Mods and customization

Démontage, Mods


The genius of craftsmanship does not depend on its attachment to the past or on the handmade… It is specified by personalized productions thanks to the direct contact with the customer, and the possibility of improve the product in the course of its realization. Its limitations are of course in technological and budgetary limits, but even more so in those of our desires!

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Antique stompboxes restarting

Classic or custom, still actual or  forgotten, old pedals often have much personality. They deserve to be back to light, even if the fashion snobs them, or if we find in them  nowadays a certain number of defects or vulgarities! …

Do not leave your beautiful oldies at the bottom of a drawer:
We can restore them, correct their original defects, or adapt their color to today’s mood, and especially to your playing!


My propositions :

• Respectfully restart a collector pedal …
• Give a Fuzz the real NOS transistors it deserves – or déclares.
• Adapt good, slightly old-fashioned gear to your contemporary projects.

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Improvement of ordinary material

GuitarPoppa, mods, modifications, customisations, performances, ergonomie, usages spéciaux

Various modifications on a chinese stompbox

Replacing failed circuits in a headphone amp rack.
We take the opportunity to make more solid and reliable circuits …


Some cheap materials are enough well realized to be easyily modified : Most pedals manufactured before about 2005, and currently some Chinese pedals well made in traditional components.
Yes ! There are some !

In general, it is sufficient to recalculate the values of components which have been defined in a hurry or by routine.
Often, it is also necessary to put back devices that the manufacturer had leaved out by negligence or stinginess.

Interest of the approach

We can make cheap stuff not only credible and playable, but pleasing.
This makes it possible to obtain quality gear inexpensively, and adapted to the musician’s playing.

My propositions :

• Replacement of unsuitable or undersized components.
• Better settings, installation of option switches.
• Adaptation of guitar pedals to other electrified instruments: harmonica, bass …

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Special design and construction

Productions following special ordering are possible, and represent the closest link between the craftsman and his customer . It is just necessary that the client knows how to explain what he wants, and that the craftsman is able to understand and respond to these demands. I hope I will !

Typical procedure for a “custom” ordering

• You explain what you want – the most accuratly you can…
• We analyze existing products to get benchmarks…
• We constitute a list of specifications to frame my research…
• I present a project with its price, that you accept or refuse.


Benefit

These researches and achievements are worth for me and their price for you if no existing product can replace them advantageously. With my experience and the simplicity of analog techniques, some specific projects can be easy to design and do not cost more than an ordinary pedal…
Other projects can be heavier, but indispensable… However, they can be cleverly developed with a better price-quality ratio than if using high-end or expensively over-famed equipment

Light examples

• Specific adapters and preamps, autonomous or to be included in existing devices.
• Connection and routing boxes, passive or active.
• Special power supplies.

Heavier examples

• Advanced customization of an existing device.
• Fusion of several pedals in one housing.
• Contemporary redesign of an obsolete material.
• Design & manufacture of a specific equipment.

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Conditions and limits of intervention

What determines mainly the price of an intervention?

One should note that in small electronics, the price depends relatively few from components.
Most are industrial components of very low price. Active components, especially vintage ones are a bit more expansive. The most pricey are electromecanical or heavy componants like potentiometers or transformers and enclosure…
The final cost price comes mainly from working time : tests, dismantling, cleaning, engineering, mechanical and electronic manufacture, reassembly, final test …

Example :

I can change the diodes or the tone of an overdriver for a very low price, but it will be a little more if I have to desolder and replace a potentiometer, and even more if I have to change or transform the housing to install an additional mounting.
If you want a fridge or a Game Boy inside the pedal, please allow some delay and budget…

Something good to know…

• As a micro-company (a special status in France), Guitar Poppa is exempt from VAT, which reduces its prices.
• Fabrications and interventions are subject to european legal guarantees, parts and labor.

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Cases of impossibility

Some interventions are impossible,
destructive or without benefit…

I will not proceed into the following cases:

• Modifications weaken the material integrity of the product.
• Modifications affect safe operation.
• The product uses a technology that I am unable to modify.
In particular, it is built by robots with surface micro-components that can’t be desoldered or replaced.
• Intervention requires a very long working time that the client cannot or will not understand


Don’t wait anymore, contact me !

In any case, it is the contact between musicians, and the pleasure of design that motivate the Guitar Poppa project!

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Links

On this website

Back to Home page

Go back to “My products” page

See “Terms and Conditions”

Elsewhere

Go and see Guitar Poppa’s FaceBook page

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