Colorsound dipthonizer in wah pedal

[Ronan]

Colorsound dipthonizer built on madbean's honeydripper pcb. Worked fine straight out of the box using the envelope filter. Then I took out most of the envelope filter components and wired it up to a "wah pot", 10K in this case but 100K would probably work too. At first, on the bench, I thought it sounded OK, but in the wah shell with my foot rocking the pedal, I am very impressed. I think it sounds better than the Ehx talking pedal Morley clone I did, I don't know how to actually describe what "better" means, maybe it is better definition of the vowels. Still early days though, I only built it today. Anyway, I love it, thought I would share.

sound clip
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61170900/Dipthon1.mp3

guts


pcb


Many thanks to madbean for making this pcb available. If anyone wants more info on how this is wired, just ask.

Edit: the wah shell is just a test bed, nothing permanent in there...

[Jdansti]

Awesome!!! . I thought I heard E-I-E-I-O somewhere in there!

[digi2t]

If anyone wants more info on how this is wired, just ask.

Ian, Ian, Ian..... I thought you knew us better by now! Post away my man! Post away!

Sounds great BTW. Great work.

Cheers,
Dino

[radio]

Hi Ian

wasn't  there some problem with the PCB?

Maybe you have a newer version.

I read that sometime ago in the madbean forum.

Regards JM

[pinkjimiphoton]

the original layout had an issue, but brian's latest works great.

i use a honeydripper live at every gig, and i agree with dino's proclamation.

on mine, i use a combination of picking dynamics and volume swells to control it...it's the best of the formant pedals i've tried, other than the pII

ian, i'd love to hear what you did...the idea of it being in a wah shell is very intriguing!!

[Ronan]

The pic shows what to do on a fully assembled pcb. If you build from scratch you can leave out the components around IC1c, IC1d and IC5b. Then fit wire links across D4, R23 and D6 to keep the IC's happy (and stable).



You can see in the pics I have a 50k pot at the back of the wah shell. This is replacing the R34/R35 voltage divider and this voltage determines whereabouts during the pedal travel the formant 1 filter peaks and starts decreasing in frequency. It can be tweaked to taste, however the original values for R34/R35 work fine too.

All other values in the circuit are as per madbean's schematic, except for the 100n capacitor C16 at pins 1 and 2 of IC5a, which I changed to 1uF as there was 75kHz oscillation on the CA3080 DC control voltage, I suspect it is caused by the voltage doubler power supply, since there was no oscillation at the +ve input (pin 3). The change to 1uF didn't seem to make any difference in sound quality, but the oscillation mostly disappeared.

I found the pedal to be on the bright side, and sounding like it would cause a few squeals (feedback) if used live. I changed R17 from 4k7 to 10k, this decreases the output of the 2nd formant filter a bit. Between this mod and changing the 4558 IC for a TL072, the pedal really started rocking! Love it! It seems to be better balanced between the two formants now.

i use a honeydripper live at every gig...

on mine, i use a combination of picking dynamics and volume swells to control it...it's the best of the formant pedals i've tried, other than the pII

I agree Jimi. Thanks for doing the stupid pedal tricks thingo on it, as that was what made me pull the trigger on a pcb.

Edit: I forgot to mention, if you do this mod, the mode select switch will be disabled, and the circuit functions as a combination of modes Yeah and Bow. During testing, I measured the control voltage going from 2.2V to 5.2V for the Yeah mode, and from 0.4V to 4V for Bow mode. So you can set the voltage from the "wah pot" wiper to give either or both modes. Setting up the pot involves getting the pinion in the right position on the rack and rotating the pot slightly to fine tune, and maybe fiddling with the value of the fixed 10k resistor. The 10k resistor and 10k "wah pot" are fed 10V from the upper hole of where R30 used to be. If using a 100k wah pot, use a 100k fixed resistor in series to start with.

There is a new demo of the Dipthonizer on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVmGyGP6Nw&feature=relmfu

[B Tremblay]

More great work from you, Ian.  Thanks for sharing it.  Would you mind listing or showing on your diagram exactly which components are omitted, just for clear reference?

[Ronan]

Thanks Brian. If the pcb is already fully built, just the 5 components in red need to be removed and a wire link placed across where D6 was. If you wanted to build a pcb from scratch, I can do a list for that if you want, of all the components that don't need to be fitted. I can do that tomorrow night. But right now, unfortunately, its my bedtime, and I'm off to work for another week, hey ho hey ho... 

[Ronan]

Here's a diagram for if you are building the honeydripper specifically to go into a wah pedal, you can leave out a few more parts.



The madbean pcb is very compact, but without the need for the rotary switch and a few other components, it just might be possible to design a pcb small enough and with the right hole spacings to bolt straight into a wah pedal, using the two raised bosses that most Chinese shells have these days. Then we would finally have the talking pedal with single pot solution that fits neatly in a wah pedal. The question has to be asked, would it work better with the Ehx talking pedal front end, as in, a talk-thonizer?

