Wyllie Moonrock

[Kipper4]

Inductor?
What s this witchcraft you speak of?

Maybe I could try waiting until your done messing with it.
Hhhhhmmm

[digi2t]

Here's my vero take on the Cozybuilder Moon Stone...

[RRJackson]

Here's my vero take on the Cozybuilder Moon Stone...

That's really nice. If you ever decide to do a turret board layout of that I might have to erect a shrine to you!

-Rob

[digi2t]

Sorry folks, disregard the last vero I put out. There was a snafu with one of the ground jumpers, and I didn't catch it until the build tonight.

Here is the corrected, and verified, version.



Hen's Tooth Cafe episode coming soon. Maybe tomorrow.

[Cozybuilder]

Dino-
Nice job on the vero layout! I was hoping someone would try this out, and I'm really looking forward to hearing your Hen's Tooth Cafe upload.
Cheers,
Russ

[digi2t]

Thanks man, but more thanks to you for creating the work-a-like circuit. Your call on the Log 1M pot for the fuzz control is spot on. At dead center, it's the most fuzzy, with one side going for upper octave meltdown, and the other side going into tsunami swell territory.

I found that transistor choice can really affect the character of this circuit. As the original, two identical transistors in the Q1/Q3 spot is ideal, no matter what you choose to use. As for Q2, going higher than, or lower than, gain of the two others is what makes a big difference. The real impact here is on compression, and octave presentation. With the transistors mentioned on my vero, this thing is an octave monster. It's the pissed off love child of a Foxx Tone Machine, and a Superfuzz. At the octave side of the dial, pickup selection, or tone knob position, seems to be a moot point. It just doesn't give a shit. It just screams octave, and big chords have that classic Sperfuzz "clang" to them. The 2N3700's are rated at 100-300 hFe, while the BC547B sits at 200-450 hFe. Using the 547's in Q1/Q3, and a 2N3700 in Q2, gives more of a compressed, hissier, fuzz feel, with a bit less octave scream. The inverse (like my vero), give a more open fuzz, and more octave scream, especially blooming in the decay. That was my choice. I soldered in sockets, and went through an auditioning process. Once I was happy, I soldered the transistors of choice to the sockets. I tried 2N3904, 2N5088, 2N2222, and even 2N5306's, before settling on the set I have in there now. Feel free to experiment, YMMV.



(The paralleled resistors in the middle are a 150K/1M combo, to make 130K. I didn't have any!! )

The middle of the dial, is where the most.... modest?... fuzz is to be found. It's actually a very tight sweet spot, but it's there.

The opposite side starts getting into swell territory. The settings here are very dependant on how hot your pickups are, and how hard your strumming. You need to be consistant on your attack for it to cooperate fully, but fun nonetheless.

One thing for certain, in any mode, it's VERY sensitive to the guitars controls input. More so than any other circuit I've ever encountered. Nudging the volume a smidgen can take you from a gentle overdrive to "screaming like your hair's on fire" octave in a heartbeat. It's nuts!

Anyway, the wifeypoo and I have some erands to run this morning, so I'll be boxing this later today. I should be able to get a video out by tonight. 

[digi2t]

It's done. I almost screwed the pooch on this one, underestimating the enclosure size. In the end, I had to grind the jacks a touch, and all was well. Still, it was a tight fit with the 16mm pots. 9mm's would have allowed me a bit more room for the jacks.







And... as promised, the customary HTC episode.

Does it sound exactly like the Moonrock? At this point, who gives a shit, this sounds pretty grand to me. Thanks a bunch once again to Russ for his work on this.

[Cozybuilder]

Dino-
Good call on the Q2 transistor, a higher Hfe then the 2N3904 makes a significant difference in the response of the Octave/Fuzz/Swell pot. After reading your posting, I tried various transistors in Q1 & Q3 and couldn't hear a difference, but Q2- wow! With a 2N5089 there was octave all across the pot, with a 2N5088 it was less, more of a hint of octave where before it was pure fuzz, BC547C responded like the 2N5089, while BC547B was more like the 2N5088. I had looked at the PCB pinout requirement for Q2, and assumed the transistor was chosen for that, and didn't look into the amplification characteristics, sure glad you did!

[greymedicine]

Sounds really good, might need to order a transformer or two 

[DougH]

Wow, sounds really good. I love how it responds to guitar volume control dynamics.

[Kipper4]

Thats so cool Din and Russ. Good job.

