Notes on Modding Potentiometers

So I’d been thinking about this for awhile. After last year in Cleveland I came away from three days of listening to my synth scream and squawk and realized I never needed to hear that many high pitches ever again. There would appear to be a tendency that some people have to turn everything to the highest most grating point and walk away chuckling. It’s something that I’m sure I’d do, if it weren’t for the fact that I still am standing next to the synthesizer for another eight hours.

So with that in mind, I wanted to double check some assumptions I’ve always had about modifying a potentiometer range so that it can be something more tolerable sonically both for myself and other people in the room. This mod takes a resistor and passes it across pins one and two of pot, thus limiting the depth the pot can go. This is because I’m chopping the audio into rhythmic sections later in the process and this way the oscillator doesn’t dip too deeply into pulses (sticking closer to actual tones). The second resistor comes in before the second pin of the pot connects back into the oscillator circuit. This resistor limits the high end of the spectrum and allows for the pitch to still swing high while not going so high as to make your ears bleed. Basically, a very good thing.