Danelectro FAB Metal mod !

 Hello there! Here is my new pedal project!
I recently bought a danelectro FAB metal pedal for 12euros (new). It was cheap but it there's a reason  for that: it's an SMD (surface mount) based circuit with tiny components, it's plastic and it sounds more like a high-gain fuzz... Not a "metal" pedal as expected...  So I experimented a bit with its controls and the best way to make it sound like an overdrive pedal(not "metal zone" or anything)  is to turn the tone control to zero(!) and the gain all the way up. Still, it doesn't have all the lead and gain to be a proper metal dist. pedal. That's why I modified it!
 The extra gain mod:
 The SMD boards are hard to work with as there are tiny components on them but we 're not gonna deal with them. It's the gain/dist. mini-size pot that controls the amount of lead and distortion. The original gain mini-pot is a 100kA one and works as a feedback resistor for an lm833 opamp. If we replace this pot with a 250k, 500k or even 1MΩ pot, we get more gain out of the circuit! I replaced the 100k pot with a 500k one and the pedal made no oscillation noise or anything, just a bit more hum which is normal. A 1M pot could add too much gain and noise so a 250k-500k one is the best choice here. You can find mini-pots at various online shops. "Alps" snap-in fixing pots are the best and cost about 1euro each.
 So how does it sound? 
 After the mod it sounds like a real metal pedal! It's got all the gain for metal riffs and lead for solos! It has many mids but you can control the eq via your amp to get those "scooped" metal sounds.
 To reduce the nasty fuzzy highs of the fab metal, you can put a high-cut capacitor on the output but this will affect the clean(bypass) sound as well. The simplest solution is to set the tone control to minimum(zero)!

Here is the modified unofficial schematic for the FAB metal which shows where the gain pot is placed in the circuit:

Here is another "rehousing" mod for the FAB chorus. The pcb structure and pots for the chorus and metal D-3 pedals are almost identical:
http://www.bassbottomfeeder.com/2011/07/rehousing-fab-chorus-pedal-phase-2.html