We’ve been posting about these old Digitech PDS series pedals for years both as restoration projects and overhaul mods to make the pedal function better than new. I think we have a good sampling of the delay pedals shown above – all fully restored with various modifications performed depending on what we were experimenting with at the time.

Since these pedals are now approaching 30+ years old we like to do the basic maintenance of cleaning, replacing hardware, install a standard “Boss style” 2.1mm DC jack, new mechanical foot switches, upgrade aging components or just low quality op-amps. The goal is the improve the analog section of the pedal while keeping the original digital circuitry all original when possible. We want the pedal to be reliable but we’re not trying to reinvent the sound. The biggest sonic change that we recommend would be installing a high-cut knob to roll off the treble and give a much more ambient sounding delay.

Other nice-to-have options include replacing the LEDs with something a bit brighter or to just match the color of the pedal. For the PDS 20/20 above we installed a foot switch to bypass the modulation effect making it even more versatile. We’ve also experimented with adding modulation to the PDS 1002 but at the end of the day decided to keep it simple.

Experimental mods listed above are not necessarily available to be ordered. Please check out our modifications page for what’s currently available on the PDS series pedals.