[3onthetree]

Fantastic work! Well, I've wanted one of these for a while and found one Monday and purchased it. My Christmas present to myself! Should be here tomorrow. I will compare it to your fine work. I had planned on trying to build a clone anyway and still plan to do it this winter. I wonder what it would take to make this into a New Moon? That would probably be the next challenge for me since this is more than likely 95% of the original. The New Moon is the same circuit but separate controls for drive, swell and tone. Also has 2 switches drive & sustain. Really wish I would have connected with Glen when I had the chance.

[digi2t]

Fantastic work! Well, I've wanted one of these for a while and found one Monday and purchased it. My Christmas present to myself! Should be here tomorrow. I will compare it to your fine work. I had planned on trying to build a clone anyway and still plan to do it this winter. I wonder what it would take to make this into a New Moon? That would probably be the next challenge for me since this is more than likely 95% of the original. The New Moon is the same circuit but separate controls for drive, swell and tone. Also has 2 switches drive & sustain. Really wish I would have connected with Glen when I had the chance.

Well DANG!! Hope you'd be interested at looking at yours, and comparing it to the original traces. As far as I could see, this one seems to be the closest to the gutshots;



R14 is in the wrong place in this schematic (should be directly above D9), but everything else seems to line up with the pictures. Transistor voltages would be excellent.

On  the New Moon, I've read that one of the two switches is an octave lift, but who knows. accesses the octave in swell mode. I just picked this tidbit up...

As mentioned, on the New Moon pedal there's a switch to activate the octave effect so that you can get the octave and swell together. This is quite easy... add a switch from the center lug to one of the outer lugs on the effect potentiometer --the side with the octave effect-- and that will turn on the octave and you can rotate the knob to the other end and activate the swell function.

EDIT:

The above mentioned switch mod works!  I opened up my pedal, and stuck a jumper between lugs 2 and 3 of the Fuzz pot. Instant octave scream coming into the swell. Daddy likes! Gotta try and figure a way to squeeze a small toggle in here now.  I have to update the vero.

[3onthetree]

OK that's killer news! Now I am real motivated to start tweaking a Moonrock clone to New Moon territory. Gonna have to find some more money in the couch and buy some parts. I cannot wait for Santa to come around tomorrow.

[digi2t]

Here's the updated vero with the octave/swell switch.

[digi2t]

Russ... got a question...

On your version, the cap between lugs 2 and 3 on the fuzz pot is spec'd as 1uf on the earlier version, and then 10uf on the later. Does it make a big difference on the swell?

[Cozybuilder]

Dino-
It might be my imagination, but I thought the swell was better with the 10uF cap.

[digi2t]

OK. I never thought to try it with the 1uf, that's why I was asking. Just an oversight on my part. 

[3onthetree]

I received #27 Moonrock on Thursday and I can say it's very much in the same spirit of the video posted by Dino but I think the pedal Dino demoed is just a little crazier on both ends of the spectrum. One thing to note, I'm not entirely sure of the consistency of Moonrock to Moonrock. I say that because I doubt Glenn did any sort of production. Most likely, everything he did was made to order. I have a feeling that some pronounce octave and or swell to different degrees from pedal to pedal exists. The fuzz on mine seems a little smoother than the video but I really had to mess with it to get crazy swells. Some of my guitars I tried refused to do it. Surprising that I have 2 Supro's and could not get either to do the extreme swell like in Dino's video. I thought it would really go crazy over hot single coils. I knew this pedal would like a Strat and it is really awesome on my parts caster. I wish I still had my USA Strat with the 50's style pickups. I have a feeling Glenn used a Strat to dial these in being a Hendrix fan in all. The swell worked OK on my and Danelectro but went nuts on my 4 pickup Hound Dog Taylor Kawai. The octave, fuzz range, pick attack sensitivity and responsiveness from the volume control on the guitar all seems right in line with the clone. Although mine can get a good nasty fuzz it's really a fantastic mild fuzz overdrive. To me that is where this pedal really excels. I love the way you can dramatically change the fuzz using the volume control on the guitar.

I opened my up to replace the battery and it looks REALLY fragile to take apart. I know I will and will report back any value differences but I really just want to build Russ and Dino's version sooner than later. Since no video on YouTube exists for the real deal I will try and get to posting one this coming week.

[digi2t]

Well, that would be really... swell! (Sorry, I couldn't resist)

Yeah, don't go mucking with it too much if it's fragile. No point damaging it. You description of the original is right in line with what I originally breadboarded. I'm pretty sure that what I traced from the pictures must be fairly correct, since it reacted the same way with my guitars as well. Nothing as outrageous as the internet clips, and it play nice with some, and not with others.

I'll stand by Russ' version since it's much more versatile, and seems to not care as much what kind of guitar/pickups you use. I think adding a drive and tone control would really round out the package well, bringing it into New Moon territory. The "octave with swell" angle's been covered now, so that's one less thing on the list.