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We just started watching 30 Rock.

Where has this been all my life?!

Any ring modulator is going to have a pretty big board and thus cost a bit. Wasn't someone doing a PCB layout for the Circuit Salad one?

That's nice. Who built it and who did the enclosure work?

Close. Brian's has the modern mode and, I think, a couple common improvements scattered throughout the circuit. RG's schematic is a little tough to read (I mean, physically ... the colors, children!) so it's hard to directly compare at a glance. But all the mechanisms are the same -- same LFO etc.

Pre-programmed tap pulse converter:
http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=795

This controls a digital pot, which is another couple bucks.

Total is about $8.

Use the digital pot as a gain control. You need a design that can use a 100K potentiometer as its gain control.

The real question is ... is tapping in a new gain setting reliable, better, more practical than, or even cooler than than simply a second "channel" that just changes the gain, or (as Jacob suggested) a wah shell?

Thanks for pitching in Jon. I just found your mini layout for the Engineers Thumb. I think Im going to build one to try it out. I'm impressed by how quiet the circuit is at idle in demos. Sitting right in front of a chorus that would help reduce swooshing sounds during rests. I see there are two resistors that can be replaced with pots for longer attack and shorter release. Those together would allow me to dial in a bit more pop on the transients in quick funky rhythms or intricate fingerpicking, is that correct?

To summarize at this point: I don't think I'll worry about running the comp at a higher voltage, and the compressor sound I'm looking for is more on the bright and snappy side.  My Xotic SP covers the classic squash sounds.

Another comp question: Am I right in thinking that the Afterlife has a longish release while the Orange Squeezer's release is comparatively short?  That's what my ears seem to be telling me. How does the ET compare?

I would recommend keeping the attack as short as possible in the ET and just turning on the treble bypass. It can get so extreme that a longer attack might make things sound a little weird. It really excels at what it does in the stock settings, I think, and I also think that you'll find that it's every bit as good or better than the Xotic for classic squish.

The Afterlife's decay is ... difficult to determine, because there's no parallel resistor, but it's over 1 second almost all the time.

The Orange squeezer's decay is 470mS. That's the 4.7uF capactor * 100K parallel resistance = time delay in milliseconds.

Yeah, getting into Breadboarding can be a lot of fun. You really begin to understand (or at least partially understand) the relationships between various parts as you assemble and tweak them.

Jacob

+1 can't recommend a breadboard enough.

IANAEE, so I'm not sure if either of my suggestions can be used at 15v. I have been known to use the pork barrel and an Engineer's Thumb when the need for hairspray and spandex arises.

Both of these will sound pretty almost exactly the same at 15V or 18V, but there may be a resistor or two that needs to be changed in each.

I do know that the Bearhug will produce a little more voltage gain into the envelope, which means it would compress more than it needs to, so I've recommended running it at 9V, but if someone were to really want to run it on 18V, I could suggest some changes. The primary benefit to adding voltage to a MOSFET is extra brightness, but any added brightness you'd get from a MOSFET running at 18V will most likely be swallowed by the gate-drain bypass cap.

For the thumb, the differential input voltage of the LM13700 is only 5V. So I think there's a possibility you'll distort it (at least before the compression kicks in) on a higher voltage depending on what the Tl072 spits out at it. I'd test it first.

That enclosure is amazing.

AlanP: This thing has a much wider range of gain than the EC. It's a huge improvement.

This sounds great.

so I just soldered the out wire

Whoa whoa whoa, please tell me you ALSO soldered a capacitor to that wire?

If you didn't DO SO IMMEDIATELY. You can kill some amps with 4.5DC on its input. Very dangerous. Even if you don't own an amp without an input cap, one of your friends might.

By the way, incredible looking build.

Hey Jacob.

I lost my temper with it and just soldered the out lead to the IC. It's working but there's some horrendous ticking in certain settings. That'll teach me for not being patient!

Thanks for your help.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

check that the 330pF cap is actually connected to the op amp. If it isn't, you'll hear ticking.

Overdrive into fuzz is not as uncommon as people who insist that "a fuzz must go right after the guitar" people would have you believe. In your case, the overdrive is cutting the bass, removing the input loading by providing a buffer, and so the fuzz face is going to sound much, much cleaner and less saturated. You'd get a similar sound with just a buffer in front, minus the bass cut.

I put my fuzz face after my compressor, which does something similar and turns the FF into just an awesome cutting overdrive sound that I can stack with another overdrive when I need something slightly higher gain. I tried the fuzz right after my guitar and it just never worked as well.

I'm using Logic ... for $200 I thought it was a great deal. Reaper was also very good but a little more bare bones and seemed to run a little slower.

My guess is autowah + fuzz. Could involve some sort of synth filter, but it's an envelope effect for sure.

He used a couple different fuzzes, but the one on that song is a B&M Champion fuzz according to a post on Offset guitars (and confirmed elsewhere) http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=70099

They also speculate that the filter is a Mutron. This makes sense to me given Collins's apparent love of vintage gear (and clothing).