[B Tremblay]

Thanks for the updated parts layout!

[Ronan]

Dino you said post away...

The original used 18V, 10V and 5V supplies. The 10V was used only in the envelope section. With the wah pot setup, the 10V is not needed, so out of curiousity I tried the circuit on 9V only, without the voltage doubler, and put a wire link across D15 to keep the 5V supply working. Fed 9V into what was the 18V side of R42, so the LT1054 got no power. Fed 9V instead of 10V into the 10k series resistor feeding the 10k wah pot, since the 10V feeding it before (from R30) is now gone (its 5V now). Schematic link

Applied power........and.........it still sounds good, it still works properly! It still sounds very good!
The conclusion is, for just a wah shell application, the LT1054 does not seem to be required.

I A/B'd it tonight with my Eh Talking Pedal (clone), the Dipthonizer wins, it is more articulate.

I am guessing probably the main reason why they differ in performance, is in the Dipthonizer formant filters, although they are the same design as the EH TP, they are tuned for much higher gain and Q.

[bean]

Hi Ian

wasn't  there some problem with the PCB?

Maybe you have a newer version.

I read that sometime ago in the madbean forum.

Regards JM

FYI: The first version that went out had a couple of mistakes in it. Everyone who bought one of those had it replaced with the rev.1 board which is spot on.

This is a really cool application-I had not thought about putting it in a wah shell, but that makes a lot of sense now. Kudos!

[digi2t]

Hi Ian

wasn't  there some problem with the PCB?

Maybe you have a newer version.

I read that sometime ago in the madbean forum.

Regards JM

FYI: The first version that went out had a couple of mistakes in it. Everyone who bought one of those had it replaced with the rev.1 board which is spot on.

This is a really cool application-I had not thought about putting it in a wah shell, but that makes a lot of sense now. Kudos!

I`ll just chirp in here to give a three thumbs up to Brian. I was one of those that had ordered the first run of boards. His professionalism in contacting all the buyers, informing them of the issue, and insuring that everyone got a proper board, was hors pair (without equal). I highly recommend Madbean boards, not only because of the quality, but because of the man behind the business as well. A real pillar of the DIY community.

Thanks Brian.

We will now return to our regular programming....

[Ronan]

I tried it out at a band rehearsal last weekend. Didn't go so well, the lower freq was fine, but when getting into the upper freq (e's and i's) the gain or Q is high and it gets a bit out of control, as in hard to hear what its doing, too thin/sharp. I was running a distortion box in front of it at the time. On the other hand, the EH Talking Pedal clone was a lot more manageable when I used it live a few months ago.

You got any preferences for how you use yours live Jimi (if you read this?)

Looks like the holy grail of talk is going to take some more work, but I now have more ideas than I ever did before, plenty to chew on.
Also a "next step" (new generation just released) EH Talking Pedal is on its way to me, looking forward to it. Apparently the signal path is "all analogue."

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey ronan,
live, i like mine between a fuzz and an overdrive... i generally run the "depth" about half way up and the fuzz cranked, and put a fuzzface before it and a klon(e) after it.

if the depth pot is too high, it is WAY bright.. just turn your guitar down slightly, and you can dial in the frequency response.

i literally swell into-out of vowels with my pinky on my strat's volume knob.. i use it constantly, so for me it's real natural. but try it sandwiched between fuzz and overdrive, seriously...

the fuzz gives it more ...ummm "gutteral" consonance,
and the overdrive warms it and mellows it out a little bit..kinda.

hard to describe.

i'm inspired to hit brian's site and grab another board so i can build this in a treadle.

i REALLY liked the talking pedal project you gave me (thanks again, btw!) but there's a problem with mine...it kinda "dies" sometimes, and i can't figure it out..
but i LOVE your demo...

i could really dig putting this in a treadle.... i gotta get some more broken crybabies...i have two, but one is slated for a project barry from guitarpcb is sending me, and the other is a chromed one...that will be part of cousin ludvig when the time comes.

[Ronan]

Thanks for that Jimi, that makes sense, in that a pedal after it might act like a compressor to tame the output levels a bit, and your comment that it can get way bright seems to be what I was hearing. I played with it at home yesterday, but it all seems fine sound-wise, sure a compressor after it smooths it a bit, but I didn't feel the need to tweak the circuit at all, it sounds good just the way it is...just wondering if something else strange was going on at the rehearsal, I was also running a fair bit of other new and unfamiliar gear. I'll give it another live run when I can and see how it goes.

[Ronan]

I got a chance to play the pedal live at a small club last night, a gave it a good workout in at least 3 songs. It was fine, no issues at all, no squeals, it sounded great, I could not fault it.

Just for info, I still have it running with the same mods as mentioned in post 10, so the voltage doubler is not being used. Also the mods mentioned in post 5 (changed R17 from 4k7 to 10k, changed the 4558 IC for a TL072) are still in there.