix and freeze it, I think that would be even better.

Freezing it almost certainly won't fix it.

I'm not very savvy about electronics, tbh. I did once successfully solder my cheap Stratocaster back in the day. My basses have never required my meddling, thank godness.

 

[DDXdesign]

Well, at least out of the freezer you can write off any malfunction as just cold solder joints.













Thank you I'll be here all week. I'm sorry.

 

[ukedealer]

Slightly OT but a guitarist I used to play with used to use an old vox wah pedal that had a dodgy pot, at a certain position it emitted an awesome white noise type effect.
It wasn't frozen but it was pretty cool