Help beef up Arion delay pedal

[slackhammer]

I bought two Arion analog delay pedals from musician's friend for $20 each.  I want to get rid of the crappy plastic excuse for a case.  I would like to run them in series (?) in a new box with real jacks and switches, having them hard wired together.  I'm a novice, so please help me.  How do I desolder and reattach new jacks/switches etx.?

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=11695

[Fret Wire]

I was thinking the same thing. I have a Arion SAD-1 that I'm gonna put in a metal enclosure. Basically all you want is the pcb, and add your own pots, switch, and jacks. One box, two different delay settings. Nice idea.

BTW, is the SAD-3 really anolog delay? The Arion pedals are going so cheap right now, you almost can't pass them up for projects.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=040327152034069166032191358408/g=guitar/s=effects/search/b=1106

http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Arion/SAD_3-01.html

[Dan N]

The sad-3 is analog. It uses the MN3208. Half the time of the MN3205 in the sad-1.

Rehousing the two units should be an exercise in shoe horning. Those pcb's are kind of big. Be careful desoldering as the traces want to come off. If you drill the corners you could use standoffs for a bunk bed kind of deal that might be easier to handle and mount.

An option you may want to think about is using Scott Swartz's ad-3208 as an example of how to add an extra chip to one delay. A small pcb could be made with 5 resistors, 2 caps, and 2 trim pots.

Hmmm, 20 bucks for an mn3208, an mn3201, and an ne571 all wired together as a working delay. That's pretty cheap! Wish I had some extra dough!

I hope you will follow up and show us how it turns out!

Good luck!
Dan

Edit: Sorry. You can desolder with desolder braid or a solder sucker. Here's a thread with great desoldering advice:
http://diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=20106

[Paul Marossy]

If it were me, I wouldn't bother with trying to re-house the thing. I have an SAD-1 from the 80's and I can tell you that it would be a major pain. The input/output jack are soldered to the PCB, and the PCB itself is as big as the enclosure. I believe that the pots are also soldered to the board.

Bottom line is that I think that chances are really good that it could get ruined in the process, IMO. Those plastic cases are actually pretty tough, way better than what those cheapo Ibanez pedals use. But don't let that stop you, if you must.  :wink:

[Fret Wire]

The sad-3 is analog. It uses the MN3208. Half the time of the MN3205 in the sad-1.

You're right Dan, SAD-3 is anolog. SAD-1 uses the MN3205 and MN3102. As far as boxing it up goes, it would be easier than modding one. Not that reboxing would be easy. Not much room on the board to work. Lose the jacks and pots, and the board would be smaller than a Boss board. Not that anyone would want to do a pcb and build one from scratch.

Like Paul says, the jacks and pots are pcb mounted. You would have to desolder the jacks, pots, dc jack, switch, and led, and make them all off-board components. Remove the switching circuitry for true bypass. The pcb is already drilled. Still, easier than modding one. That board is tight. My SAD-1 is mint. I'd hate to gut it. I would do it to a couple of SAD-3's.

BTW Dan, Like I said in the thread you linked, I'd use a solder sucker for desoldering IC's. Braid takes longer, and increases the chance for heat damage. For all the rest of the components it's fine.

I'll take mine apart and take some hi-res photos and post em'.

[Fret Wire]

Come to think of it, I will leave my SAD-1 alone. But, a pair of SAD-3's for $40, I think I'm gonna try that :twisted:

I may pull the TA75558P on mine, socket it, and try a NE5532. Not much room to sub metal film caps for the electro's though. You'll see when I take the pics.

[slackhammer]

Please keep me posted.  I really would like to do this.  I also have no problem mounting them in a bigger box, so they don't have to be stacked.  I would rather take up a little extra real estate and have some extra room to work, since I"m a total novice.

Yes, $40 for two is unbelievable.  They actually sound really cool, and not just for the price.

[Fret Wire]

I took some pics, but wasnt satisfied with them. I'll take some tonight and post them. Did you get two SAD-3's yet? $14.95 for a stereo phaser! Too much! Like I said before, they're so cheap they beg to be projects.

[Mark Hammer]

I wish I could get such things shipped to Canada.  The Arion pedals that Musician's Friend has on sale now are ridiculously cheap and a fabulous deal for those interested in modding.

I forget whether it was in DEVICE or POLYPHONY, but someone way back when suggested to following means of making a pedal-board.  The author linked a bunch of MXR pedals to each other by taking out the input jack, pushing the collet of the output jack from the preceding pedal through the (now empty) hole and attaching it by threading a nut around it from the inside of the next pedal.  The lead going to the output jack of effect N now goes to the stompswitch of effect N+1.  Naturally, in the absence of a patch cord the battery would remain on all the time, so a power supply is called for.  I'm not sure how amenable to this the Arion pedals would be, but it would make for a sturdy arangement despite being a plastic case.

Rather than trying to extract the BBD from one and extend the delay of a single pedal, consider the benefits of two cascaded pedals.  First, you can have delayed slapback.  So, set delay 1 for a long delay, no feedback, and a wet-only output going to a second delay.  The second delay is set for a short delay with a bit of feedback.  This will yield a slapback sound but it doesn't follow the note immediately.

Cascading delays can also yield interesting reverb-like tones if you feedback the second delay to the input of the first one.  In other words, consider installing a toggle to reroute the feedback signal in the second one to the return point in the first one.  If you also insert a treble-cut switch in the second one so that longest delays are more muted, playing with the delay time and the relative feedback from each pedal will be able to simulate something much closer to natural reverb than what a standard individual analog delay can do.

