hi detonator,
i in fact did the first mod i think peter purpose brought up, as well, including the 2 snip disabling the gate.
although the opamp change was a huge improvement, disabling the gates did strange things to the controls and meters, so i cannot recommend disabling the gates if you already mocked up the psu and opamps like the buttachunk mod suggests.
in fact i re-enabled the gates and although before the mod they are nearly unusable and made cruel noises, they made totally sense afterwards and were fully usable. you shouldnt disable this feature but get yourself this additional functionality.
do you add balancing stages to the unit if you already want to use a larger case? i would recommend using that receivers and drivers, this can easily be done off-board, even on breadboard.
for simplicity, i would even keep the old frontpanel and just try to mechanically fit another case to it. i somehow like the arrangement of the controls and meters and the smooth haptics. if you dont wanna keep the alesis logo and model label, you can remove it with a bit of alcohol and a sharp razor blade, carefully. took just a few minutes....
stepped controls are a bit more complicated, you would have to mount them off-board and also off-board the led meters.
but there is a singapore seller, if i remember it right, who is selling cheap rotary switches similar to the ones, that uraltone sells, worldwide....he is also selling some readily soldered stepped pot replacements at a price that does not justify soldering them at home...but i did not buy from him now, so i cannot really recommend on this...
best regards,
martin
