General old script MXR Question

[formerMember1]

hi,
I was wondering something,  I know the old script phase 90 pedals sounded better than the block logo ones.  But does this go for all the mxr pedals?  I always heard that the Dist+ was really good.  I tried one out a year or so ago, a dunlop one and i thought it sucked, big time.  Do the mxr pedals that dunlop makes sound anything like the old ones? i already know there wahs and fuzzfaces aren't that good.  

Just wanna clear something up since i heard various statements:
Did van halen and jimmy page both use mxr dist+ pedals at some point in their career or is this false?

thanks :wink:

[petemoore]

and i thought it sucked, big time.
 opinions vary.
 I played out with a Script for decades as 1rst string [only] fuzz.
 I'm not sure what the differences were between the different fonts.
 I believe the basis of your critisizm was dependant on many things, one of which being the DIST+ unit you sampled.
 I heard JP used one 'later', I find they do make for a tasty "Custard Pie'.
 I was never super impressed with LM741 as a 'centerpiece' for great Fuzz, but in the DIST+'s case, for 'vintage' sound they play a part in the overall distortion tone.

[Fret Wire]

No it doesn't go for all the MXR pedals. People often repeat as fact what they've read. The distortion + sounded the same from script to block. When they stopped using 1N270 Ge diodes and started using silicon diodes, people started finding them thin and shrill sounding. For a period, 10k pots were subbed for the 50k volume pots, and some people found it hard to get good output volume. Actually, the reissue uses the right pot values (470k rev. log & 47k log), but has silicon diodes. So that's the only difference, not counting construction.

MXR made changes to some of their own models, dunlop made a change or two. What ever they didn't change sounded the same throughout it's entire manufacturing run.

Most people go on and on about it, but if you ask what components are different, they don't know, probably can't read a schematic. It's like the Boss CE-2 MIJ vs. MIT rubbish. The schematics and actual values are the same, the only difference was that the Japanese factory took the time to calibrate them properly vs the Taiwan factory that spent less time doing it. That does make a noticeable difference in the chorusing effect. It's no different with Boss pedals. Some ckts were changed slightly, others weren't. But the MIJ vs MIT myth gets applied to all pedals.

The best way to get a definitive answer is to go over the schematics or trace the pedals out.

Page used a D+ in the late 70's, as did Randy Rhodes. I never heard of EH using one.

Oh, and Dunlop did make one reissue just like the original. The Germanium Fuzz Face reissues were just like the original Dallas Arbiters. Two Germanium transistors thrown in without regard to gain or leakage, and no attempt to bias them. Every so often, one sounds great. Most, however, sound like ass. Just like the originals. :wink:

[formerMember1]

oh thanks,
yeah i didn't think EVH used a dist+ either, but i read in a guiatr world/player magazine something like this:
"Edward set the world on fire w/ as little as a mxr phase 90,dual echoplexs, mxr flanger,and a mxr dist+ driven by a midrange EQ to drive his already driven non master volume 4 input Marshalls into submission"  
blah blah....

Something along those lines.  But, i already read other things in magazines that i know was false.  It also could have been a typo.
oh well, doesn't matter to me anyway, i guess.

thanks for the info about the mxr pedals:D

[Fret Wire]

I was in the rant mode when I typed the above. I forgot to add that MXR changed the Phase 90, not Dunlop. They thought they were responding to what the public wanted. 10 years go by, and the public wants the script model again.

You can't really bash Dunlop either. They have to be given credit for trying to bring some classic fx to a new generation of players for an affordable price. They disappoint me, because I feel they could have done things better/different, and charged more for it. They could have eliminated the BS "vintage script prices" out there, by putting out the same thing at a reasonable price.

[Doug_H]

I used a block dist+ in the late 70's. It was okay for what it was, no great shakes IMO. This was the "early days" of "distortion" vs. "fuzz" pedals though, IME.

JP used one when I saw him live in the "Presence" time period. IMO his sound wasn't too hot, kind of brittle and harsh. But I didn't like his tone on the "Presence" LP either, which sounded the same way to me (although I loved the music).

Doug

[formerMember1]

yeah speaking of Jimmy Page,

I know he used a colorsound tonebender,  But anybody know what he used on the Led Zeppelin live dvd.  Ya know the one with like 5 hours of footage.  Is that a tonebender on the madison square garden?
What did he use on the first disc, (when they were really young) particulary when he was using the telecaster on the bonus clips?  you know,the  one footage that is black and white they play, comm. breakdown, dazed n confuzed, babe gonna leave you, and how many more times, sounds really fuzzy.  what pedal is that?

:wink:

[Fret Wire]

Tele, Tonebender, and Vox wah.

