Wyllie Moonrock

[Cozybuilder]

Dino- this is great news that this is the second original Moonrock to be compared to your video (that I know of- the other is in Canada). The other reports similar results to 3onthetree.

For a drive control I replaced the 8K2 in Q1E with a C5K pot (you could use a C10K), with the 47uF on the wiper. I'm currently working on a tonestack for this beastie, breadboarding today. I hope to have an updated schematic soon, and maybe another wedgie pedal 

[duck_arse]

3onthetree - do you take requests?

.... but went nuts on my 4 pickup Hound Dog Taylor Kawai.

this. can we hear some of this, please?

[Cozybuilder]

Heres the Moonstone with a couple of cool extras and some minor tweaks:

  1) A drive pot is added to the emitter of Q1. This allows you to adjust the gain to allow use of pickups from hot humbuckers down to mild single coils, and still retain response with the guitar volume control. I think it works better with the reverse audio 5K, the 10K tamed it a tad.
  2) A tone circuit (thank you Gus), with one tweak- the 100K to ground ups the treble just enough, very responsive, wide range. No recovery circuit needed, this has plenty of horsepower!
  3) Octave switch as Dino described earlier, so that you get full octave with the swell- a very nice feature.
  4) Reduced the cap on the OFS pot to 4u7- this tames the octave when you turn the pot, so that you get a better fuzz in the middle without octave, but still gives blended octave toward the octave end of the pot. A 1uF just kills the octave blend, and 10uF allows octave across the whole pot range, 4u7 gave the best overall response on my breadboard.
  5) Changed output pot to A100K to play nice with other pedals
  6) I get a very even response with the 2SC945 in the Q2 position, and 2N3904 in Q1 & Q3. Not tame, but even!

[3onthetree]

I can't play shit but it sure sounds good. I will get a video this week for sure.

3onthetree - do you take requests?

.... but went nuts on my 4 pickup Hound Dog Taylor Kawai.

this. can we hear some of this, please?

[digi2t]

Beautiful work Russ. I'll see to creating an updated vero for the "Moon Stone Deluxe".

A little more research revealed some more info on the New Moon controls. I found these two quotes from Harmony Central reveiws;

Two gain knobs slightly diferrent voices, a subtle tone knob, two mini switches, one to boost gain and effect, and one two add octave to the swell feature.

and,

What this pedal does is take that same volume-sensitive overdrive-to-fuzz-to-scrambler sound palette and allow you to amp it up even more heavily with the two additional drive stages. There's also a mini-switch that puts an extra sizzle on top of one of the drives (that's the "half" I mentioned above).

Now, the second quote, I take with a huge grain of salt. I find it hard to believe that the New Moon circuit could be that fundamentally different. I could however see the second switch acting as a high/low drive switch, with a pot acting as a drive control in either mode. The tone pot is there, octave/swell pot, drive, and volume. The two switches; octave/swell, and drive hi/lo would round out the controls.

I'm curious to know if a two stage drive would render the circuit more flexible insofar as pickup types are concerned. Higher gain for lower output pups, and lower gain for hotter pups? Just spitballin'.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Russ...

Just something I saw. Your input cap C1... is that really a 10uF NP?

[digi2t]

Russ...

Just something I saw. Your input cap C1... is that really a 10uF NP?

He forgot the + symbol. Positive to the input. Though I can't see a NP hurting.

[Cozybuilder]

Sorry, Dino is correct, plus towards transistor. I've been playing with it all morning, and think its ready to box 

[digi2t]

Sorry, Dino is correct, plus towards transistor. I've been playing with it all morning, and think its ready to box 

Really?? I thought it was + towards the guitar. 

[Cozybuilder]

You have it right on your Vero layout. That pesky 2M2 anti-pop ground tie at the input, different than the tracings.

Oh no, this is posting 666 

[digi2t]

You have it right on your Vero layout. That pesky 2M2 anti-pop ground tie at the input, different than the tracings.

Oh no, this is posting 666 

Aw crap!!! You're right... I was looking at the wrong drawings. Positive to base folks.

There you go, got us over the 666 hump.

[digi2t]

Here's the Deluxe version. I managed to keep the same board size.



I'm wondering, what would be the best route for a high/low gain switch? Two different cap values off the gain pot, or two different resistor values off Q2 emitter? Just trying to figure out how to close the loop on all the New Moon controls.

[Cozybuilder]

I'm just guessing, but maybe 3K3 between Q1E and lug 3 of the gain pot, with a SPST to short it out for high and low gain. Alternatively, a resistor between the wiper and the cap, maybe 2K2, and again a SPST to short it out. Whaddayathimk?

[digi2t]

I'm just guessing, but maybe 3K3 between Q1E and lug 3 of the gain pot, with a SPST to short it out for high and low gain. Alternatively, a resistor between the wiper and the cap, maybe 2K2, and again a SPST to short it out. Whaddayathimk?

Yup, that sounds good. Would be easy to integrate, without modding the board size. I bequeathed the first Moon Stone as a Christmas present, so I no longer have the first build to experiment with. I'll have to assemble this on the breadboard again to validate the extras.

I think it might be cool to export this as an OSH Park project at some point, albeit that is a bit over my pay grade. But it would be nice for builders to have a nice PCB to build this on. I just think that it's a really nice fuzz pedal. Very unique. 

[Cozybuilder]

This is still on a breadboard, so after family obligations today, I'll try these and a couple of other ideas.

OSH Park sounds like it would be a good thing. I use plain perf on my builds, and this one takes a bit of time. A PCB would be fantastic, especially if it was designed to fit a 1590B

Are there any DIY PCB design gurus that would like to give it a go?

Meanwhile, the primed 4 knob wedgie is in the hot-box.

[Cozybuilder]

I tried 3K between the pot and emitter, and it killed the swell, but came back reduced with the octave/swell switch. Same results with 3K between the cap and wiper, but reducing to 2K2 the swell came back just a hint, and was good with the octave/swell switch on. Reducing further to 1K8 was a lot better as a low gain option, and shorted (normal) there is a big difference between the two positions, so if you want a low/high option, IMHO this one works well. Worth trying it out to see if you like it. It might be a very good option for those opting for a 2-knob rather than the 4 knob. And it would be especially versatile if you go for a 2 switch 2 knob version.

[madzub]

So now that the Moonrock's been successfully reverse engineered, how long do y'all wager it'll be before there's a $30 asian-made clone (and more expensive boutiquey versions) on the market?

[duck_arse]

that will depend on how soon one of us does a pcb layout, most likely.

[Marcos - Munky]

Question: can a diode be used instead of that BS150?

[digi2t]

I suppose it could, but isn't the mosfet route more efficient where low voltage drop and current handling are concerned?

Anyway, the original didn't have any protection at all, so I guess anything is better than nothing.