Neovibe soundclips....

[SteveB]

Steve,

That really sounds fantastic, you nailed that Hendrix sound.
What design did you use , RG 's ? Don't know if there are any others around.
This will be my next project. What about the signal to noise level , is it  low noise ?
I'm asking because I have a H&K Rotosphere and that is a great sounding machine but rather noisy straight into an amp input.
I just printed the pcb, any additional mods you did ?

Thanks , Alf

Thanks! I don't know about nailing the tone, but I appreciate the kind words.
Yes, this one is version 1.0 from R.G.

Straight into my amp, it's not noisy, but when adding OD & fuzz pedals, it adds up. But you only hear it when the guitar volume is down. Not enough noise to detract while playing.

I did the usual mods, unity gain, & increased speed. You can find those if you do a search. I recently got a 100k reverse log taper pot from Small Bear, put it in Monday, & that makes a difference by spreading the speed evenly through out the knob range. I had been having a 12V 50mA bulb in there for over 10 years, & also changed it to a 12V 25mA. This also changed things a bit, & I had to adjust the bias pot to compensate. But, I think I like the 25mA bulb better. Just for kicks, I lowered the value of the 2 2.7k resistors even more, & the fast speed is now in the fast Leslie territory.

Steve

[Mark Hammer]

Aside from the decent playing, why does it sound so good to our ears?

One thing to remember about the Uni-Vibe is that, unlike a phaser, it introduces broad shallow notches instead of deep narrow ones.  When it is inserted ahead of a distortion device, what you end up with is a guitar signal that falls alternately just above and just below the clipping point at different points across the fretboard.  The result is that you get cyclical injection of more and less harmonics, so that what you hear is not just the subtractive effect of the Uni-vibe notches taking away content, but the additive effect of the signal being brought *up to* clipping level.  The end result of THAT is a very animated swirly sound whose very *lack* of focus makes it far more interesting to our ears than a more focused and intense phase shifter positioned after a distortion.

In some respects, because of this role, the most pleasing sounds from a Uni-Vibe often involve medium modulation speeds, rather than faster or slower ones.  When it gets too slow or too fast, one's attention shifts to the notches (when slow) or to the modulation itself (when fast).  When the modulation rate is in the middle, one's attention seems to shift to the "animation" of the tone as the amount of harmonic content seems to align and unalign with note and phrasing choices.  Ultimately, when it comes to modulation effects, the key to understanding them is often what happens to the listener's attention, rather than what the effect does to the waveform per se.

[joelap]

I hope my Easy Vibe sounds that good when I'm done with it.  Wow.  Excellent.

and Great post by Mark Hammer for all us "grasshoppers" out here.