[Mark Hammer]

It was my understanding that the script/block difference in the Phase 90 was the change in the value of the feedback resistor for the regen path.  The P90 used a fixed amount of regeneration, rather than providing a variable regeneration amount control like some other pedals or even a hi/lo "color" switch like E-H used on the Small Stone.  To some ears, one sounded better than the other.

E-H also used different resistor values for the resonance/emphasis level in different issues of the Envelope Filter.  Long before I understood the workings of one versus the other or had access to a schem, I had built clones of each issue and noted that one sounded much better to my ears than the other.  Later, I found out that it was because the one I liked had increased the resonance/emphasis of the filter a bit.  Of course, with the variable Q mod shown over at Tonepad, script/block differences become moot.

[Dai H.]

Mark, there is more to the block/script difference than the one resistor. I forget exactly but I think the script had a buffer at the input but the block has some gain. Nothing very difficult.

[vanhansen]

There was a thread about this earlier this year.  cd graciousluy layed out the component differences between several revisions of the Phase 90 including the original script logo and the current reissue.

I'll see if I can find it.  I know I documented them all on my machine somewhere in an HTML page.  Gotta find it and ask Dave if it's ok if I post that info on my site.  Just haven't had a chance to.  So, Dave, if you read this, just let me know.

EDIT: Found it -
http://www.diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=26093

It starts on the second page.

[Fret Wire]

You should post the component differences between script, block, and reissue on your website (Phase 90 mods). That, and explaining what effect each of the changes made, would help out anyone trying to mod their Phase 90.

[Mark Hammer]

Mark, there is more to the block/script difference than the one resistor. I forget exactly but I think the script had a buffer at the input but the block has some gain. Nothing very difficult.

Quite likely, although with most of us morons using curly cords at the time, I'm not so sure that we would have noticed issues like tone-sucking quite as much as we noticed more "in your face" things like changes in resonance/regen.  I could be wrong about that, but I certainly wouldn't make out pedal users of 25 years ago to have been any sort of audiophile.  Of course, when transposed to more contemporary times, perhaps the sort of script/block differences that were present but opaque to us at the time have more relevance and obvious value nowadays.

Funny how "legends" get born.  In 1972 I had heard that Fender Bassmans were fabulous guitar amps.  So, I scored a 12" speaker from Radio Shack and made a cab to accompany the borrowed silver-face Bassman head I was using in a band.  Sounded okay, I guess, simply because of the tube aspect, but not all that hot to me.  I used it figuring that I was just missing hearing something that was actually there.  Now that I have the actual model that the legend started with, I can see the rationale for it, but boy oh boy there were a whole lotta details missing when people told me what they told me in 1972, and boy oh boy there are some huge leaps from what I was using THEN in comparison to what I was supposed to have been using.

Similarly, people hear about legendary pedals, and while the pedals may have been the best of the lot at the time, that may well have been a product of the fact that companies built precious little flexibility into their pedals so you couldn't make pedal A sound like pedal B the way you often can now.  Of course, all those details kind of evaporate as rumours get circulated at the music store, at pre/post gig chatter, and on message boards.

[Dai H.]

It's amazing how much info is easily available now, compared to pre-internet. Used to be a total struggle to find out basic things from magazines and stuff. Now it's more "information overload".

anyway, I found some info on the script specs elsewhere:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=28461&start=15

plus I think I looked at the tonepad schematic as a reference also. The hard thing was finding a pot that has the same low profile. Been months since I messed w/my early Dunlop block(which I think is the same as original block). Last thing I remember was getting the impression that one needed to use cheap caps for the ceramics. Maybe the increased distortion somehow works better.

[Fret Wire]

It's amazing how much info is easily available now, compared to pre-internet. Used to be a total struggle to find out basic things from magazines and stuff. Now it's more "information overload".

Very true.  Also, alot more misinformation out there too, unfortunately. It seems the Phase 90 story won't be put to rest until at least four of the schematics are reliably traced out.
1. Script 90
2. Script 90 w/24k feedback resistor
3. Block 90 w/dual IC's
4. Dunlop Reissue 90

That gets a little expensive, especially with the first two. Then we can line them up, and really look at the differences. A "Technology of the Phase 90" if you will.

[Dai H.]

(sry, early Alzheimer's--can't remember specifics) :wink: but I think I also studied some board pics of a couple of early script 90s when trying to do the conversion. Hmm... you know I wonder if there is a difference in crosstalk from the single opamps vs. dual which contributes to some sort of diff. Some of the old ones had more carbon comps, but IMO they are not going to be particularly significant. Some of the caps, maybe since it seemed worse to me after subbing NP0 monolithic ceramics for the .047/.05s.

[Pedal love]

Had an old phase 100, twenty some odd years ago. It was script and sounded great. The only thing I can tell you is-(seriously) took off the back cover. The only thing different than 90% of non UK pedals was tropical fish capacitors. I think its the only mxr pedal, I know carried them.pl