Hotcake Sample

[RDV]

Direct with much delay.

RDV

[darron]

aww. the link's broken. that would have been cool. i like the hotcake.

repost!!!!! lol

[Samy]

Doesn´t work  !
Hotcake ? Is this a DIY project ?

[RDV]

This one didn't turn out so good, it wasn't up long. It's not an available DIY project.

RDV

[ulysses]

i think the hotcake sounds terrible. its got opamp distortion written all over the tone.

cheers
ulysses

[darron]

i think the hotcake sounds terrible. its got opamp distortion written all over the tone.

cheers
ulysses

there's supposed to be three versions of the hot cake out there. one of them is mostly flavoured by opamp distortion and some people like that one. i've only heard one from the band i tech for, which i think is the newest one with the presence control and i think it sounds awesome.

[Marcos - Munky]

Yeah, the one with the Presence pot have a great sound. I can't say anything about the other versions, beause I only tried this one (and it's DIY ).

[darron]

Yeah, the one with the Presence pot have a great sound. I can't say anything about the other versions, beause I only tried this one (and it's DIY ).

hook us up with a schematic??? one of the band members already owns one (the recent one) but she wants me to build her another one. it kinda gets loaned between members while recording lol. i searched the forum a bit and people were reluctant to post a schematic out of respect for the creator. i think if you're not going to sell it, it's just as bad to 'rip off anyone, including boss. just because the bigger companies have more money and you won't make a dent in them, doesn't mean they didn't deserve it. i think a lot of people here wouldn't mind becoming boss/ibanez etc.

if there is a schematic out there, how did it come to be? reverse engineering? or did someone find a solution that melts the 2 part epoxy resin? i noticed with the hot cake that i looked inside the expoxy doesn't actually cover that much. you can see the opamp and some diodes, resistors etc. he reverse would tell a story. i don't want to try it though since i'd have to borrow it for a while and it's needed by them. also, he tightly packs a pedal and it's a pain in the butt to work on! i swear... it took me like 20 mins to change the dc jack on it the other day (in poor conditions side of stage).

[Torchy]

[Mark Hammer]

Again, not to be a wet towel, but as much as there is a collective desire to understand the inner workings of exciting and interesting pedals, there is an equally strong collective desire to protect the livelihoods of small-scale manufacturers who provide unique products and don't have a huge product line to fall back on.  Information about the Hotcake DID circulate back when we were only a couple years old here and had a smaller membership (and I might even have the same picture in my own accumulated "equipment pix" directory on my hard drive at home), but we're much bigger, and more accessible now, hence more "dangerous" when IP starts getting freely bandied about.

Soundclips and descriptions of ideas are one thing, how-to instructions and schems are another.  Please accord Mr. Crowther the same consideration given many others here.

That's NOT a slap on the wrist, just some friendly encouragement not to get too close to the edge, and a plea for consistency.  Carry on.

Thanks,
Mark

[darron]

holy crap. i wouldn't have the guts to do that! it's such a nicely constructed pedal and i'd be fearful of wrecking it, especially since you couldn't get a schematic off the net to repair the poor hotcake!

i'd best address mark hammer now.

[darron]

Again, not to be a wet towel, but as much as there is a collective desire to understand the inner workings of exciting and interesting pedals, there is an equally strong collective desire to protect the livelihoods of small-scale manufacturers who provide unique products and don't have a huge product line to fall back on.  Information about the Hotcake DID circulate back when we were only a couple years old here and had a smaller membership (and I might even have the same picture in my own accumulated "equipment pix" directory on my hard drive at home), but we're much bigger, and more accessible now, hence more "dangerous" when IP starts getting freely bandied about.

Soundclips and descriptions of ideas are one thing, how-to instructions and schems are another.  Please accord Mr. Crowther the same consideration given many others here.

That's NOT a slap on the wrist, just some friendly encouragement not to get too close to the edge, and a plea for consistency.  Carry on.

Thanks,
Mark

i figured that somebody would yell at me for requesting a schematic for this unit because i've read posts/statements from designers who have had their design's 'ripped off'. i can understand why somebody might be pissed off if somebody was trying to sell something that they didn't design. making one to not to sell is another thing in my opinion, but it wouldn't be wrong for a person to get angry for that also.

it's cool that someone managed to reverse engineer the thing though. there's something good about having something that you shouldn't. i still would like to see a schematic, but with this photo i suppose i could compare it to the back of the pcb i have (but i won't because i'm too lazy and it seems really fiddly to do without a hands-on approach).

this pedal has always been hyped in the guitarist community, and i've read varying articles on how it gets its tone. this i suppose is due to the different releases out there as well as the fact that the unit was concealed with epoxy!

did you read what i wrote above mark? i'd be interested in your feedback in that regard. other than that i don't know what to say. i feel naughty now. i've always liked having things i shouldn't have. it's a dangerous game. when i was at school i got copies of databases from different servers and managed to render them into a text list with everyone's home address, telephone number, photo etc. i could literally change my attendance etc. i used to sit on their secured wireless network and mess around with things i shouldn't have. i even got a staff member fired because he was being... - mean to me. i anonymously notified the school of all of their errors and reported how to fix them, but never saw results or received responses to the email address i created.

i'm getting off track. what did i do with the information? i satisfied my curiosity, made something, had a little bit of fun. nobody was hurt.

what would i do with a hot cake schematic? i'd definitely satisfy my curiosity. probably make one, would anybody be hurt? possibly...?

it's 1:28am here... im off

[Torchy]

I have not (and will not) post a Hotcake schematic.
I have not (and will not) post trace-side photos.
The photo shows you a rough indication of the components involved. If you try and clone the Hotcake from that photo then good luck, because theres a couple twists under that board. I also reduced the size to make copying more difficult whilst giving a flavour of the pedal.

