a new approach to fake leslie

[DougH]

i still like the idea of the 'beauty is in the transition between fast and slow"

I agree with that. When I've done B3 parts with my HOG and Rotomachine a lot of the fun seems to be in the transition. Kick the speed down and before it slows all the way you kick it back up and so forth. That's where I really start hearing "organ harmonics" and so forth. Keeps your foot busy, but it's fun.

[joegagan]

ya.
my b3 guru, who i have played with on and off since 1978 is gregg woodfin. a real b3 guy, plays the crap outta it and services them himself too.

i have a mental picture of him rockin his organ bench back and forth, pounding the keys and CONSTANTLY flippin that damn leslie switch.

[joegagan]

 i thought of a way for anyone interested in hearing gregg, he takes a solo at 24 -36 bars in on our old song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Gj9nyo4Bg

[Nasse]

I have been thinkin about electro-mechanical wheel, that rotates and slows and speeds up similar way than real thing, perhaps more. Some leds and ldrs and something between totally clear and totally black between each led and ldr.

[foxfire]

I have been thinkin about electro-mechanical wheel, that rotates and slows and speeds up similar way than real thing, perhaps more. Some leds and ldrs and something between totally clear and totally black between each led and ldr.

i was thinking about putting a little fan between a led and a ldr. haven't tried it but it seem like it wouldn't take too much to make it work. rylan

[joegagan]

rylan, that is a cool idea. the fan could be mini mini micro super small huh?

nasse, i like that idea too.

you could spin a little wheel with slots, hmm that's cool

[petemoore]

  It doesn't take much work.
  And the taper of the ramps are easy to work with, it allows speed gearing 1:3, 1:1, 1:4 and 1:2 with a constant rotation speed..the limitations of the LDR being the one that gets in the way.
  ____ _____ ___ [IRC] claimed this as his own, soon after I typed about it...way back when.
  At any rate he...Ran with it and made a fancy unit with nice looks, documentation, pics, advertisment as the 'inventor', and dissed me for talking about his 'invention'...lol.
  And I made a simple prototype 'dark-to-light wheel' LED/LDR tremolo, very rough and ugly...it worked fine as expected...was easy to make.
  ...and could be mass produce fairly cheep, cool featured, 'pretty'...but '-'...having mechanicals.
 I have discovered other things even more difficult yet purported to be very desirable [in my own mind. ].
 

[foxfire]

rylan, that is a cool idea. the fan could be mini mini micro super small huh?

nasse, i like that idea too.

you could spin a little wheel with slots, hmm that's cool

and like Pete you could cut your own wheel/blades and see what different shapes do to the sound. seems like it would make for a fun weekend if nothing else. rylan

[Nasse]

I could do some photoshopping or some other graphics program and try to print a test sheet of gray shades strips on laser printer/copier overhead film, to see if it is possible at all. I have a mains powered disco ball motor for testing (can not do fast/slow/stop/start thing),  perhaps 2 rpm or something. And few big cheapish ldrs, the shopkeeper said those have large resistance range dark/light. Just can not remember what would be the lfo range needed.

If this works, you could have lfo with few outputs, say double/half speed, and perhaps useful phase difference between some outputs (if it is needed), and they will be synchronized if they are taken from same wheel.

[petemoore]

  Good idea to run with and actually pretty obvious...
  I'm sure someone has thought of this before...just that it gets really 'gangly' [or necessarily would have] or expensive to mass produce...then you got your moving parts 'n such...kinda 'dirty' compared to electronic circuitry.
  And it's not too bad either way, except the vibe of ''yours never was, at least not before the 'inventors''..as far as using the idea..that's what I typed about it for...use it !!
  Offset bulb and LDR options are small addendums to the basic spinning wheel challenge..get fancy and have the wheel have inside And outside sensor positions, the inside with fewer light holes in the wheel [=slow] the outside of the wheel having more openings would = more on/offs per revolution.
  Figure it's worth it, while your at all the rest...ie getting a wheel with close enough but not touching tolerances, a drive system sufficiently independant from the circuits to be quiet, compact would be cool but you probably won't find the parts for that in your junk bin 

[DougH]

Old thread revival...

