Tonebender MK1

[pauldumbell]

So,
I by no means think that I am an expert on anything except determination. I am posting this only as a consolidation of information that I have been told, read or tried while on my search to get a tonebender mk1 that I thought was satisfactory. Now, my opinion of satisfactory doesn't amount to jack squat, but here is what I did, and it worked for me. I followed the original schematic to the letter except for a few things.
First off. Breadboard this one or you will suffer like no one has suffered before.
second, the breadboard is noisy with this circuit, so biasing it sucks. So I didnt even try with swapping the 8.2k resitors.
third, you need leaky transistors.
fourth, not all germaniums are created equal..3 and 4 lead to number five here.
Fifth. If they don't leak enough, fake it. I chucked a 200k resistor across the base and collector of q1 and q2 and 100k across q3 (this is no exact science here I suppose). worked like a charm.
HFE..40 on q1 126 on q2 and 90ish on q3. All my germaniums weren't really leaky enough to give this circuit the oooomph that it needed, and the ones i has that were leaky, were too dang leaky. I really spent tons of time nerding out on this, and I am guessing that you can use this same shebang to fake leakage on silicone as well, although I didnt try it, I already was buttoning this up when the thought came to me. drat.
I just took a piece of plexiglass, drilled some holes in it and made it as it was in the days of yore. point to point. Sounds pretty mean.
put a 50k pot on the input to make it more tameable. sounds good on all settings.

so, that is my little accomplishment from the last 2 weeks of tweaking. thought maybe this info could help someone, or someone else might want to punch me for not making it to the letter.
rock and roll.
Paul

[Dingus]

Put a demo up man!

[pauldumbell]

doing it tomorrow!

[pauldumbell]

http://youtu.be/XUeMKH_U2ME
tonebender in action in a punk club in Lyon France. Pretty noisy down there, but you catch the drift. Im the bonehead with the white guitar( made3 by a french company called custom 77). Its holding up in the most sweaty beer soaked conditions. 2 weeks into tour and still blasting!
Cheers
Paul

[pauldumbell]

cant figger out how to embed the link...oh well

[LucifersTrip]

[pauldumbell]

Thanks pal! Greetings from somewhere in Italy!
Paul

[chromesphere]

Nice info Paul.  Can I ask, what leakages did you find too low and too high?  Purely out of curiosity!
Cheers,
paul

[Merman]

That sounds great! Suits your band too, that looks like a fun show! I hope you'll post a gut shot, from the description I bet it looks awesome

I'm excited to post about the latest one I made, but I'm not too familiar with forum etiquette. Should I post in here because it's related, or start a new thread to avoid taking up a gob of space on this one?

[fuzzymuff]

http://youtu.be/XUeMKH_U2ME
tonebender in action in a punk club in Lyon France. Pretty noisy down there, but you catch the drift. Im the bonehead with the white guitar( made3 by a french company called custom 77). Its holding up in the most sweaty beer soaked conditions. 2 weeks into tour and still blasting!
Cheers
Paul

Cool band, like playing small clubs like that.  Your band reminds me of the late 70s and early 80s punk sound.

[Merman]

Ok so here's the latest one I did as a loaner for a friend to use at his bands cd release show while I work on his more customized version:



Short notice forced me to work quickly (for once), so aside from painting I got it done overnight (Sunday night). I think the kick in the pants was good for me. Q1 hfe 72 leak 220ua, Q2 hfe 126 leak ~ 40ua, Q3 hfe 80 leak ~ 40ua. 2n404s (fuzzface matched set from small bear). You'll notice this is with the 180k to q2 base - haven't tried anything with such low leakage with a 470k.

We'll see if that works. Supposed to be a clip from the show. Here's the link just in case http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKAXxDb-KuA&sns=em

So the fuzz is on throughout that song (he was nice to give me a heads up), and before the show he mentioned he was "boosting it with a compressor". Found out I could go up to around hfe 85 for Q1 and it isn't too noisy, but this is still with very low leakage q2/3 and it does change frequency response a bit. So I have some options for him tomorrow when I bring the breadboard and stuff to his place and we'll figure out what he likes best I'll try to do a sound clip of the one in the pic but without the compressor when I get it back, or I can use one of the other finished ones I have sitting around. For one of them I tried playing with resistor values parallel to the attack pot, like in the Hurst schem and as LucifersTrip said he often does. That was also with the 180k, and I settled on a 15k in parallel with attack - was a nice way to get the wide range of sounds those transistors had going for them, without it being too extremely touchy early on.

Oh yeah, try going 50% higher with the non-electrolytic caps. And start with the one after q2! Muahaha Do it up on breadboard first, and what pauldumbell said about it being noisier there is super true - so if you're going for a certain amount of sizzle just aim a little higher for that and it should work out fine. This fuzz seems to give back what you put into it in terms of time/attention, so it's fun! If it's harsh and screechy no matter what you do, check that it's grounded properly. Just started using a drilled enclosure I had laying around as a kinda cruddy breakout box, seemed to quiet those particular noises from happening occasionally. The battery can also change the sound quite a bit as it does that weird carbon zinc sag thing.

[Arcane Analog]

It would be swell to have demos where you could hear the qualities of the pedals better.

[Merman]

Yeah I hear ya - I do have some gear for recording, but would take some time to set it up. So maybe once I have a little more time. But I think a phone recording in my little work room could give a decent idea, might be able to get one of those up pretty soon The demo of your mki (is it on your website?) is great!

[Arcane Analog]

My "demos" are pretty LoFi. Just short clips from my phone. I fire them up on YouTube once in a while but like you time is always an issue. I barely have time to build them.

[pauldumbell]

great info mernan!

[Merman]

Thanks Paul! Was nice to see your persistence pay off in your build, and you were able to get just the right sound to use with your band - that's just awesome!

Arcane - yeah, I'm guessing you are a pretty busy guy these days! I didn't realize some of yours were phone demos... guess these phone mics must be getting a lot better.

Well, here's a phone recording of that one with the 15k across the attack pot. My fiancé and I had just gotten back from the store with stuff for dinner, and it's like 35 degrees F outside. So there's some audible evidence of my frustration with my sloppy noodling, should be good for a laugh Didn't change the settings much, maybe pulled the attack knob back from full to around half for a bit somewhere. Mostly it's volume around half, attack around full. Just got this done before the 10 PM cutoff for making noise in my apt complex lol.

[Arcane Analog]

Nice crackle-gate on that one.

[Bieling3]

Bookmarked for future build. Good stuff.

[Arcane Analog]

I didn't realize some of yours were phone demos... guess these phone mics must be getting a lot better.

As long as the volume is decent and not destroying the mic my phone does a serviceable job. A few are done on my hand-held video recorder but it's camera cannot touch my phone and the mic is only slightly better than my phone's mic.

[Merman]

Ah. Yeah, I was kinda assuming mine wouldn't handle much volume until you mentioned yours were generally phone demos. So that was a very helpful thing to know and I appreciate it I do want to get my little budget friendly daw setup going again, but it's nice to know the quick and dirty way can give a very reasonable representation. I should probably involve actual visuals sometime too, instead of the Ranger Rick style "what is pictured in this highly magnified photograph" puzzle lol.

Oh, and thanks for the nice feedback on the fuzz! That one has an OC75 and cv7003s. It's crusty lol