Is it right to mod an vintage pedal?

[Pushtone]

A friend wants his vintage MXR phaser modified with true bypass, an LED, and a power jack.
He claims it is older than a script version. I don't know much about vintage anything.
He calls it a "brown circuit board version", whatever that is.

I ask because once I got the beat-down from my guitar tech for having the tuners
replaced on my 58' Gretch. He said "its no longer vintage".

So, is it right to mod vintage pedals?
Will it destroy it's value?

[Tamir]

Yes it would, sometimes more sometimes less, if you are thinking about selling, think deeply about it because it can loose some of it's value,  how much -  it depends on the product.
If your friend/you just want it to you self and want to get it better as you like, do it! 

[dosmun]

Build a bypass box instead. 

[Mark Hammer]

There are two facets to this: resale and the collectors market, and archival/historical necessity.

Some purchasers are obsessive about details, and one need look no further for proof than those places that advertise in Vintage Guitar, selling 1958 Telecaster "top hat" switch knobs for $100 or something, or 1955 Strat jack plates for $200 (would YOU be able to identify one?).  The craziness over insignificant cosmetic detail is nothing short of mind-boggling, but in that market attention to cosmetic detail on a guitar in the $10,000+ range can sometimes have significant impact on the price, no matter how much it makes George Gruhn shake his head in disbelief.

Of course, even though cosmetic detail can have an impact on market value, the difference between what a cosmetically correct vs incorrect '59 burst goes for, compared to what a cosmetically correct vs incorrect script P90 goes for is several orders of magnitude apart.  Unless you do tons of business, and need to be known as someone who deals in cosmetically accurate inventory, or unless the difference between being able to sell a pedal for $90 vs $180 means the difference between your kids eating and not eating this week, the impact of changes will not be huge.  Yeah it may change the resale value by 50% but you have to ask yourself "50% of what?".

The other angle is the archival/historical aspect.  It is important for any culture, and that includes pop culture and its allied technologies, to retain accurate artifacts from its development.  We NEED to know what 1935 typewriters looked like, and what 1908 cars looked like.  We also need to know how guitars were made in 1947 and what Japanese and Pinoy copies of American guitars looked like in 1968.  And I think similarly, we need to know about amps and pedals from different eras.  It is a kind of social responsibility to maintain things as they were so we can know what came before us to help guide us into the future.  (Believe it or not, I got that directly/personally from Marshall McLuhan when I was 15.  One of those Forrest Gump sort of coincidences that changed my life.)

HOWEVER.....how many pedals were made, compared to guitars?  Is *your* script P90 the only one of its type, and are there other sources of information and pictures and samples of script P90s to be found elsewhere?  I ask this because I don't think anyone considers it their social responsibility to hang onto cans of beans from 1983, and 1994, and 2001, because there are plenty of cans of beans to be found everywhere.  The social responsibility part depends on how rare something is, and how much *your* maintenance of those artifacts will affect our collective opportunity to know what they were like when the future finally gets here.

I've got an old E-H Dr. Q, and Y-Triggered Filter.  Modded them both...happily.  Why?  Because there are plenty out there, we have tons of documentation on them, and I wasn't planning on selling them, so I didn't really care what the resale/market value was.  If you're in the same boat.  Go for it.  Keep in mind that as long as the mod is nondestructive and reversible, there is no reason why you couldn't restore them should push come to shove and you want to sell.  If someone is willing to pay more for a pedal with a SPDT stompswitch in it, then fine, keep the switch for safekeeping and stick in a DPDT while YOU are using it.

[aron]

So, is it right to mod vintage pedals?
Will it destroy it's value?

He owns it, he can do whatever he wants with it. He may regret it later, but it's his pedal to do what he wants.
Yes, it destroys value.

[jonathan perez]

if hes sure he'll sell it later, then of course, dont modify it...although i dont see why truebypassing it should remotely be a problem.

[calpolyengineer]

Build a bypass box instead. 

[captntasty]

If it truly is something unique - other than a run of the mill script MXR - it probably should be left unmolested...  perhaps take a look at  the circuit, compare it to other 90's and clone it with all the modern amenities if it is something with character that is disappearing.
It may be a just a few component differences that can be applied to a more modern 90...

[Gilles C]

A friend of mine has a vintage natural wood Les Paul and a few vintage effects. He got them from his father who was a guitar player in his earlier years.

Some time ago, he had an artist add some inlay of what he smokes in the wood of his LP. He also cut the wires of the 9V adaptors in some of his Pedals to connect them directly to a supply of his.

Well, one day, he realised what he did and asked me to correct his mistakes. So I reinstalled some 9V adaptors in his butchered pedals, and made him a power supply with a set of wires with 9V adaptors to supply the 9V to his pedals. That way, he was able to use batteries or the special power supply I  built him. (But I could do nothing for the Les Paul...  )

That's what you could do for him instead of adding a power jack.

As suggested, build him a true bypass box to go with that. You could even add the special wire for the 9V and a power LED to that box. No need to modify anything.

Gilles

[Meanderthal]

 Better yet- just build a phase90 clone to USE and put the old one in a museum. Maybe 50 years from now the 'vintage' MXR might be worth more $ than a "boutique" copy but for now they just don't compare with a les paul.  If you use a bypass box and battery adaptor you are still subjecting it to the wear and tear of actually being used, which might lead to chipped paint, etc., plus when the time comes to replace the electrolytics(probably long past due) you no longer have a strictly stock all origional anymore. All depends on if you want something to use or something to collect... and if you really want to use it, then modding is the way to go.