[slackhammer]

this is all so over my head...but I love it.  I would love to see someone go through with this.  I actually ordered a third sad-3 from MF, just to experiment and/or backup if i mess something up.

My idea was to simply put them both in one box, side by side as two separate pedals and hard wire them (in mono), since I just use one amp anyways.

I would imagine the possiblities are endless and would love to see some photos.

[slackhammer]

also, would it be possible to power both via one 9v supply (batter or dc)?

[Fret Wire]

Wow Mark! As usual, very thorough and intense. More food for thought! Thanks.

Pete

[Mark Hammer]

I wouldn't want to rely on a single battery to power up the two pedals since these things can eat up a lot of current; your battery will die fast.  It is not at all unreasonable to power both with the same wallwart, provided it is well-regulated (hum times two is bad).  

You can buy or adapt a wallwart to "daisy chain" power to pedals.   Cut the wire of an existing wallwart about  8" or so from the end/plug (with the adapter fully drained, right?).  Buy yourself another plug of appropriate dimensions (most barrel-type adapter jacks want a 2.1mm plug.  Strip a bit of wire from the free end of the part you cut off and run it through the plastic housing of the new plug so that the ends of the wire from the wallwart and the severed piece are soldered to the same terminals on the new plug.  The positive should be on the outside or shaft connection (most wallwarts indicate positive power on the wire with a white stripe) and ground should be on the inner conductor of the plug.  Once completed, you can plug the two barrelconnectors into the back of the pedals, plug the wallwart in and away you go.

As for my musing about cascading delays, there is nothing terribly exotic about what is technically required.  A simple toggle and patch-over arrangement (e.g., either wire running through the two cases, or a mini phone jack on each with a small patch cable) would do it.  Regeneration/feedback, typically comes back to an op-amp-based mixing stage.  Although it normally only gets two (regen plus input signal) that mixing stage doesn't really care how many inputs it receives for the purposes of blending.  So, redirecting the regen signal from the input of the mixing stage on delay 2 to the input stage on delay 1 should simply be a matter of rerouting a wire.  The only thing I could see buggering it up would be if somehow the output of these pedals was inverted, relative to the input.

I tried to work this out, and did some of the math, but you can do it too.  Imagine you had two or even 3 delays with individually adjustable delay time and the capacity to a) send a feedback signal to somewhere other than their own input, and b) send an output signal down the line to a mixing stage.  Now assign them all some arbitrary delay time and add up all those combined delays, and you start to approximate what happens with natural reverberation.

So, if you have pedal 1 and 2, a capacity to send the feedback from pedal 2 back to pedal 1, and a 3-input mixer that can take the straight signal from pedal 1, the delay signal from pedal 1 and the delay signal from pedal 2, and mix them down to a mono signal.  Let's give pedal 1 a delay time of  80msec and pedal 2 a delay time of 175msec.  Without any feedback at all, what reaches the mixer is a signal of 0msec, 80msec and 255msec (80+175msec) delay.  Okay, now just enough of pedal 1 to produce a second repeat back to itself, and the same amount of pedal 2 back to pedal 1.  We now have, in addition to an 80msec and 255msec delay, repeats at 160msec (80+80), and 335msec (80+80+175).  Only one of these is a multiple of any other (80 and 160).  The rest are not mathematically or harmonically related, which is good for reverb simulation.

There are all sorts of possibilities when you consider the combinations of delay times and regeneration amounts. I'm sure you get the picture.  It should be simple for us to collectively find the tap and insertion points.

[bwanasonic]

How abot using an external box ala Total Sonic Anihlation for the regeneration control between two delays? I already have a couple of delays, and am getting an SAD-3, but I'd rather keep them whole.

Kerry M

[ExpAnonColin]

I'm surprised it's not a BL3208...

-Colin

[Dan N]

Damn Mark! Cool ideas! Hee hee, of course I'll have to read it a few more times!

Fret Wire, yea, best to leave the sad-1 alone. Those things have developed a real mojo and are increasing in value. And as Paul said, the plastic cases do hold up just fine! If you are interested, Colin has a schematic in his files that I cobbled together, plus a board layout.

Colin, me too! Someone on HC said his had the MN. I don't know how old his was...

[Fret Wire]

If you are interested, Colin has a schematic in his files that I cobbled together, plus a board layout.
Colin, me too! Someone on HC said his had the MN. I don't know how old his was...

Sure Dan, I'd love a schematic. Mine (SAD-1) has the MN 3205 & MN3102. You're right, even though it's plastic, it's so clean, I can't gut it out.

Mark has given me alot to think about. One of the things I was thinking about was the stereo switch. Seems like three choices for stereo switching: mini toggle for each delay, foot switch for each delay (don't know if you would need that on the fly), or like the input jack, a stereo out jack to switch the stereo on simultaneously for  both delays. Choice three doesn't sound too bright though. :roll:

One thing I've been having a riot doing with the SAD-1 is mixing different effects on two amps with the stereo output. Clean with dist. on the stereo, dist. on both, dist. on main fuzz on stereo amp, phaser, chorus, wah, and combo's of all.  You get the picture. I was doing this on two champs set identical. I can blow a whole day doing that. Add in Marks ideas, and there's no end.

[slackhammer]

What's the difference between the sad-1 and sad-3?

Also, is this project to much of an undertaking for a beginner?

[ampguy]

here is a long clip of playing through this analog delay with the settings on about 2 o'clock on each of the 3 knobs:

http://www.demoyourtrax.com/~purpletele/mp3s/bow20040326.mp3