Botique schematic ethics... re-re-re-visited

[ExpAnonColin]

So I have my email on my website, and it's not uncommon for people to email me and ask me about modding certain things here and there...  This guy emailed me and asked if I could mod his Danelectro Black Coffee.  He now explains how easy it would be to modify danelectros...

im sure if you found the resistors in certain parts of the circuit , you could swap them for pots, and have control over the different parts, and also add or subtract from certain parameters, but that might bea bit tooo much work. i dont know. do you know of any circuits that raise you an octave with outh the clipping?

Fair enough, at least he knows what a pot is...  then I explain that this is much easier for analog non-SMD pedals.

You'd be perfectly right if the pedal was analog. However, it's not, so most things are quite pre-set, and changing resistors would not only be hard to predict the outcomes, but it would also be a huge hassle because they are made SMD.
-Colin

He replies...

i thought all the dano pedALS were analog.  but if you upped the
value of the resistors, wouldnt tha increase the effect? and if you used pots, wouldnt it give you variable parameters?

Well, he sort of gets it...  upping the resistors wouldn't "increase the effect", at least not in all cases.

Dan-o pedals are about as digital as you can get.  
Yes, changing resistor values MIGHT change the effect, but as I said, the chips are programmed internally in a certain way, and the resistors are SMD, so they are not easily replaceable.
-Colin

that doesnt make any since, how are they digital, they dont sound it, ive opened them up and i know what everything in them does. ive opened digigtech pedals and peed myself....sorry ikeep bugging you...

Wow.  He knows what everything in a dan-o pedal does.  That is not a thing many of us forumites can say.   OK, so now that we have an idea of what he's like, let's skip a few emails where I basically repeated myself that danos would NOT be easy to mod...  He then asks about the Parallel Universe.

is it (the parallel universe) in a sturdy casing? are able to play guitar through it, or just
"noise"/ feedback... i am seriously considering buying one....also the harmonic transformer and soundsaw (death by audio) are they good pedals? i have alot of money to spend and all i want is pedals, raging, roaring, noisy, insane, vomit inducing pedals, any suggestions?  

Well, I certainly think the PU is a good match. At the end of january or so about 10 will be available for sale. It's in very very sturdy casing (you can drive a truck over it), and yes, you can play anything through it.
DBA products are pretty cool but they seem overpriced to me, at least for their function and versitality.
-Colin

And finally, here's the part about ethics.

yeah, they are pretty overpriced, im sure that scems will show up
sooner or
later....


Drawing schematics for in production botique pedals is a terrible thing to do, I think it's been done once, with the Z Vex fuzz factory, which was quickly extinguished, because quite simply there's no reason to smite another DIYer who is trying to make money out of the hobby (or in the case of Z vex, a profession).  
-Colin

but selling a pot, switch, box and a few jacks for a couple hundred dollars
seems kinda greedy. as genius as it is.... maybe they could sell
schematics? i dontknow....i dont reall care, i just dont wanna spend $200
dollars on a pedal just to find out its a fuzzface with a razor jammed in
it... danelectros arent digital.

I love how he interjected "danelectros arent digital" at the end.

So anyways, thought I'd share that with you.  And to clear things up beforehand-I know that not all of the dan-o's are digital, the spring king uses real springs, I believe, but most are.  There sure aren't BBD chips in the Corned Beef Reverb

-Colin

[troubledtom]

send him to www.troubledvariance.com , i'll fix him up.
    he did say........... have alot of money to spend and all i want is pedals, raging, roaring, noisy, insane, vomit inducing pedals, any suggestions?
     i need to sell a few more devices so i can get a new power amp for the band :twisted:
               peace,
                  - troubledtom

[Brian Marshall]

i would think all the distortions would be analog, but ive never owned one.  I tried one at guitar center, and it crunched when i stepped on it.

not a good impression on me.  I dont know what the blck coffee does...

you are a circuit bender guy thogh... that his money, and send him back a pedal that makes stattic, or just cuts the sound.

one other thing... where the f*** are you going to put all the pots you are adding.

