gotta "experience" pedal....

[pinkjimiphoton]

does anyone want me to try and take some gut shots? is this thing worth tracing?
i've read it was the leo fuzz crossed with a foxx tone machine, but didn't know if while i've got it open anyone wants any gutshots or anything.

at least two of the 4 pots are snapped off up by the casing (yet still holding together) and at least 2 of the 3904's are squashed and shorted together, so should be a relatively easy fix.

gotta find some look-alike knobs, too...

did anyone ever actually trace or verify the entire circuit on this? all i've found is a couple schematics that are supposed to "go together"...

if it's something someone wants to see, i'll borrow my girl's phone and try and get some detailed shots, and/or verify any suspect components.

peace!

[rousejeremy]

I'm kinda surprised nobody has ever made a vero of it, even if it is just a couple different circuits crammed together. I have one and love it.

[R.G.]

i've read it was the leo fuzz crossed with a foxx tone machine, but didn't know if while i've got it open anyone wants any gutshots or anything.
...
did anyone ever actually trace or verify the entire circuit on this? all i've found is a couple schematics that are supposed to "go together"...

I traced it back in the 90s. It's a Foxx Tone Machine attached to an A.Leo Fuzz, with DC, not AC coupling. The DC coupling makes the Leo Fuzz un-bias to non-conduction when the signal dies out.

I have the original tech stuff somewhere. I sold layouts and PCBs for it back in the dark ages before 90% of the modern boutiquers were born. 

The funny thing is that the swell function only worked with an immaculately fresh battery, over 9.2v as I remember. I offered my redesign to Prescription for free to fix this, but they weren't interested. Shrug.

It's well known, except for any changes they made after I traced it.

[pinkjimiphoton]

RG,
does dc coupled mean that you don't use a blocking cap between the fuzz and the swell circuit?

a/c coupling is when you use a blocking cap for dc to only let the "audio" superimposed on the dc ?

sorry if it's a dumb question, but i just want to clarify.

if you still have any boards for these kicking around, i'd love to buy one... i basically just bought this cuz it was cheap so i could fix it and flip it.

also, it only "swells" on tube amps, doesn't it?  i seem to remember reading that somewhere...

i just figured i'd offer, as i haven't seen a "complete" schematic for it, even surfing the wayback... i always find justin p's schematic for the fox tone machine, and then the leo fuzz, never the complete unit.

if you still have your schematic and don't mind sharing, i would LOVE to see it... i know it's lame to ask, but it's still easier some times for a noob like me to see the whole thing rather than trying to figure it out..  just for making sense of it. if not, no worries.

thanks for the insites!

gonna go start working on it in a few, soon as 60 minutes is done.

[R.G.]

I'll go see what I can dig out of the archives. A quick look at the on-line schemos didn't turn it up. It's likely been retired to a backup somewhere.

Yeah, there was no DC blocking cap between the fuzz and swell. As I remember, the FTM was first, the A. Leo was second, and there was no DC blocking cap, so the Leo fuzz was biased off. It's a vague memory.

I'll go look. Of course, you could take the FTM and A.Leo fuzzes and trace it out pretty quickly. As I remember the worst thing was the rat's nest of wiring to footswitches.

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks RG, i really appreciate it man.

this one all the switches and stuff are mounted on the board itself... it's a broken pedal waiting to happen.

thanks for the clarification...very appreciated!!

[rousejeremy]

Besides needing a fresh power supply I have read that it also works better with a tube amp for some reason.

[R.G.]

Besides needing a fresh power supply I have read that it also works better with a tube amp for some reason.

OK, more bits come back to me as you post things.

Yes - as I recall, it may have been a lack of a DC blocking cap on the output of the whole mess that biased a direct-coupled tube amp off. Dang, it's been a long time.

I'll see if I can find some of the original stuff. I don't usually throw stuff away once it's in information form.

[R.G.]

I found a layout for the experience pedal that I did back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but not the schemo tracings yet. I think this may have been before I started keeping schemos as drawings on the computer. I'm fairly certain it was before there was a world wide web, and likely before the public was let onto the internet.

Still looking. Pedal archeology. 

[pinkjimiphoton]

when i was a "vst-ologist" figuring out how to hack the internet archive to retrieve lost stuff, we coined the term "spelunking".... crawling into the past in search of lost gems.

thanks for becoming a schematic spelunker!!

if you want, i can try and wayback GEO and look... i've been thru your site there before and found some cool archaics, that i added to the effects folder (presently being checked for clones)

if you'd still (ot) be interested in getting a copy of my archive, RG, we can set up an FTP or i can send you an external hard drive or something... that's probably the easiest way.

[R.G.]

OK, found it. The swell effect was on the output to the amp, and depended on biasing the input tube off. This did not work right with (1) non-tube amps (2) tube amps with an input cap and (3) less than perfect battery voltage.

[pinkjimiphoton]

awesome, thanks so much RG.... one more for the archive.

i finally gave up and set it to delete duplicates automatically, doing it by hand took 3 hours and i never made it above 2% of the archive.

my finger hurts!!

[rousejeremy]

I get a headache every time I look at that switching

[digi2t]

Just found this;

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=80966.0

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks dino!!

jeremy, it's not that bad on this thing, as all three footswitches and all pots are board mounted.

i'm gonna try and scan the bottom of the board, and get some good pics of the top.

this would be a totally easy doable project as a 1:1 clone... all easy to get stuff, and mounting everything to the board will simplify it a lot.

[armdnrdy]

I had never heard one of these in action so I took a look on youtube. Not bad.

My only complaint about the original is no overall effect bypass for the whole lot.

Easy enough for a work alike build.

Nevermind.
I just looked at the schematic and it looks like the Fuzz switch is the overall bypass switch between the three effects and the straight guitar signal.

[pinkjimiphoton]

yeah, larry, it's fuzz on/ off or octave and boost... may be fuzz and octave, i dunno, still trying to get to my workbench..

[pinkjimiphoton]

i got the circuit working. someone had tried to replace the octave switch with a momentary dpdt and had broken the traces on the top of the board.

so i had to order some parts.... should have it alive and well soon. from what i could hear of it, sounded pretty good

[Mustachio]

Nice stuff guys I missed this thread yesterday. I built a foxx tone machine a month or so ago and loved it! Started modding it and ran across the experience pedal and the leo fuzz swell , in fact I've had Jermeys layout on breadboard for weeks!

Very cool stuff, thanks for the schematic RG! I had the other layouts dino posted and maybe a few others I found online. I'll add this one to the collection.

I started drawing a new pcb of the FTM with the swell recently, was planing on using some of the mods that the ultimate octave has. But I have a ton of work to do before I get it done. Once I get it done and tested ill post it up

[pinkjimiphoton]

cool! i look forward to getting it working. i was gonna flip it, but thinking i may keep it instead if i like it when it's done.