News:

Forum may be experiencing issues.

Main Menu
Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Topics - slowpogo

#1
I built the CurrentLover 2023 in the MN3007/18V configuration. It worked right away and sounds like a flanger should.

I followed the setup instructions exactly. However, through the entire range of the Clock trimmer, there are always clock chirps as it peaks. There is no setting that eliminates them, even all the way up.

Possibly related: the build doc lists a 10k trimmer for Clock in the tables, but the board graphic on page 3 shows 20k. I'm currently using 10k

Any initial advice? Do I need to adjust some values somewhere (ie a 20k trimmer)?
#2
General Questions / Aquaboy vs Man O War
May 11, 2021, 03:34:10 PM
I've built the Man O War DX and the Total Recall delays and love them both.

I was interested in building the Aquaboy Deluxe too but at first glance the PCB looks extremely similar to the Man O War. How are they different? They seem to have the same feature set so I assume it comes down to a slightly different voicing.

Can anyone compare and contrast these two delays and if I have one do you really think the other is worth building?
#3
Build Reports / Man O War DX - Tayda printed build
April 05, 2021, 09:05:13 AM
I had this enclosure printed and drilled by Tayda (I did the graphics myself). I image-traced a drawing I found of a man o' war jellyfish, and used the Nintendo font in italics for the main text. Turned out exactly as it looked in Illustrator, including the colors. In comparison to Pedal Parts Plus, who I used a few years ago when they still did one-offs, the printing quality and fidelity is WAY better. For all I know PPP has upgraded their printer since then but in any case I consider Tayda a fantastic option. Also, the enclosure cost about $17 TOTAL which is an absolute steal.

The pedal is a real banger. It pays to take a lot of time to calibrate it because the trims are so interactive with each other. I actually found that different compander chips -- Philips, Sigma, CoolAudio -- DO sound a little different, more than you might expect. I was able to eventually dial in an ideal analog delay sound and I like it even better than madbean's Total Recall.

#4
Everything else about the pedal seems to work great, voltages look normal etc. But as the title says, I only hear modulation when the Depth knob is maxed. I'm using a 9203 photocell from Small Bear. I've tried pairing a bunch of different LEDs with it and even swapped in a VTL5C3 - the only thing that varied between them was the depth of the modulation (at max)...with brighter LEDs the mod is BIG when it's there, as you'd expect. But turn the knob below maximum, even a little bit, and there's zero modulation.

I'm using a 50kB pot for Depth as listed in the parts list. However the schematic shows 100kB, so not sure which is correct. Is that the issue? any other ideas?
#5
I built Dead End FX's E. Nigma, which is a Lovetone Flanger clone. The biasing instructions weren't working for me but after a lot of playing around, I'm finally getting flange sounds.

Problem is, even with the rate knob turned all the way down, it's modulating at about 6Hz. That's as slow as it goes, for both the flanger and tremolo sections. I'm unable to get a traditional slow sweep flanger sound, although this pedal is capable of that, based on youtube videos.  A secondary issue is that I only get strong flanging in the noisiest bias range of the BBD.

Any initial suggestions? What might cause the rate to be too fast? Here is a link to the build document:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kqEvRodTRtgS7zFl3puy6qp6RXRRoSle
#6
I built this flanger and calibrated it according to instructions, with assistance from some helpful youtube walkthroughs. 

It sounds good but at slower speeds there is a noise every time the flanger goes "through the null," a kind of soft crackly white noise which dissipates.  It's not super loud; busy playing will cover it up, but it's very noticeable with quieter chords or just less busy playing.  Obviously it kind of ruins the effect, when the pedal is sounding awesome and clean and then this fizzy noise pops up. To be clear, this is not just the flanger effect itself, I'm familiar with flangers and this is extraneous noise.

What might be causing this?  Everything is properly calibrated, including the range/manual which were quite tricky to get right...I played around with the bias, volume, enhance pots a little but that didn't help. 
#7
I built the Flintlock and started to calibrate it, and found out that my fancy Klein multimeter only measures up to 50kHz.  So I couldn't properly calibrate the C_Max or C_Range right away.  Even so, I played with the other trim pots like volume, enhance level, etc as best I could.  I loved how the pedal sounded this way, a nice vivid flange sound.  I was getting a pretty spot on "Lightning Crashes" type tone out of it.

