Ibanez TM5 mods

by **Iommic Pope** » Thu Mar 02, 2017 8:59 pm

Got a Thrashmaster in a trade from HBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMBBOIY!

...and I love it.
Mostly.

The gain and low end are really nice, but that tone control can eat a bag of dead goat dicks.
Basically, I cannot find a sweet spot that sounds neither woolly blanket muffled, or weak and tinny.
Is there a way to split this into like a 3 band EQ, or am I stuck with just trying to minimize the shitness?

Schematic here: http://www.dirk-hendrik.com/ibanez_thrashmetal.pdf
Decent thread here: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=86973.0

Basically, I'd like to keep the general character of the dirt but make the EQ play nicer.
Thanks dudes!

by **drolo** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 9:05 am

If you mean to rehouse it and replace the tone control with a 3 band EQ, you would need to remove that tone knob, the 2.4k resistor and 3n3 cap after it too. Then insert another EQ in there.

But perhaps you can just try to tailor the existing sound more to your liking and just keep the tone knob as is for minor adjustments. There are a few places you could change a value to affect the tone.

You could for example replace that 3n3 cap with a lower value so that it does not cut as much treble when you roll the tone down.
You could increase the value of the 100p cap in the feedback loop of the second opamp to reduce some treble right after the diodes clipping.

Give it a try :-)

by **Iommic Pope** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 9:12 am

Thanks, mate!
Yeah, I don't think replacing the whole eq is necessarily what I'm chasing.
I think those values were discussed in the above thread so I might give that a burl.
And yeah, I think removing the buffers to go TB, pots, jacks and rehousing is gonna be the go.