Messages

The store will close on 12.23 (Sunday) for the remainder of the holiday. I will re-open it in the beginning of January. If the new projects/re-stocks gets here in the meantime I will re-open earlier.

Happy Holidays to all!

Following this thread: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=7478.0

Replacing D1 and D2 with 1n34a seems to bring out the upper octave more in the Low Rider. Give it a try!

Bernie, that's great! I'll add this in the MODS section. It was mostly a lucky guess.

Yes, connect the extra pin to circuit ground. Ground is ground whether the supply is positive or negative.

You need to connect the sleeves of those jacks to ground 

As far as the lower octaves, you should not expect perfect tracking. Such a thing is not possible with this kind of analog design. It should track really well with a strong attack over short durations, and then it may "jump" around a bit as the note dies out. Putting an overdrive, or perhaps a compressor in front of it might improve it a bit.

You should have more or less the same result as the demo here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EvgnMvfs_I

It's mostly staccato playing, which is perfect for this kind of effect, but you will hear a few notes ring out and the tracking keeps up pretty well.

For the upper octave, it will be most noticeable on the higher frets, particularly the 12th fret area, similar to an Octavia type pedal. Here's one possibility for making it more prominent: replace D1 and D2 with either BAT41 or 1n34a, and increase the value of R13 to 20k-47k. This should increase the sensitivity of the rectifier portion and also boost it at the same time.

I think they must be 2n4403 which are general purpose PNP transistors. I would let them know they sent the wrong thing!

Not necessarily the Tonecore thing, just digital processing in general. Basically it's a programmed IC that usually has some kind of audio processing algorithms loaded via assembly or some other kind of code. You can DIY this sort of thing provided you can write the code and compile it/burn it to the chip. The tools to do it are quite cheap now, but there is definitely a learning curve on the programming side of it.

I don't really know a lot about it myself, but I am interested in exploring it sometime. One guy who does really cool stuff with digital stuff is "Cloudscapes" over on DIYSB. He's gotten pretty advanced with it from what I've seen.

and some simple DSP in the DIY world.

I've really dropped the ball in this area as well. 2012 was going to be CJ's Year of DSP, and it really didn't pan out that way. 

Well, I am still very interested in collaborating if you want to try and pick this up in 2013. I can see investing in a couple development boards. Maybe the UNO and FV1. And, you already have the FV1 dev board, so...   

Oh, sorry, I did not read your first post thoroughly. You already said that!

I would not clip it out. Use a transistor socket, then put a wire on that grounding pi and attach it any grounding point on the PCB. That way if you ever decide to swap out the transistor in the future, you have not altered your AF200 irreparably.

I cannot speak as to how well it works for the Rangemaster since I've never come across this little guy. But, with a socket you'll find out easily enough.

Can we have a pic of your build? Have you loaded it into an enclosure or are you testing it on a breadboard, etc? Reason I ask is are you sure you have grounded everything properly.

Is the fourth pin attached to the transistor casing in any way? It might be a grounding pin for the case.

I have not yet but it is on my list of things to do. I'm going to try a 470k input and either 470k or 1M in the feedback loop. I will definitely report back once I've done this.

Have you checked via audio probe to verify you are getting signal into pin3 of the MN3007 and out of 7&8?

If you are getting dry signal out when the effect is engaged then this is the first place I would look.

I'm considering re-releasing the Bloviator as a 1590A build rather than re-stocking the most current version. The reason for this is due to the nature of the effect. I think it lends itself quite well to a small form factor. It's the kind of thing you either just leave on or not...not really a toggler like a dirt or delay.

Anyway, I've already completed the design and verified the prototype. The only compromise is I eliminated the VB regulator from the previous design to save space, but that is not a big deal. It sounds exactly like the previous one as far as I can tell.

Anyway, any interest in this?