Anyway I ordered a cheapo multimeter that could handle the measurement, and then proceeded to calibrate everything (with the help of moosapotamus's videos).  I did everything the proper way, using audio software to get the levels right, etc.  I got Range knob to meet the 69.6kHz/2.6MHz specs. 

AND.....I don't like how the pedal sounds nearly as much.  When I did the initial measurements, the Range was something like 45khz/4Mhz, way off.  But it sounded better to my ears.  Is there anything wrong with running it this way, will it harm the ICs?  It may not be accurate to the original A/DA specs, but I've never played an original anyway and I like a bit more high end in my flanger.
#8
General Questions / Most challenging pedal builds
July 23, 2019, 07:50:00 PM
I recently built madbean's Total Recall, and then Lectric FX's Flintlock flanger.  Both were pretty complicated builds...high part counts, lots of ICs and an involved calibration process. I loved building these. There's a lot of satisfaction when they're done, and the pedals themselves sound as good as anything I've bought. 

I am interested what other big, complicated pedal projects are out there.  What are some other challenging/satisfying pedal builds that people would recommend?
#9
Hello!  After building a madbean Total Recall that actually worked straight away (build report coming), I'm ironically having issues with the much simpler Pork Barrel 2019. I just built it with the MN3007 BBD with zener selected for 12V operation.  It passes a clean signal, but I get no chorus.  With the bias trimmer I get no signal near full CCW, then clean signal which distorts near fully CW.  The tone gets darker toward the middle of the blend knob, then a little brighter on either end.  The power LED turns on, and the LFO LED pulses as you'd expect along with the rate knob.  The LFO also keeps pulsing as long as power is plugged in, even if the pedal is off -- not sure if that's normal.  It's wired to a stomp switch and input/output jacks and I've triple-checked the wiring.

I did check the other active Pork Barrel thread which has a similar issue, as well as several other threads on the Pork Barrel.  I know ICs are often the issue. The MN3007 is from Small Bear so chances are it's fine, but even they have been burned before, so I ordered a used/tested MN3007 from a good seller on Reverb to try, should have later this week. I have two MN3101s to try.  One I pulled from an old working DOD delay, so it has to be authentic; the other I got was advertised as a used pull that tested perfectly from the Florida ebay seller Dalbani (seems legit).  Both of them produce very similar voltages and no chorus.

The jumpers are correct for MN3007.  All oriented parts are correctly oriented.  You will see some styrene caps which are axial and have long leads, but I've made sure the leads are nowhere near touching other pads or leads.  I looked closely at all the pads top and bottom (inc under the pots) and can't see anything that looks like a bad joint or solder bridge. I'm very painstaking about both ordering parts and installing them, triple checking at every step, so I would be very surprised if there is a wrong part, although I admit it's possible and haven't had time to pull out a color chart and check that yet.

Here are some pics and voltages.  I can't compare voltages directly to the Pork Barrel PDF because I'm using 12V supply and that uses 9V, but they seem to be proportionally similar to the 9V voltages.  I normally use the plastic pot covers from Small Bear but this project was too tight for those, so I put electrical tape on the pots.

11.85V from Truetone Onespot, Pork Barrel bias trimmer set in the middle:

MN3101
1. 11.24
2. 5.67
3. 0.0
4. 5.71
5. 0.38
6. 10.0
7. 2.51
8. 0.75

MN3007
1. 11.24
2. 5.71
3. 4.91
4. 0.75
5. 0.0
6. 5.67
7. 4.19
8. 4.19

JRC4558
1. 5.61
2. 5.62
3. 5.58
4. 0.0
5. 5.6
6. 5.61
7. 5.61
8. 11.54

TL062
1. ~ wide range
2. ~ 5.75-5.82
3. ~ wide
4. 0.0
5. ~ 5.75-5.82
6. ~ 5.75-5.82
7. ~ wide
8. 11.55

Q1
1. 4.65
2. 5.01
3. 11.55

Q2
1. 4.92
2. 5.43
3. 11.55

Q3
1. 4.73
2. 5.14
3. 11.55

Q4
1. -0.1
2. -0.12
3. 11.25

Q5
1. 0.0
2. 0.42
3. 9.18