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Messages - RDL68

#1
Build Reports / Re: Promethium-boss hm-2
December 14, 2022, 12:21:00 AM
Congrats on the great looking build.
I still have my original hm2 & I'm familiar with its limitations. It sure has been regarded by many as a 1 trick pony for ages. I've tried the Swedish HM thing of turning all knobs on full, but nope, didn't do it for me, not even close.
I discovered putting a blues driver in front of it, with that much wider sort of clear transparent range it has, actually carried through the hm2 somewhat & opened up lots more tonal possibilities & tweaking with the hm2. That's how I got plenty of use out of mine.
But on it's own...suffice to say there's other options for those with only 1 spot for a dirt box on their board.


#2
"I've built a lot of BBD pedals and the scope biasing has been very reliable for me.  This one was weird.  The bias point (by ear) is towards the middle of the trimmer and there's only a narrow range that will produce chorusing. But the output from the BBD looks like more like an EKG than what I normally see.  Because it is chorusing in the middle of the trim, I don't think adjusting resistors values would resolve the issue.  I've had other BBDs that biased at the end of the trim rotation and those needed a resistor change.  Anyway, it works real good  ;D So, maybe I'll let this this one slide."

Exactly, many builds & I've never seen this mystery surface before. Mine was just for myself so I let it go. If it was built to be sold I'm sure it would give me niggling thoughts, so I'd investigate until I nailed it & if that wasn't possible I'd rebuild the whole thing first (if it happened a 2nd time, gawd help me, hehe). These 2 builds of ours that it happened to are different circuits too, so it puzzles me whether it was something identical causing it (like something common wired off the pcb itself for eg) or 2 completely different things causing it. Mysteries without answers...  :)
#3
Outstanding job.

What I found mysterious was when you said your scope wasn't happening when biasing the BBD. Similar happened to me once when I did the Blueshift. It worked first try, trims tuned in by ear, all good, but the scope wasn't able to do it's thing on that particular build as far as optional fine tuning is concerned. Fortunately it was a minor non critical thing, whatever caused it. So, as it sounded great as is, I left it as is, because it was just an optional troubleshooting job (potentially very time consuming) for an unnecessary optional fine tuning option.
#4
My goodness. This shrine to the origin of chorii thread is back.

Ricotjuh, after checking out that vid you found of someone selling their clone, the noise there seemed to disappear when his hands were on the strings & reappeared when he wasn't touching the strings, ie reaching for the pedal controls. It could be caused from anything from his guitar cord to his amp & anything else. I've never had that problem related to the CE1. It's a different kind of grounding problem & different noise to using the wrong type of power supply.

I recall the earlier vid you made of yours a year ago (or whenever it was) was indeed a different kind of noise & sounded exactly like the noise I was getting when I tried a dozen or so typical power supplies, including more than one which was advertised as "isolated". Only that product I mentioned I'd bought that was specifically designed to provide multiple isolated power outs for effects got rid of it for mine. Sorry I haven't been much help.
#5
JC103, good to hear someone else likes the CE3. It tended to cop a lot of flak compared to the CE2 which I always thought was unfair, as it's simply different.
I regretted giving mine away a long time ago & only a year back picked one up in mint condition, not a scratch & with original box. Rare these days, so I grabbed it when I saw it.

As for the BYOC Stereo Flanger, you guessed it, I've built one of those. What made it unique (as far as DIY goes) is 2 x parallel BBD's. You can use 2 x MN3207's or 1 x MN3207 & 1 x MN3208. I did it the mismatched way & it sure is an over the top flanger with that config. In fact, so much so I've been meaning to go back & use 2 x MN3207's instead to try to tame it down some.

When I venture into stereo guitar playing, I have a Peavey 8 chan mixer, it's quiet/silent & clean etc, but I've never set it up with the Flanger. It's one adventure for the future now you guys have had me think about it.

All the best...
#6
Just on the stereo panning effect, after posting here I remembered I built one years ago based on the Ibanez FP-777. That one does it, but it's a phaser not a flange.
One stomp switch for the phaser & another for the panning. Also rate knobs for both. Point being, if you're determined to add panning to anything else, it might be worth looking at the schematic.
As for the FP-777 clone, it uses optocouplers that are not readily available & have to be made especially, so those kits are generally always out of stock. They were out of stock when I did one years ago & after checking now they're still out of stock. By chance a re-seller in Europe had one left in stock back when I got mine, but the schematic & everything else is still readily available now.
#7
I thought of the above delay idea when the Boss CE3's were around. They have 2 outs (1 wet & 1 dry) but it just didn't do it for me. Some experimentation later took it to another level. I loved it for riffs, dual guitar or twin lead sounds etc. I found it worked better when 2 different brand amps were used. The different voicing also helped along with room acoustics compared to headphones or direct to mixer.

