Clarinot Envelope Control Circuit Daughterboard (Schem & Vero)

[bowanderror]

I'm a big fan of Doug Deeper's Mid-Fi Electronics stuff. Especially the amazing Clari(not), for which I've owned production versions as well as making a few of them myself. His envelope control circuit is so simple, yet can make sounds that range anywhere from spastic brain-hemorrhaging space farts to subtle, dynamically controlled tape wobble.

I've been building some other PT2399 delays and have noticed how different some of the filtering, buffering, and feedback sections of the circuit can be from project to project. I thought it would be cool to have a daughterboard module that could easily add the Clari(not)'s envelope control to other delays to see how it would fit on other "HiFi" or tape-voiced delay circuits.

This is probably my 2nd or 3rd ever vero layout from a schematic, so I basically have no idea what I'm doing  But I wanted to see if y'all could spot any errors or help me improve the schematic or layout before I start building a few of them up:

Schematic:

Veroboard Layout:


Another envelope controlled delay that caught my ear is the Snazzy FX Wow & Flutter. And although it isn't completely traced, I did find a schematic by u/raindog on an unnamed forum. I adapted to a more readable format with the hopes of turning it into a daughterboard as well.


I have a basic understanding of the Clari(not)'s vactrol and how it can be used to control pin 6 of the PT2399, but this circuit snippet uses part of an MC14007UBCP instead, which I don't really know anything about. I looked in some old school desk references like Hoebeek's Digital IC Equivalents & the Harris Semiconductors Integrated Circuits Data Book (from way back in 1975). They seem to equate the CD4007 & the MC14007 as Dual Complementary Pair Plus Inverters, but from different manufacturers. Would the CD4007 be a substitute in this application?

I may take a stab at a vero layout for the Wow & Flutter envelope control, so if anybody has tips on how to most efficiently lay out certain parts of the circuit, I'd really appreciate it!

-mike

[anotherjim]

Yes, 14007 is a 4007. Motorola and a Hitachi sold the chips with the extra 1 and it's the same with all of their 4000 series CMOS chips. So a MC14013B is a CD4013B etc...

I think that just one of the N-channel MOSFET transistors in the 4007 is being used as a voltage-controlled resistor to effect the delay chips timing control. Note that the other 2 "Gate" pins of the 4007 really should be connected to 0v to stop these very high impedance pins from flapping about, even though the parts they control are not used.

[bowanderror]

Thanks Jim,

Glad to hear the CD4007 will work because I have a few in the shop already. Do the suffixes like "A" or "C" matter for the CD version of that chip?

Here's an updated version w/the 2 gate pins going to ground. Hopefully your suggestion will prevent me from having to do too much troubleshooting around that IC as I've already got a lot to learn about it!

[anotherjim]

The only suffix that usually matters to us with the 4000 series is the U, although the 4007, in particular, is only available as a U type.
You may wonder why the 4007 is chosen instead of a single MOSFET transistor. In this case, I think it's only because the CMOS transistors have a more suitable gate voltage control range.

[bowanderror]

Yeah that was going to be one of my questions as it seems kind of wasteful to use only the one functional block on the 4007. When you say gate voltage control range, that's referring to the guitar signal coming in to the 4007, right? I'm woefully inexperienced with CMOS logic, but I didn't know you could use the drain as a voltage-controlled resistor. So if the fine control of the resistance is taken care of by the potentiometer network connected to the PT2399 Pin 6, what does the N-Channel Drain on Pin 8 of the 4007 do when a sufficient signal hits the Gate on Pin 6?

I stumbled upon your "Soft Delay", which seems to use the 4007 for a similar guitar-triggered envelope. It sounds really good, but I don't quite follow what exactly the IC is doing. Would you mind comparing/contrasting what the ICs are doing in each of these circuits?

As the datasheets for 4007-equivalents are all over the place, I summarized the pinout info I found:


Thanks again for all the input, Jim. I'm glad someone with a better understanding of these inverter ICs saw the post!

[anotherjim]

See here...
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=109314.msg1063085#msg1063085
Funnily enough, I was playing with my build the other day and reckon it could benefit from envelope mod, since the soft regen can be allowed to go into full feedback and changing the delay time reboots the effect in a very satisfying manner (if you like that sort of thing).

And another rabbit hole...
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=114965.msg1067541#msg1067541


In that envelope delay, it's varying the PT2399 delay control by varying the N channel resistance between pin8 and Vss in parallel with the manual delay control of the PT2399. When the 4007 pin 6 voltage increases, the resistance reduces and the delay becomes shorter.

[BluffChill]

My Shagpile design uses a very similar albeit simpler envelope follower for modulating pin 6. It's currently being discussed here and people have had a crack at the layout, there's also a link to the schematic if you're interested. It hooks straight up to pin 6 pretty much, and gives subtle wobble at short delay speeds, and big bendy stuff with longer delay times.

https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=122028.0