ft switchable drive?

Has any one made the drive toggle switch foot switchable on their Lone Star??
Any reason why it cant be done?
Thanks.

One guy said he had a tech do it for him. I can't remember who. We asked him for the mod instructions, and we never got them. Are you up for the task?

plan-x said:

One guy said he had a tech do it for him. I can't remember who. We asked him for the mod instructions, and we never got them. Are you up for the task?

Click to expand...

I was looking for that post/thread but couldnt find it.
Im up for it. Or Im up for someone doing it for me.
A few songs I have to walk back to the amp and flick the switch, mid song, by hand. Just think it would be cool to have that function at my feet.

I wanted the same thing very badly. After weighing all the pros and cons, I added this to my pedalboard.

http://www.barberelectronics.com/LTD.html

To my ears, I can literally clone the "drive off" channel 2 tone. So I have:

1) channel 1 clean
2) channel 1 clean + LTD
3) channel 2 drive

I know its not literally the solution you asked for, but in my opinion, its a cheap, reversible way to get the same job done. HTH.

I had the mod done at the Mesa store in Hollywood. I never got the details about what he did - all I know is that now the 'slave' jack on the back is set up for a standard footswitch for the Drive control (you can call and ask him if you like). One less dirt pedal to worry about...

The Mink said:

I had the mod done at the Mesa store in Hollywood. I never got the details about what he did - all I know is that now the 'slave' jack on the back is set up for a standard footswitch for the Drive control (you can call and ask him if you like). One less dirt pedal to worry about...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.
Is it a worth while feature for you? No volume jump or unacceptable tone change or pops when you engage the drive?

Thanks

lostcause said:

The Mink said:

I had the mod done at the Mesa store in Hollywood. I never got the details about what he did - all I know is that now the 'slave' jack on the back is set up for a standard footswitch for the Drive control (you can call and ask him if you like). One less dirt pedal to worry about...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.
Is it a worth while feature for you? No volume jump or unacceptable tone change or pops when you engage the drive?

Thanks

Click to expand...

I wonder if the slave vol pot was involved in the mod.

It's a great mod. The only issue is that the reverb disappears for a few seconds when you engage the drive, just like when you switch channels. At this point, that's the only glaring flaw in this amp's design.

With the Reeder mod and the ability to set up both channels to sound the same, wouldn't you get the same effect by just setting up your drive channel to sound the way you want?
Now that I am thinking about it, I suppose the drive pedal mod would pretty much give a player 3 options as far as the amps output goes. For example, clean,dirty & drive? Is this what you folks are talking about?
Jim

av8or3 said:

With the Reeder mod and the ability to set up both channels to sound the same, wouldn't you get the same effect by just setting up your drive channel to sound the way you want?
Now that I am thinking about it, I suppose the drive pedal mod would pretty much give a player 3 options as far as the amps output goes. For example, clean,dirty & drive? Is this what you folks are talking about?
Jim

Click to expand...

Yes just like the Electra Dyne. I wondered why they didnt just make it ft switchable to start with and then they released the ED exactly what I wanted.
I got sick of having to walk back to the amp and flick the switch by hand mid song.
Id already talked to one tech who said it was not such a difficult mod but I was reluctant to try it.

I've been toying around with this idea and finally decided to jump in. Apparently the drive switch is a SPDT (single pole double throw) switch - but it just as easily could have been a SPST, since the 2nd pole isn't connected to anything. Essentially, in one position the wire going to the middle pole is grounded and in the other position it's open.
This makes it perfect (and easy) to adapt to a footswitch.
Leaving the wires on the drive switch in tact, run a wire from the middle pole of the switch to the tip lug of a 1/4" female jack. Run a wire from the ring lug of the 1/4" jack to ground (it doesn't have to go all the way back to the switch).
That's pretty much it.
Leave the switch in the DRIVE position to use the footswitch. When you're not using the footswitch, you can still flip the DRIVE switch to activate/deactivate DRIVE.
As for where to put a 1/4" female jack, just about everything in the back of the amp is hard wired to the board. Rather than messing with that, I just drilled a hole to the right of the fuse holder (between the fuse holder and the Loop Note box) and put a jack in there - and voila! Footswitchable drive!
I didn't notice any reverb dropping out, as mentioned above.
It takes a little patience, particularly around the switch. And make sure you remove your power tubes before taking the chassis out of the box. I was in-and-out in less than 30 minutes. Of course, YMMV.
This was on my LSS - I'll do the LSC tomorrow...

Oh yeah! Thanks scienceguy. This has been a long awaited mod. You will be immortalized on this forum.
I pronounce you a "Pig whisperer". Take a bow!

Yeah, great job! Totally worthwhile mod to get the most out of the amp. I haven't been in the amp in awhile but would it be possible to disconnect and use the reverb on/off jack on the bottom of the chassis for this drive mod?

Nicely done!

Yeehaa.....Thanks to The Mink and scienceguy. Foot switchable drive mod happening very soon

Steve73 said:

Yeah, great job! Totally worthwhile mod to get the most out of the amp. I haven't been in the amp in awhile but would it be possible to disconnect and use the reverb on/off jack on the bottom of the chassis for this drive mod?

Click to expand...

You can disconnect / modify any jack provided you can get to it. I was thinking about using that jack, but its position under the chassis made me think twice about when I'm setting up (especially in low light conditions). Dyslexia doesn't help much - I'd probably spend 1/2 an hour trying to find the jack on the wrong side of the amp...

Adding a jack preserves the original design while enhancing with new functions. Thus making the amp more valuable.

This is awesome. I'm going to try this when I get a chance, though it's probably not high on my priority list... but I'm sure I'll start using the feature like crazy when I do. Thanks for taking the plunge scienceguy!

What is the practical length limit of the footswitch cable used with this mod, if anyone knows? Will running the drive switch wire out to a footswitch maybe over a 15- or 20-foot cable introduce any noticable noise? Thanks for any additional info.

axman53 said:

What is the practical length limit of the footswitch cable used with this mod, if anyone knows? Will running the drive switch wire out to a footswitch maybe over a 15- or 20-foot cable introduce any noticable noise? Thanks for any additional info.

Click to expand...

You ought to be able to run a cable at least as long as the TRS cable for the Lonestar footswitch - all the drive switch does is connect a wire to ground (or disconnect it). I tried it with a 25' cable into a single footswitch and it works fine.