Joe, have you seen this?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/MXR-CSP001-Variphase-Pedal?sku=151123

I've got a phase 90 on the breadboard right now and I'm thinking I *might* get one of Steve's wah shells and try this- if I can get a reverse log taper 500k that will work with the gearing and etc.

Of course, another thing that occured to me was just to get one of those MXR rubber knobs and call it a day.

[joegagan]

no, but that was a good call for dunlop. they already had everything they need in their parts bins to make it.
wonder if anyone will buy them?

(look for the musician's friend variphase blowout sale in 4 to 8 months)

[c.wright]

no, but that was a good call for dunlop. they already had everything they need in their parts bins to make it.
wonder if anyone will buy them?

(look for the musician's friend variphase blowout sale in 4 to 8 months)

Heh. Just got one on MF... blowout... at $99.... are you psychic, or do you work there? jest kidding, I know who you are.

It's pretty darn cool, I've been lusting after them since they first came out, but couldn't bear to spend the $200+ they wanted.

Anyway, it's a good thing I've been lurking in these forums and doing my own half-a$$ed builds, because it arrived UNBIASED (er, izzat the right term?), and basically did nothing but boost the volume. Since I'd already torn it open for a gut-shot before i plugged it in, I knew there were trim-pots just begging to be tweaked.

Half a spin later I had sea-sickening phase.

There is a shallow/deep switch accessible via the battery door, which i think I'll get rid of and do a run to the unused toe-switch postion.

Hope this isn't too off topic. - And man, do I love this forum!!!!

[DougH]

Wow, nice score! I would have picked that up for that price if I had known about it. (I get so much junk email from MF, I'm surprised I didn't see it, oh well...) Too bad they're all gone now. Tell me, is the circuit SMD or discrete components? Just wondering how "mod-able" it might be for removing the feedback resistor and etc.

Anyway, in the meantime I got a Phase90 PCB from Tonepad and I must say that Francisco does stellar work. This board is beautiful.  My box is finished and I'm almost done populating the PCB. Should have it up and running in a day or two. I got an MXR knob and toe twiddler from Steve- I'll see how that works for real-time speed control. (Haven't tried that with my Phase100 yet.)

[petemoore]

  Yupp. I avoided voiding the warranty for too long on a factory phaser, I wanted to diddle with the bias trim.
  Then I just had to, and did.
  That took it from the tepid 'whi - whi' of the sweep it had, to nice, normal thickness vibe-tones, full sweepage tone, it had previously been kicked off the pedalboard for being all wimpy..

[Mark Hammer]

I picked up a sucky little Rocktek Phaser, and naturally had to turn the bias trimpot into a chassis mount control.  Much like the tuning trimpot on a Doctor Q, it isn't useful over its entire range, but the 40% where it is useful can produce a really pleasing variety of sounds, from gurgly throaty phasing to lighter swirly stuff suitable for clean rhythm guitar.

[DougH]

I was thinking of trying this with my Phase 100 but:

a) I don't think it has a bias trim, according to the ggg schem- just a "center freq" trim.
b) Everything's PCB-mounted and I don't feel like dismantling the whole thing and risking messing it up.
c) It really sounds *really* good as is.

So... If it ain't broke I shouldn't "fix" it. It's just this damn curiosity I have...

[c.wright]

Wow, nice score! I would have picked that up for that price if I had known about it. (I get so much junk email from MF, I'm surprised I didn't see it, oh well...) Too bad they're all gone now. Tell me, is the circuit SMD or discrete components? Just wondering how "mod-able" it might be for removing the feedback resistor and etc.

It was dumb luck that I stumbled on it at the clearance price - I was shocked to see they were out of stock the day after mine showed up in the mail.

Yep, all SMD except for some bigger components of course - I can post a gut shot if anyone cares to see -

It seems to have gotten almost universally bad reviews but I've been getting a huge kick out of it - just takes a bit more thought than a wah to control -
A real SHAME you couldn't somehow switch between controlling speed of phase and controlling actual phase itself...  I have an old chrome Morley that does something like that and it's totally sick. Unfortunately it's also the size of a breadbox.