Flange is similar, however it would be dependent on how it's dialed in & used. Too far into jet extremes & it would probably be diabolical having a clean channel happening as well. More towards the milder extremes would work great to create a wider sim-stereo sound stage out of what is basically a mono effect. No swooshing left & right with this method though.

Modding the Flintlock circuit to actually do genuine stereo panning/sweeping left & right would be beyond my ability. I have used blender circuits before though, an extra knob for simply mixing clean & wet, even had success when I made my CE2 & a couple of others, but with some effects I had more trouble than it was worth. They're a simple concept but I found they can be very fussy & not always play along with all effect circuits as you'd expect. So for a few successful implementations, I had just as many attempts that were impossible to get happening before learning that lesson. What you're aiming for might need multiple blender circuits of sorts, plus the actual panning feature, therefore I can't post anything constructive in your other thread there, it's beyond me, but maybe others that know more about it can make some suggestions, especially if there's already a known circuit out in the wild that could be used to figure out how it can be done with the Flintlock. The trick with the delay doesn't need an engineering degree & anyone can try it, but it's mostly limited to non-distorted guitar playing because you're using one clean channel to do the stereo dimension thing.

I haven't been building this year myself, not frequently like I used to, but I finished soldering up a Revv 4 pcb, just have to wire it up & box it when I get around to it. I've got so many pedals already I could build a sand castle out of them, so trying not to build so many nowadays. It's funny, there's always one that comes along & out comes the soldering iron again...



#8
Well done, Skyled.

It's a long while since I made mine, but it was a good layout & I no trouble at all, albeit stock in comparison.

Just a potential tip/suggestion for you on the stereo aspect. This also works for any mono chorus that is split into 2 x mono outs.
On 1 output channel send it through a digital delay. It doesn't have to be anything big & fancy, but use absolutely no repeats or feedback whatsoever & tune in the delay time very short (with some experimentation) so it's almost (but not quite) instant & with no slap-back that can be noticed or as close to that point as possible.

Obviously it isn't a common use for a delay, but used this unusual way it really does give the sound some dimension across the stereo field compared to straight up mono. It's up to you (or anybody else reading) whether you give it a try, maybe it'll work for you or maybe it wont, but if you find that you like what you can achieve with it with a pre-made delay you have on hand, if you're keen enough maybe you can build & squeeze a tiny delay circuit in there. It surely wouldn't need pots or anything major like that for this purpose & maybe a toggle at most would be sufficient once the rest is tuned in with trimpots where you like it.

Anyway, all the best, enjoyed seeing what you did with it, all good & all unique.
#9
Build Reports / Re: The Red Baron flies again...
December 30, 2019, 03:37:51 PM
This one stuck in my head & I ended up ordering the PCB to do some rainy day. I had all the parts already apart from the mysterious G10k pot. There's no trace of them on google apart from a few people asking what to use as a substitute. The only way I got one was by going through a retailer that had access to genuine Boss spares. I guess they must be an exclusive made for Boss.
In the meantime, finally got around to doing a Merman OD I bought from Bean a while ago. Just have to wire it up - now that I finally found where the wire-strippers got to...
#10
Build Reports / Re: The Red Baron flies again...
December 19, 2019, 02:23:13 AM
Basically, a 4013 isn't really an audio signal processor, it just controls bits that are, but an op-amp sure is (they're full of micro resistors, capacitors, transistors like a real amp). Mostly if the pins match they'll work (for most of our builds at least), just in very rare odd situations they don't, as I found out with both types of chips.

With op-amps, using the Ibanez Sonic Distortion as an example, the original op-amp in that is very compressed sounding. Some prefer to swap it out for something that isn't, so depending what they use instead, it might get them more clarity or transparency, better frequency response, less noise etc. Swapping 4013's wont make any difference I can see, unless a circuit has been designed to utilize those slight differences, in which case a build doc will list the suffix & warn you not to stray from that.

