I’ve been building an extension pedalboard to put just envelope filters (and loosely related similar effects) on, for bass, so I can use it in the effects loop of the HX Stomp on the main pedalboard. That’ll give me the potential for feeding low end separately, etc and balancing things up for good tone, plus any kind of compression or limiting to help keep stuff like the Q-ton (the original 24v one, no mods) in check.

In the process, I’ve picked up 4 new filter pedals: a Digitech Bass Synth Wah (always wanted one of those, great value from BassChat), a Behringer B-tron III (which makes some great classic sounds), a custom diode folding wave filter with distortion which sounds very like the prunes and custard pedal but which was incredibly reasonable on BassChat – the fella made a great product, populated PCB, its tiny. Neat.

And the fourth one is a bit boutique – a Drolo Kiwami (manual available at https://drolofx.com/manual/Kiwami_manual.pdf), released early in 2025 and an expensive beast.

It’s a digital filter pedal, and it looks like the control panel for a 60s nuclear power station or something. More knobs than the House of Lords.

But it makes the maddest noises – some of them deliciously antisocial. Check it out:

Drolo’s Youtube promo vid

The poor thing had taken a very heavy knock on the top row of knobs, and the gain knob got bent. This was offered for repair on BassChat at an amazing value price. Examining pics I got from DM, I thought it looked like the case was undamaged, and I guessed the internals should be ok, with maybe a potentiometer or two needing replacement. Here’s the pics, you can see how the gain knob had been impacted:

Gain knob is top row, second from the right.
This shows the damage really accurately.

So, I settled up and when it arrived, I set to and immediately started dismantling. With hindsight, I should have tested it to see what definitely didn’t work, but I just dived in… the bend in the pot was pretty obvious, but the other three seemed ok: I found all the pots were from a specific supplier, Tayda, and it’d be international shipping for quite a bit of cash. Minimum order applied, too. So I padded the order with a great multifunctional set of pliers – very handy. They shipped from the far east in 4 days! I may even use them again. I ordered enough pots to cover replacement of all 4 of the top row, just in case.

I learned a lot about soldering fixing this thing, particularly how to desolder: I’ve improved a lot here. Getting the pot out was tricky. Found a great video and I’ve ordered some flux to improve the process – check this video: https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU?si=uh5DmYJXCwVtcYqZ

First thing I discovered was that the internals had 2 boards, the input-output on the back being soldered to the main board via 6 pieces of flexible (but non-reusable) bare wire: a little awkward to disconnect, but essential as the main board couldn’t be removed without removing the IO board, which had to be desoldered to do so.

With that in mind, once I’d replaced the A100K log pot for Gain (which went really smoothly!), and tested the resistance with a multimeter to check it looked good (the values appeared identical to another mounted A100K pot), I decided I’d rewire the connections between the boards so I could take the pedal apart without separating the boards (which turned out to be a great idea, as when I was reassembling it, I got a stop washer on the LFO selector switch in the wrong place and had to take it all apart again hehe)

Here’s how it looked after I completed things:

The red wires on the top are my additions.

Net result? Pedal works perfectly. I also tested the other three pots with the multimeter to make sure they weren’t damaged. Just to verify my diagnosis, I dismantled the bent gain pot and found that yep, the internals of the pot had bent, so the contact didn’t stay on the track all the way around. The case was solid: no bends, even the paint is undamaged. The pictures I got from the seller were ideal to confirm that.

All in all, I spent maybe £100 on this pedal, and it makes some SERIOUSLY mad noises! A ring modulator! A flanger! And more tweaking than an underpass methhead!