Just my opinion... an old fart like me has seen hundreds of those old MXR pedals... cost too much then, not worth much more now(in today's shrunken dollars) than when they were new! Yet people won't hesitate to butcher an old EH pedal for some reason, and they were sort of el-cheapos in their time, but fetch ridiculous prices now.

[tcobretti]

Things are only collectible when they are unaltered.  If you refinish a torn up 58 Les Paul you are lessening the value of the guitar.  If you sand and paint a piece of antique furniture you greatly lessen the value.  If you mod a vintage pedal you are lessening its value.  The big thing to remember about all of the above is that they cannot be undone.  Yes, the pedal parts can be put back the way they were, but a collector would look inside and see the evidence of the mods.

I would not do it.  Sell it and buy a new one to mod or the parts to build one.  Generalguitargadgets sells a pcb for the Phase 100 ($18) which is the Phase 45s big brother.  Anybody can populate a pcb, even if it has tons of components on it.

[Meanderthal]

 From my perspective ALL pedals will be vintage some day... it's all relative to how much you're willing to spend for just the right sound. If you mod a new DS1 now what happens when your grandchildren inherit it? Kinda like a time travel paradox. But it can become a much more usable pedal!
That's a lot different than carving pot leaves into Les Pauls!

[tcobretti]

That's a lot different than carving pot leaves into Les Pauls!

As tragic as this is, it kinda makes me laugh.

[mjones99]

I say carve pot leaves into whatever you can, power to the people! Freak the normals man 

[Sir H C]

Easy enough to get a budd box of the same size and put the bits in that with the TB, LED, and 9V jack.  Then you can put the case for this one away until he may want to sell it in the future, or heck, sell the empty box to someone with a vintage one that is thrashed.  So now he has what he wants and some cash too.

[petemoore]

  As a museum piece, a phase 90 seems like good fodder for display, a vintage one might not even show guts in a museum anyway.
  If there's 'funny foam' that turns into decroded mess [Like in Dist+'s], and it fails to do it's job, I'd do a common fix, then tell the proprietor to add a note like: "The pad securing the board on these effects was known to fail, this unit has a common fix for securing the board".
  They're not that expensive right now, I would just build the other one anyway. 

[Gilles C]

I say carve pot leaves into whatever you can, power to the people! Freak the normals man 

I don't mind the pot leaves. It could have been a frog, it would have been the same.

It's just that he had a real vintage worth many thousands. I'm not sure how it affected the price.

Can such a modification affect the price a lot, even if it looks good?

My feeling is that unless it is done by a well known artist, it can affect the price it's worth. Unless of course someone decides to buy it because of that detail... 

It's the same with guitar effects I suppose. A pedal modified by a big name could be worth more because of that, even if it is a vintage. But I wouldn't say the same for a pedal modified by me, for example. 

Gilles

[tiges_ tendres]

I dont like to mod anything I buy.  I keep the boxes, the manuals, everything.

I dont have a great job and I know one day my kids are going to need money. consider it a college fund that I can have fun with for twenty years first!

Modding is a tough call for me.  I dont have the money to be a serious collector, but when I do buy, I look for signs of mods and it effects how much i want to pay.   I can still appreciate things being more functional and I love to have a tinker myself!

I guess a better way to put it is like this.  Go and read every review on harmony central.  I see so many reviews where people change out pick-ups because they dont do what they want.  That's fine, I appreciate people taking the initiative to make something more functional.  however I do draw the line when people want to "remove the unicorns horn". 

I'm almost positive that some clown has installed EMG's in a rare vintage gretsch.  and routed the body. *shudder* or modded a plexi to sound like a death metal wet dream. 

So my opinion here would be that you have many options in regards to doing something non value destructing, and still having a satisfactory phase.

Build a new one
build a True Bypass loop
buy a new one and modify it

(a small part of me that hears about why people dont like to mod vinatge stuff, thinks that we are really just buying into a different aspect of "Mojo". An aspect of mojo that isnt tied up in high spec wiring and tight tolerances , but the aspect of "isn't old stuff cool!"  new stuff HAS to be electronically perfect, but the old stuff has to be original, including all electronic imperfections.  weird huh!) 

[reverberation66]

    ah, man, hack into that pedal and pimp it out.  collector value is silly to me, I mean if people want to pay huge amounts of money for mass produced stuff that you can make for 20 bucks then that's their business.  but I have no problem with modding my stuff, I'm not worried about it being in a museum some day or whatever, ultimately all of this stuff is going to be dust anyway.  Nothing lasts forever and I think there's plenty of pedals out there, new, old, whatever.  This stuff was meant to be used, and if something comes my way I'll use it, mod it, personalize it or whatever suits me at the time.  Let the collectors bug out about it not being all original or whatever, that's their hang-up.

[tcobretti]

    ah, man, hack into that pedal and pimp it out.  collector value is silly to me, I mean if people want to pay huge amounts of money for mass produced stuff that you can make for 20 bucks then that's their business. 

Actually, it is your business if you're the one selling it for huge amounts of money.