Highway 89 mod

[Chico]

I have an issue with my HW89 build sounding "thin" or "bright" in certain pedal/amp combos.  For example, the HW89 into my Fender Twin sounds fantastic,  HW89 into my Reverend sounds thin.  As noted in previous threads, this is likely to do with the tone section/preamp design of the various amps interacting with the pedal.

IMHO, one good bang for the buck mod with this pedal comes in playing with C6, which has a stock value of 0.01uf.  I had good luck with values between 0.022uf and 0.047uf, and eventually settled on 0.047uf.  Of course, your milage may vary.  I also increased C4, but its effects were subtle if at all noticable.

By tweaking C6, I was able to bring the body back into my tone when using the pedal with my Reverend.  Suprisingly, when I switched back over to my Twin, I expected the pedal to sound muddy or bass heavy.  To my delight, the low end was just as tight and focused on the Twin as it was with the stock C6 value.

While I would love to understand the theory as to why the Reverend is so sensitive to changing values in the HW89 tonestack while the Twin is pretty indifferent to the same variations, I can report that now the HW89 sounds fantastic on every amp I own.

[Doug H]

Wow! That's great!!!

Thanks for doing the tweaking! I will try that myself. I'm having the same problem with the hwy89 in one of my amps and would love to get it sounding good in all of them.

Thanks for putting in the work and sharing the results.

Doug

[Paul Marossy]

You could put a rotary switch on your pedal and maybe switch between 3 different cap values. That would make it work with any amp.  

On that Reverend amp, is the tone control pre or post preamp? That could be part of the difference.

[Chico]

Paul:

I do not know whether the Reverend tone is pre or post preamp.  Are there any cheap and dirty ways to find out?

I thought about your idea of adding a switch, and was planning on doing so.  However, in my particular instance, I found that changing C6 had little sonic impact on my Twin.  As such, for me, a simple replacement was all the doctor ordered.  However, a switch would be a nice way to add more dramatic versatility to the tone stack.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Paul Marossy]

No problem, Chico.

Another thing you could do is use a footswitch to switch between two different caps for when you want some extra bite. I'm not sure if popping noises would be an issue, but it's an idea anyhow.

I think I'll put this mod on mine since it's not boxed yet...