When I bought a Footswitch+ to add options to my BeatBuddypedal I found it had the same problem as the EHX Freezepedal I modded a while back (yikes I see that was nearly 8 years ago!) – that is to say that the footswitches were noisy latching-type switches where silent soft-press switches would be more desirable.
In fact in the more recent versions of the Footswitch+ I see that Singular Sound have replaced these switches with soft-press alternatives… but rather than buying a new Footswitch+ I decided to see if mine could be modded… and sure enough it can.
If you’re in the same situation here’s how to go about making the change for yourself if you want to – but please bear the disclaimer below in mind.
Disclaimer: This post reports my experience. If you’re having problems with your Singular Sound Footswitch+ then, in the first instance, you should contact the place you bought it from – I’m pretty sure that replacing the footswitches yourself voids your warranty – but, that said, since the more recent versions of this switch don’t have this problem, if yours does it’s likely no longer within warranty anyway!
I purchased the same SPDT* ‘Push-to-make’ switches I’d used on my Freeze pedal – you’ll need two for this mod.
Opening up the Footswitch+ I could see that though it looks complicated (due to the originally supplied footswitches) it’s actually very simple and my footswitches should work fine as replacements.
There are three wires (two red and one black) that connect the two switches to the output socket (at the top of the case).
So I unsoldered the wires…
and then, turning the pedal over briefly, I unbolted and removed the existing footswitches.
You can see from this picture that when I put the two switches side by side the old one (on the right) has a plastic ‘spacer’ washer to stop the footswitch standing too high above the top of the case
So I took the plastic ‘spacer’ from the old switches and added them to the new ones
With the old switches removed I also noticed that there was a small piece of metal left sticking out from the edge of the hole the footswitches came out of (you can just see it on the right hand side of the hole in this picture.
That seems to be there to make the switches fit the case only one way round – and that worked fine with my new switches when I bolted them in to the case.
Turning things over it was then a simple matter to wire the new switches up to the socket – I added a new piece of black wire linking the two switches together (you can see it running in a loop underneath the jack socket in the picture above)
I then put everything back together, plugged it into my BeatBuddy and followed the instructions from the BeatBuddy manual to make sure my BeatBuddy was correctly connected to my updated footswitch.
To configure the BeatBuddy to your footswitch, press the Drum Set and Tempo knobs down at the same time to enter the Settings menu.
Select ‘Foots-witch’ and then ‘Footswitch Detector’ and follow instructions.
The BeatBuddy will save your settings, so you only have to use the ‘Footswitch Detector’ again if you use a different footswitch.
From the BeatBuddy manual
