Joyo Ultimate Octave: how to make it useable?

[Chrisfromiowa]

I have a Voodoo Octave I plan on modding. While I'm working on it I was wondering if it would be possible to modify the tone control to use an expression pedal with it? It gives a nice swooshy sound when you turn it back and forth.

Not sure if you'd seen this, but http://www.geofex.com/ has a nice segment about adding expression pedal jacks etc...

[jdom84]

Well my sad story is.. I actually thought it sounded ok but thought maybe it would sound better after the mod. After frustrating time playing around I now have a broken pedal.

I reversed the polarity and it seemed to make no difference at all except the sound would cut out when pressing the octave button. So I thought I would put them back the right way. One or two botch jobs later and now it works in bypass and does nothing when activated into fuzz mode. So I just killed my pedal.

Sad really considering I thought it sounded fine already. It looked the same as the photos people posted of the insides, as in the "wrong" polarity supposedly. But as I say reversing did nothing if anything it made it worse. Is it possible I have the right polarity? My PCB is dated 2010!!! So nearly 10 years old! Crazy..

Well now I have two broken fuzz pedals from my botched work, maybe I should give up... I would like to get these working. I guess I need to work on my soldering skills.

Regards,
Dom.

[alexradium]

yes,Joyo pedals are pretty good copies of originals,but not modder friendly,you need skills and good desoldering tools,otherwise its easy to damage traces and holes,they are very thin and small.

[jdom84]

Hi thanks yeah I guess so. Anyway I managed to get this working again back to how it was with the original polarity. I had burned the PCB board and the caps were not contacting the pcb metal wiring. I just scraped the holes to make it stick and added loads of solder! Filled the holes and got it working again. Maybe one day I will try once I have mastered my skills and bought some better equipment.

I wondered has anyone come up with a solution for the high pitched whining sound I am experiencing whenever the pedal is engaged? Constant. I am on DC psu havent tried with batteries yet but apparently it gets rid of the noise. Any way to fix this with some simple soldering? Considering I have all my kit out and its dismantled still (but works! )

Thanks.
Dom.

[alexradium]

if there is whistle your supply is not really good,anyway,try inserting a 100 to 470 ohm resistor between the positive voltage in input and the main filter capacitor,that should cure most of the problems.

[jdom84]

if there is whistle your supply is not really good,anyway,try inserting a 100 to 470 ohm resistor between the positive voltage in input and the main filter capacitor,that should cure most of the problems.

Hi thank you. But I do not have this issue with any other pedals? The power supply is decent quality from amazon with good reviews. I doubt it is the PSU.
I will try the capacitor idea, filter cap? Is that the first one the power meets as it comes in?

Thanks so much for helping me.