Maestro fsh-1 build

[vacuumdust]

Well, I finished another one with a charge pump and again it whined at ticked.  Especially with a PN2222a as Q4.  I used bf244a's for the fet's and it works fine, just have to twist the leads for proper G,S,D pinout.  SO, I rewired it using 2 batteries for the bipolar power and it was dead silent...made me happy.  I wired the -9 and +9 leads to a DPDT switch and boxed it all up.  When I turned the power on after boxing it it whined again.  Frustrating to say the least.  Then I noticed that if I turned an effect on before it in the pedal chain the whining and ticking would go away.  I should mention that the whining and ticking is only present when the fsh-1 is in bypass...when engaged it functions perfectly without any unwanted noise.  SO, i'm thinking of building a simple buffer to put before it that's on all the time to "eat up" the noise.  Does anyone have an explanation why another pedal engaged before it takes away the noise?  And are there any other solutions besides the buffer?  Oh, the pcb is from GGG.
thanks

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

  Does anyone have an explanation why another pedal engaged before it takes away the noise? 

Well, it's a million to one shot.. but, it is possible that when the pedal before it is disengaged, the input to the FSH is floating around and has a fairly high impedance, so it is likely to pick up any local interference, maybe capacitatively from a wire or trace that has some charge pump noise on it.
And then when you connect an effect in front of it, the low impedance of that effect's output swamps the noise pickup.

It's the same as when you have a lead plugged into a guitar amp & it hums before you plug the other end into something.

[Pushtone]

Well, I finished another one with a charge pump and again it whined at ticked. 

I just finished and debugged the same GGG FSH-1A. 

It's a totally crazy effect, I love it!

No whine in my  fsh-1 and MX1044 charge pump combination.

I tried three different transistors for Q4.
I could get the same "no ticking" sound out of each by adjusting the trimmers that it sounds like the audio clips I've heard.
I can also make it tick by adjusting the trimmers. The effect becomes more extreme with the louder the ticking.

I think I'm going to change the trimmers to pots. Just for more fun.

At Q4:
An MSPA13 made strong rhythmic patterns with ticking that sounded kinda cool.

The 3904 did the best with trimmers adjusted close to their mean values. 
I had to try different manufacturers and batches until I found one that worked. Some did nothing, like the Fairchild ones from Mouser. 

The 2N2222 produced least amount of blipping and bleeping. No Sir, didn't like it.

I used BF245 as the parts lists suggests.

That whine in bypass is weird. Did you do the non-true bypass mod thats in the schematic?
Did you uses a MX1044 based PSU?
How did you ground the charge pump and PCB?
Did you mess with both trimmers?
Did you try shielded cable for the bypass path?

Dave

[GhengisJung]

I'm working on one of these now - I used the GGG board, none of the Tonda stuff, and plan on doing the charge pump, but just have two 9v in series for testing at this point.

My problem is that all I get when I engage the effect is a very significant drop in volume. I've done a continuity test around the entire board, and checked and re-checked my component values, and everything looks okay. I've thought it might be the transistors - I'm using BF245a (backwards), 2N3904, 2N3906, and 2N5172 (switched two pins because the pinouts were different than the MPS5172.)

Obviously I've made an error somewhere... 

Has anyone here had a similar problem with this effect?

[soggybag]

What's with the interest in the FSH-1? I just started working on two that I had built a few years ago and never quite got working. Is this a good effect for Spring? Seems winter is high gain Fuzz time.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Yeah spring is the time to skip around with all kinds random psychedelica madness.
The long winter nights are the time to hunker down in the lab and study the alchemical formulas of those who quest the Tone.

[WormBoy]

What's with the interest in the FSH-1? ... Is this a good effect for Spring?

Well, my guess would be that it is a typical effect to try to build in the long dark winter months. But, because it is such a pain to get it to work properly (especially to get the whine and ticking under control), it is already spring when they turn to the forums for help ... At least, that's the way it was for me  . On second thought, the nice chaotic s/h sounds give me a kind of springy feel ...

I had the same experience as the TS (Tonepad PCB, with all mods): whine and tick in bypass, which is solved when a buffered pedal is put in front. What worked for me is to use shielded wire for the stretches between the switch and the jacks. Whine in my case was caused by the noise transistor (most of the 2n2222's that I tried produced whine at different frequencies). Finally found one that was well-behaved. I 'cured' ticking in filter mode by shorting the LFO to ground, so now the ticking is only present in S/H mode, where its easy to live with (because it already makes such chaotic noises). There have been quite a number of threads in the past on these problems, and as far as I could see, the only real solution was to put the LFO and noise part on a different board, put lots of space between the components, and put this board far away from the rest of the circuit ...

[vacuumdust]

Old topic but interesting finds.  I have recently aced this build IMO.  No whining or ticking or need for a buffer.  PN2222A  for the noise transistor is THE ticket for endless fun...bring the trimmers out and there isn't a bad setting at any range on the pots.  I had the pedal open the other day and was looking for that whine when I realized my thumb on the 'trace' side of the pcb in a certain area could make the pitch of the whine go up or down depending on how hard I pressed...pretty cool.  I narrowed it down to pins 7 and 8  (I think... I don't have it in front of me at the moment) of the 741 that sits differently from the other 2 on the GGG pcb.  I forget what IC# that is at the moment.  I put a small value cap across those two pins and not only is there no whine at all, the randomness in SH mode seems to be improved.  If you're at your wits end over the whole noise issue, give this a try. 
   

[gigimarga]

Please, can anyone of you to help me posting the voltages of ICs and transistors?
I build one and i hate it because it's not working anyway ...i lost almost a week trying to debug it and no effect...look here if you want:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=67479.msg542479#msg542479

Thx a lot all!!!

[vacuumdust]

look at the schematic at General Guitar gadgets...
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/fsh1asc.gif
hope that helps...to hate a circuit from the bottom of your soul is pretty heavy!

[gigimarga]

I built the Tonepad's version...i don't understand why to look at the GGG's version...i think i need the voltages from a working one

What i wrote about hating this circuit was only a joke, but my English isn't very good

[gigimarga]

Nobody want to save my soul and mind?

[gigimarga]

Help me please!

[gigimarga]

 

[chemosis]

mine whines to in bypass. IS there anyway to lower the overall frequency range of the entire sound of the envelope filter side??? i love the envelope filter side and wish theere was a mod for the overall frequency. i want a lower low pass at times.

[blackieNYC]

Frikkin#€%£&@! FSH &%#£?!!  Dozens of transistors, trimpots spun back and forth over and over. And while it does function, there is this constant wine-cork-popping with the random LFO. I've heard the demos. Just can't get there. Takes me a year to summon the patience to try again.