Jen HF Modulator....what a disappointment

[Rodgre]

I finally got around to breadboarding the Jen HF Modulator. I've wanted to build the circuit, sound unheard, for years and years. I love things like ring modulators and extreme fuzzes, and from the looks of these pedals, I was just dying to hear it.

So I built up the circuit. I assume I built it correctly. The result was a very mild ring-mod-ish effect that wasn't extreme enough to even be sure that it was working correctly. It sounded sort of like an amp with a very bad cap in the power supply which hummed in the background, and gave an inharmonic overtone to what I played. Again, not extreme enough to really be like a ring modulator, but a similar effect.

Has anyone else built it and gotten anything else more interesting out of it? Anyone tried an original? Is that really what it sounds like?

I guess I was thinking that it was more like a subtle phasor/vibrato effect. For some reason I kept thinking that it would give me the chewy vibrato effect of what I always assumed was a Synthi Hi-Fli on the guitar solo on Pink Floyd's "Any Colour You Like," but that's another story for another thread.

Roger

[Wounded Paw]

tried it and came up with just about the same exact opinion as you.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Looking at the circuit I have (not sure where it came from), I would expect this to behave just as has been described by Roger & Wounded Paw.
Does anyone like it at all?

[Mark Hammer]

You know, it's funny how we evaluate effects here sometimes, by ignoring the historical context in which they occurred.  Ask yourself, just exactly how many effects of any given category have been produced and sold since the mid-1960s.  Now ask yourself whether the sounds obtainable from those individual types of effects have gotten more intense or outlandish as time went on.  Now ask yourself whether the expectations you have for an effect, that is the aspects that will "blow you away", might be different if you are trying something out in a music store in 1967, 1977, 1987, 1997, or 2007.

Of course, a lot of "vintage" effects will tend to disappoint, whether they are clones or originals.  Part of the disappointment will be because quality control 30 or 40 years ago was not what it is now and the examples you heard on record and identify with that effect were likely rare good examples of production pedals where all the component values (within their respective tolerances) cooperated in some magical way.  Take the same schematic and maybe what you build results in a slight variation that doesn't hit the nail on the head.  Another part of the disappointment will be because the legend of any given vintage pedal stems from examples of recorded music, with all the engineering, post-production tricks and sweetening that could be applied, rather than from the way it sounded live at a gig.  Another part may be because the pedal was being used in a specific context or abused in a certain way, and the pedal itself actually does nothing like that without those other things in place.  There is always the possibility that it used some sort of component that can no longer be easily obtained with the same special specs. 

And finally, as suggested above, "legendary" status is partly a function of how different or distinctive something was felt to be when it came out; but distinctiveness is a function of what else there is to be compared to.  When the E-H Muff Fuzz came out, there wasn't a whole lot else on the market in North America (at least in any wide distribution with national advertising), and we thought it was pretty good.  From today's perspective, it's a piece of crap and not a particularly desirable distortion unit except to collectors who want "the complete set" of things.  Same thing for some of those Maestro things.  Perhaps that Maestro Fuzz sounded great in "Satisfaction", mixed in with everything else, when few pop hits had a fuzz in them, but if you tried to gig with one in 1972, you'd be more inclined to turn it off and turn on your Big Muff.

[RickL]

Are you sure you built the corrected version of this? It was one of the first effects I ever built and I was never sure it was working correctly. A year or so ago a corrected schematic was published (Jack Orman maybe?). I modified mine and it made a huge difference.

It's not subtle by any means. I'm sorry I can't point you to the corrected version or even find my copy. I moved houses about a month ago and I'll be spending the next several months digging through boxes trying to find stuff.

[Wild Zebra]

   I built this as one of my first projects.  I had the same results.  I always hoped to fix it one day, I just figured maybe the layout or schem was wrong but didn't have the no how at the time.  If the corrected schem pops up I'd love to give this another try.

[analogguru]

http://analogguru.an.ohost.de/193/schematics/Jen_HF-Modulator.gif

[col]

Mine was the same as well. I reclaimed most of the parts as I was so disappointed with it. I might have to try it again sometime though with the corrected schematic.