Modding an Ibanez TS7 Tone Lok Tubescreamer?...

[pauloman80]

The TS7 is one of my all-time favorite pedals ever.  LOVE this thing.  $40 for one of the most transparent and harmonically FANTASTIC overdrives I've ever heard in my life?  Yes, please!  My favorite Tubescreamer hands down.  My only niggle is the switch on it.  There's a brief drop in the signal when switching it.  I'd really like to swap out the actuator for an actual switch, but I really don't know if I want to put the pedal into a new enclosure, and I really like the lid-style switch (or whatever it's called). Plus I'm not exactly sure how I'd wire it in, haven't ever completely taken apart a TS7 before.  Thoughts/ideas/suggestions?

[stecykmi]

It probably has buffered switching, do some research on turning buffered switching into true-bypass (i imagine there's lot of information, boss pedals are all buffered switching and people love to mod them).

[pauloman80]

Good call.  Thanks!

[madbean]

It's probably a flip-flop thing. You would have to bypass that and take your input/output from the buffers. Then you will need to figure out how to do the switching. You'll have to install a a DPDT most likely.

It would probably be easier to de-bug the flip-flop. There's not much to it, and a few replaced parts could solve the problem.

There should be some info about the TS style switching on geofex and diysb. I think there might be a schem for the ts7 around, too.

[jkokura]

Yeah, I'm sure there's been some circuit comparisons between the TS-7 and 9. And the 5 for that matter. I had a TS-5 for about a week when I was a teenager, until someone told me it wasn't a real tubescreamer. I took it back and then found a guy who sold me one used. It was my second guitar pedal.

Turned out it was from 82 or 83, had an authentic 4558 in it. I bought it for 100 canadian. Used it for almost a decade. Then sold it for 150 american. That's one good deal yes, but man oh man do I miss that thing. I think it's probably my biggest gear sale regret. That one, or perhaps selling my Oktava MK012 small diaphragm condensor matched pair...

Jacob