I'm not a big fan of digital modelling amps, they all lack of dynamics, but when you need something small and cheap nothing beats my Pocket POD, specially because I got it used for 50$ :) It's my main "amp" for rehearsals, clinics, teaching and whenever I cannot bring with me my Mark IV. The simulations are not bad for the money but it doesn't come with a footswitch, something that you definitely need to play live...that's why I have decided to build one!

This mod is quite easy, the four arrows and buttons used to operate the Pocket pod, are momentary switch-to-ground normally open, so all you have to do is re-wire them to a bunch of footswitches of the same kind and put them in a box.

You will need:

2 to 6 momentary footswitches, normally open

1 project box

1 PS/2 Mouse cable (or something with more wires if you wanna control all the buttons)

1 Panel mount PS/2 female connector (or something with more pins if you wanna control all the buttons)

 

These five pins from left to right corresponds to:

Down- 1
Left- 2
Right- 3
Up- 4
Ground- 5

 

 

If you wanna activate the up arrow for example, you need to connect 3 and 5 together; for my footswitch I have re-wired to a PS/2 female connector only the up and down arrow, used to navigate through patches.

The other two buttons are "Save" and "Tap /Tuner", these are a bit more tricky to solder, but you don't need to re-wire the ground because you can use the one from the arrow; I have found the save function useless for me so I re-wired to the PS/2 connector only the tap tempo.

 

 

The PS/2 cable uses a standard color code, looking from the top side of the female connector or from the pins side of the male connect, and proceeding counter-clockwise:

pin 2 is BLUE

pin 4 is ORANGE

pin 5 is GREEN

pin 6 is WHITE

I have used Ground-BLU, Up-RED, Down-GREEN and Tap/Tuner-WHITE, but any other order will work, as long as you solder them correctly to the footswiches.

 

 

Inside the project box I've soldered one lug of all three footswitches to ground-BLUE, and all the others to Up-ORANGE Down-GREEN and Tap/Tuner-WHITE respectively

 

 

This is how mine looks when finished and painted...Have Fun!