I did look at a boss dd3 shematic a long time ago, and it looked to me like you could chane out a resistor to get longer delay times, but that was a while ago, and i never tried it.  maybe it would push it too far out of tollerence, and not sound good, or not work at all.

[Samuel]

bah nevermind (stupid rant from me)

[Boofhead]

There's no doubt a significant proportion of Boutique pedals are copied from other effects.  In some cases they have copied from DIY effects and even from other Boutique pedals (yes believe it or not and some quite high profile ones at that).

The claims of  Boutiquers is like the claims to a patents, it's all about someone *claiming* to own an idea when in actuality it is rarely an original idea in the first place.

It's fairly evident Boutique guys scan this forum.  They rarely contribute to the forum, they are scanning your ideas *so be warned* and the only time you will hear from one is when one of their schematics is posted.  Now consider the ethics of this behaviour in the light that this forum is largely about the friendly exchange of DIY ideas.

Irrespective of the $$$ asked for some Boutique effects, it's something to think about.

[Brian Marshall]

i've seen zvex here a few times.  He actually helped me out a lot in undertanding opamps.  He's a sharp guy, and acutally contributes a lot over at the HC forum.

I cant speak for all of them, but most of them like Tim at Effector13, and mike at analogman, and the guys at toadworks are helpful.  I think that a lot of us diy guys help spread the word that there are even pedals other than boss, and dano in the world.  If it werent for the internet i wouldnt even know about the boutique market.

It is a much bigger market than it used to be, and there are gusy that make a lot of clones... (full tone comes to mind) but they make most of their stuff much better than the originals did.  

Brian

[javacody]

boofhead, you make some good points. Why should we hold ourselves to higher standards than some of these pedal makers?  Maybe for the same reason we (Civilized countries I mean) don't generally torture and maim prisoners of war, even though other countries do it to our soldiers. Because the right thing is the right thing, plain and simple.

Personally, if I want a schem from a boutique pedal maker, I will simply ask him for it.  He can be a hole if he wants, but I'm sure there some good guys out there who will share their work if you promise not to publicly distribute their schems.

By the way, happy holidays!

[Dan N]

I'm confused. Danos are not digital.

[mattv]

Sounds like the dude's just jacking with you. Forget about it.

[afranks]

Ok... so lemme clear something up here about the Danelectro pedals: most are NOT digital.  For instance, the French Toast mini pedal is a copy of a Foxx Tone Machine.  The Surf and Turf compressor is an MXR/Ross type design.  Now, the delay effects they sell are based on some of the digital delay chips out there, but I think it's very misleading to call a BBD based delay analog, since in reality it behaves very much like a digital delay, in that it samples the incoming signal and stores the voltage levels in the BBD cells.  If you read Scott's information on the PT-80 (based on the PT2399 digital delay chip) you'll find that the character of an analog delay comes primarily from the compressor-expander and low pass filter, which can be slapped on any delay with the same result.

As for the black coffee, it's an analog circuit.  I'll bet you $20 it is.  As far as doing a "knob job" (adding a sh!tload of pots to vary a bunch of reasonable and carefully chosen resistance values) on it, it could be done, but you'd need to re-house the pedal in a 1590BB or similar, and replace the existing pots and jacks, maybe bypass the switching circuit.  Pretty soon you're talking $50 in parts alone.  Seems a little much for a $30 pedal, unless he just has a complete woody for that particular sound.

But anyway, please don't make fun of people who "aren't as smart as you." On the continuum between "mouth breathing neanderthal" and "unapproachable genius," most of us fall in between.  Further subdividing that great expanse seems a little petty, eh?

-alan

[ExpAnonColin]

Alan-

A few things...

First off, I DID say in my post that I knew that some dan-o's were not digital.  The pepperoni is apparently a phase 90 clone, and as you mentioned above, there are a variety of others that aren't.  However, those that I've modded, the sitar swami and the corned beef, were very digital.

