EPFM for X-mas: Which projects to build?

[PB Wilson]

My lovely wife got me Electronic Projects for Musicians and I was wondering what projects I should build from it?

I had my eye on the headphone amp, ring modulator and tube sound fuzz (I've got to see what the Red Llama is all about!). Any things to look out for?

One thing was unfamiliar to me: a mono closed-circuit jack. Any ideas to get around this part?

[Ansil]

i like the compressor and the tsf as well as the noise gate.

[ErikMiller]

The Tube Sound Fuzz is a rockin' box. I also built the headphone amp.

Mostly, the book is a great instructional tool for the novice builder. Heck, I STILL pull it out from time to time, more than 20 years after I got it.

[csj]

self deleted

[bwanasonic]

Always wanted to try the Super Tone Control and the Ring Mod. Never did though. That bipolar power supply thing always turned me off.

Kerry M

[Ansil]

just re do it for vbias

[csj]

Self deleted

[smoguzbenjamin]

Yup, sometimes girlfriends/wives don't mix with electronics.
I've been getting complaints too

[Zero the hero]

You're right Ansil. I was never smart enough though to know which parts of a circuit (if any) might need to see the full 9v supply to run properly. I still don't know. It's been a long time. I do remember that even building the power supply was a pain because you had to trick the 8v regulator into squeezing out another volt or so. I remember seeing a thread on using an IC voltage regulator which tapped into the the V+, fed it through the regulator and then flip flopped it on the out side to get your negative feed. Whatver voltage you fed it you got back out and then you reversed it on the back half. That might work too PB. Check it out on the Search. You're bound to find something. I haven't had a problem yet that someone here hasn't already dealt with.

I have not that book (I wanted somebody to give me it for Xmas, but I had no gifts at all...) , so I don't know if I've understood if the problem is to obtain bipolar power supply from a single battery.
If so, there are many solutions at Geo and GGG, they uses a MAX ic to obtain negatine supply. About the flip-flop solution, I've used it in Mark Hammer's super octaver found in his site. there's shcem and PCB in the pdf.

[moosapotamus]

Here's my 3.5 cents...

Definately build the TSF.
The Ring Mod is very good if you can tolerate a teensy bit of carrier bleedthrough.
The Super Tone Control and the Dual Filter Voicing Unit are both very effective.

You can replace the CLM6000 with a VTL5C3.
You can replace the 4739 with a 5532 (see GGG for updated PCB layouts).
And of course, the MAX1044 will do the bipolar power thing.

~ Charlie

[Jason M.]

[Jason M.]

There are a lot of great projects in that book that I still use all the time.

I started with the passive tone control (it was the first pedal I built). How much easier can you get than that? No power supply! It will let you get many different tones out of one guitar.

The compressor is really underrated. It is more of a full range compressor as opposed to the Dynacomp/Ross comp. LOTS of headroom and output.

The ring modulator uses a square wave carrier, which sounds fuzzier than, say, the Maestro ring mod, which uses a sine carrier.  Yeah, sure it is a noisemaker, but I was expecting something more along the lines of John McLaughlin/Mahavishnu.

The Super Tone Control is awesome when paired with the Envelope Follower to make an extremely versatile envelope controlled filter. Super sensitive with a WIDE range.

The Phase Shifter is pretty cool, too.  LOTS of parameters. Hook this up to Anderton's Retro-Stereo and get a stereo phaser. I added two more phase shift stages for a total of 6 stages and the effect is a little more pronounced.

Tube Sound Fuzz is a favorite. Maybe a little bass heavy, so you may want to socket the input cap to tailor the response.
I never really found the Rhythm/Lead switch very beneficial. It sounded almost just like the Rhythm mode with gain turned up all the way. You may want to try using a 2M gain pot instead of the 1M and leave out the switch all together. It cleans up with the guitar vol. I usually have the gain pot dimed and just control the fuzz (more of an overdrive) with the guitar vol.  The sound samples on the CD don't do the TSF justice.

I think Paia still has some CLM600 optos. Expensive, though. Small Bear electronics will have some available soon. You can make your own, too.
As far as the 4739 IC, Paia sells an adapter kit which is a small pcb that reroutes the pins of a common dual op-amp to fit the footprint of a 4739. Buy one and see how it's done and then you can make your own. It is a little tricky because you have to cut some pins on the socket so they don't go through to the foil side of the board.

As you can tell, I dig EPFM. Maybe because it was my intro to DIY. Anderton is really cool, too. He even answered an email I sent him.

I used a bipolar power supply that I built, until RG gave us the bipolar power supply with one battery using a MAX1044 chip, like moosapotamus pointed out.

You will be busy for a while.
Have fun.

J.

[Jason M.]

I'm php challenged.

[Jason M.]

i'm retarded. triple post. I'm going for a record

[PB Wilson]

Thanks everyone! Good food for thought. I'm definitely going to need more patch cords when I'm through.

[PB Wilson]

Oops, double post.

[LP Hovercraft]

Super tone control w/an envelope filter!!!  In addition to wonderfully tunable Envelope Wah sounds, with the band pass filter at 5 o clock and the low pass at 10 o clock and the high pass off, there is psychedelic envelope "phaser" sound.  The ring modulator is really cool too.

[Mark Hammer]

JD Sleep has graciously redrawn most of the layouts for the EPFM-II projects, but adapted them for op-amps you can actually FIND.  You can see them at http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/v2/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=109&op=page&SubMenu=

Having looked at a few, they are very straightforward.  Both the 4739 and the various standard layout dual op-amps (4558, TL072, NE5532, etc.) have one op-amp on each side and the output pin closer to the head (pins 1/14) than the behind (pins 7/8) of the chip so that layouts aren't all that different.

The envelope follower is a good general purpose device as is the spluffer.  As a standalone, the ring mod is good, as is the noise gate, compressor, and phase shifter.  I suspect you'll probably get more use out of reading and understanding the mods section for each project.  Invaluable information.

[Jim Jones]

I just fired up a perfed Dual Filter Voicing Unit tonight...I've been meaning to build it since the early 90's.

It seems like there are a ton of tonal possibilities from it but it's going to take some mucking about to learn them all.

Jim