I was amazed to see that old Boss effect done in a build though. Maybe it was a love it or hate it pedal from Boss at the time, but I really enjoyed playing around with it. Rarely ever hear them mentioned anymore. I was impressed at the time how Boss managed to use the bypass switch to control the feedbacker as well. I think it was a quick press for distortion bypass or hold it down for the Feedbacker aspect to kick in. Using a separate switch is a better idea now, so there's no clumsy mistakes.
My sister-in-law was always obsessed with Snoopy, collected anything to do with the character, she would've loved this build too.
#11
Build Reports / Re: The Red Baron flies again...
December 18, 2019, 10:50:56 PM
Cooder, with 4013's, I'm far from being an expert, but I think they're more used for switching & timing functions, so not a major influence on sound as say an op-amp.
I reckon if your 4013 works as is, not worth swapping around.
Actually, an op-amp would be a good example to make a quick point. Some circuits use a TL072. And most of us here would've changed them out for Burr Browns or whatever else to experiment or even in situations where anything on hand will do to make something work. They do change the sound a bit one way or another, some more than others, for better or worse. However, there are some circuits that say TL072 & stress that you can't use Burr Browns due to various differences in how they work, even though the pinout is identical, everything from latency to slight differences in voltage requirements to whatever else may be too different & cause total chaos with a circuit.

By the way, you did a great job with it. I haven't had a go of a Boss Feedbacker Distortion for ages. I remember doing riffs & holding down the footswitch to make the last sustained note scream, almost like an octave up or whatever it does (feedbacking amp I guess). I think I'd be too uncoordinated to do it at a gigging level, but it was great fun to mess with when I had a lend of one.
#12
Build Reports / Re: The Red Baron flies again...
December 18, 2019, 01:34:17 AM
That CD4013...is actually a "G"D4013B. The "GS" on it is the brand.
It gets confusing because Goldstar make that model, but they usually print "Goldstar" on it.
LG also make them & they usually print "LGS" on it. (LG Semicon).
There's also "Globaltech Semiconductor". I'm not 100% sure, although I suspect the GS stands for Globaltech Semiconductor.
Hynix have also made that model, big brand that can have their own name or a licensee brand printed on it.
When it gets to "C"D4013's, there's so many brands...
I wondered about it too when I saw it because I had to mess about with 4013's early this year for a fussy circuit, which meant researching the subtle differences between models/brands. Normally I've just used whatever brand on hand prior to that as they're generally compatible.
#13
Thanks.

That'd be drog_trog, it's just a different ebay account to what he had before & he's listing them as retrosonic clone, not king of chorus anymore.
He's updated the schematic too with the CH depth mod, which is done differently to the 2 failed ways I tried it from stuff I'd found online.

With yours, the clock seems working, possibly the whole thing is, it just has the same power hum as using a switch mode PSU, so it shouldn't be too hard to track down where it's happening. My gut feeling for now is that something is shorting to GND or not connected to GND, which itself could also throw all the IC readings out.
#14
Ricotjuh, I just read back a couple of pages of this thread. First thing I noticed was the PCB layout you posted a few days ago. Paying it more attention, it's clearly different to the v1 version, basically it has the chorus depth mod & possibly other changes, otherwise the rest is likely the same.

Going back a bit further you said you did your own PCB. I have to ask, is that v2 PCB layout you posted what you've done or is it what drog_trog has done? Or is your PCB completely different?

I tried unsuccessfully to find a revised v2 build doc, also couldn't find any trace of drog_trog anywhere, even his ebay account is gone. It'd be helpful if you could post a link to the v2 doc (the file might be too big to post here).

As for mods, I abandoned all of them because even as simple as they are, I had major issues getting them working with this circuit, possibly due to the multiple GND points of weirdness, split rails, different voltages etc. I just boxed it up stock & working to be done with it. Actually, the only thing I did was I added an extra LED, so there's a blue one on for chorus mode & a different one for vibrato mode, they flash in time to the rate, but due to GND issues (again with something that should be so simple) I ended up having to replace a 3pdt with a 4pdt instead to do that, when otherwise it shouldn't have been necessary.

Anyway, if you've taken drog_trog's original schematic & added mods, that could be a big problem, especially if you've gone it alone with your own PCB layout. Whatever power hum noise a switch mode PSU introduces, it could also be introduced another way & feeding back into GND or something, it sure sounds like it in that clip you did.


#15
Before diving that far in, I'd suggest checking all the caps/soldering in that infamous power section & then using a voltmeter to see if it's putting out the correct voltage before it hits the rest of the circuit. You're now using an isolated PSU with the batteries, first problem solved (unfortunately there was also another) so once you verify the rest of that power section it'll make it easier for everyone to help you narrow it down from there with the rest of the circuit.