Second off, I'm very surprised that you wouldn't mind pulling out SMD components, and I did reply to his email saying that there was no space in the pedal to fit the pots and whatnot.

Third...  I realize that BBDs are very similiar to their digital counterparts, however, BBDs are analog and digital chips like the one used in the PT80 are... digital.  They both DO use clock generators, normally a more digital-thing, but the BBDs are just a lot of analog components in a box.

Fourth, I don't know where you got the idea that I said he was a neanderthal and what have you.  The things this guy says, like that he wants vomit inducing pedals, and that he wants the black coffee modded, suggests to me that he  was trying to say things that weren't true ("I've opened them up and know what everything does").

Fifth, I wasn't doing this post to point out that I know more than this guy (whether I do or not), just that it was another case of someone who wanted to schematic-ize boutique pedals, which to me isn't the most ethical thing to do.

Brian-These days, I do very little circuit bending... I figured I have enough little noise makers.  The black coffee is their metal distortion pedal.

Boofhead-I agree on some points, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that botique guys were vultures who stole our ideas (although I'm sure it does happen).

[Brian Marshall]

Alan-

but the BBDs are just a lot of analog components in a box.

you could say that about a digital ic as well.  just a bunch of tranys, caps, resistors and such.

merry christmas

and happy chaunika (sorry colin i probably butchered that)

Brian

[bwanasonic]

you could say that about a digital ic as well.  just a bunch of tranys, caps, resistors and such.

And you could say wine is just grape juice and alcohol, and that cheese is just chalk and fat.  But just mixing these ingredients doesn't give you Brie and Chardonnay :wink:

Kerry M

[Ansil]

And you could say wine is just grape juice and alcohol, and that cheese is just chalk and fat.  But just mixing these ingredients doesn't give you Brie and Chardonnay :wink:

Kerry M

well that depends..  personally i started making wine after i had some of my good friends and i can make it real good.

[ExpAnonColin]

Alan-

but the BBDs are just a lot of analog components in a box.

you could say that about a digital ic as well.  just a bunch of tranys, caps, resistors and such.

merry christmas

and happy chaunika (sorry colin i probably butchered that)

Brian

Your'e very right, I guess I sohould have mae the distinction via the fact that digital is 1s and 0s and analog is... good stuff

-Colin

[javacody]

Isn't it all a bunch of offs/ons? (thats what the 1's and 0's stand for)

[ExpAnonColin]

Isn't it all a bunch of offs/ons? (thats what the 1's and 0's stand for)

Yep.

-Colin

[Peter Snowberg]

Isn't it all a bunch of offs/ons? (thats what the 1's and 0's stand for)

Not at all.

Analog is about what happens between those 0 and 1 values.

Now we get into different areas... voltage domain and time domain.

You could say almost all pedals are analog in the voltage domain and the time domain. BBD pedals are usually part analog and part digital in the time domain and analog in the voltage domain. Digital delay pedals are analog and digital in both time and voltage domains, but may use a feedback loop which is either analog or digital in both domains.  

Does that "mean anything" about the sound.... Nope. They're all just different.

Take care,
-Peter

[ExpAnonColin]

Peter-
I thought that  what he was asking was whether or not the clock waveforms were just on and off indicators... which, for the most part, they are, in the digital world.

-Colin

[Brian Marshall]

I know there is a good reason i have never bothered building a delay pedal.  

I hate dealing with all of that crap.  i dont find it fun at all.  I can deal with the math that directly affects the sound.  I'm sure i'm going to end up having to do it some day, but i will procrastinate for now.  I'm nore really a fan of delay, or effects based on it (flange chorus)  I have a boss DD3, and it's all i would ever want.

I have a couple of compander chips that i have had ofr about a year that i have been meaning to make a compressor limiter with, but having to absorb the data sheet just seems like no fun... I'd rather just do an led/ldr based compressor... it's just easier to understand, and probably will sound better.

Brian