It seemed to be ok to post the OCD, Barber DD and a few other de-gooped photos around here so I assumed this one would be ok ?

Happy to remove it if asked to.

[aron]

i think the hotcake sounds terrible. its got opamp distortion written all over the tone.

You have very good ears. The Hotcake is pure op amp distortion. However, I will disagree that it sounds terrible. To me, it's one of the most amazing op amp-only distorters out there. I have tried two versions, the original one and another one which was a prototype for the new presence version. Yes, it's true that there are many other pedals on this forum that sound better now, but the Hotcake still remains a fairly simple design (2nd version) and a unique circuit (to me). It's also very, very affordable for a boutique pedal (last I checked).

[aron]

Darron,

try this:

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/howtrace.htm

BTW: last I remembered, the Hotcake "glue" on the circuit came right off - it was more like rubber.

[Mark Hammer]

Not at all a scolding, Darron, nor a policing action, and you shouldn't feel one tiny bit "naughty" because you haven't done anything wrong.  Nor has Torchy done a "bad" (for all the reasons he outlines).  It's just that it's a very slippery slope, all too often lubed up by simple enthusiasm, and I wanted to stick in a friendly reminder for everybody before things spun out of control and slipped completely off the slope.  You'd be surprised how quickly things change from benign conversation about how clever a product concept is to something showing up on a website somewhere with 50,000 hits in 3 days.  Given that the Hotcake is clearly (from the picture) a simple enough design that a great many folks could easily throw one together (and to my knowledge something that does not rely on components that Steve Daniels would be unable to get), the risk of personal consequence to the manufacturer by tipping one's hand too much is increased.

Think of my note like that little red light that comes on the dash when your gas tank is starting to get low: not a sign of imminent danger, just a reminder to tend to things before they get too far out of hand, and have a little peace of mind.

I was sort of disappointed that the link to Ricky Don's sample didn't work for me, because I've never actually knowingly heard one, and I was sort of curious.  Sometimes, one likes to hear things not because one wishes to clone the product, or even to judge it, but simply to have an idea of what sorts of sounds are even possible in the world of overdriven signals.  I'm regularly surprised by things I hear that step outside my mental template of what overdrive and distortion "sound like".

Aron,

The non-octave channel on the MXR Blue Box is also essentially a "pure op-amp distorter", and I'm constantly surprised by how much I like it.  I wouldn't use it as my *main* dirtbox, but turning the blend to get rid of the octave gets one a decent sounding distortion that provides a refreshing change of pace from many other diode and transistor-based pedals out there.  A little bit of diversity is a nice thing!

[Marcos - Munky]

Yeah, I know that the guys in the forum asked to not post the schematic. I built one to satisfy my curiosity, because I heard it's a great sounding circuit and even if I try (as hard as possible), I will never find a unity here to test, because Crowther is a small company and the prices of the effects will be as expensive as some guitars' prices here. Also, built mine on breadboard to check the sound, and it didn't last long on my breadboard (the sound is great, but it's not my style. I'm more into Dr. Boogey and Obsidian ), also in my opinion there's better sounding circuits that aren't sold and the schematics are shared here (see the examples above). I just said that mine was DIY because a schematic was available (like Mark said, a few years ago), like other small and not to small companies' schematic was/are available even if they doesn't want to. Also, I know that maybe my e-mail box would receive a few messages asking for the schematic, but if Mr. Crowther doesn't want to spread the schematic, I won't do it, like we (or at least good part of us) don't do with any company that ask to not post their schematics.

Mark,

I agree with everything you said. I know I did a mistake to say that I built a Hotcake, but like I said, if Mr. Crowther doesn't want to spread the schematic, I won't do it too. If you want to hear how it sounds, I heard that the guy from Oasis uses one in their songs.

[darron]

Darron,

try this:

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/howtrace.htm

BTW: last I remembered, the Hotcake "glue" on the circuit came right off - it was more like rubber.

i don't have one that i'm able to dismantle since it's a band one. fortunately a few people have just seen my post and have sent me the same schematic. a note is that the schematic only has one diode, and no transistors, whereas the picture above has a transistor and no diodes. i'll take a look under the signed card to see which one is correct or if there's a version difference.

a good thing to do to trace boards is to take a photo of each side, then skew and distort them in photoshop so that they can match up exactly and hide layers. you can also trace just the copper lines and overlay it. it's good if you are finding components on a complicated board that you want to check/replace/clone

[darron]

sorry mark, me saying "somebody would yell at me" wasn't the best choice of words. i couldn't think of a better way to put it. i understand you completely though.

i sort of mentioned twice the differences between cloning a hotcake to an mxr pedal for example, but i think people must be sick of debating it because nobody's touched it.

i think what torchy has done (posting that pic) is completely okay. sounds like it's not an epoxy like i heard and maybe it's just silicon...

[JHS]

IMHO the HC is one of the best ODs around, the circuit design is not comparable with those of the commen ODs.
There are at least five different versions, all with slightly different sound, but all of them send 95% of the known B-drives to oblivion.
To me the HC is on par as a boost with the Centaur and blends perfectly with the amp distortion without making it muddy.

I don't like the HC with maxed gain (sounds like a big Muff) but as a clean booster it fantastic with tons of output.
Mark Knopfler used a '60 Strat, a BF-Fender and a Hot Cake as a boost on his first DS album and I think that's the only minus point, 'cos with a Hot Cake as a boost and a BF-Fender you will allways sound like the Dire-man.  

On some HCs the opamp is pushed by a trannie to operate in class-A mode, very good idea. Other HCs have a diode with unique wiring to generate asym clipping at higher gain levels (will work fine also in a TS and others drives with sym. clipping diodes).

Some HCs have a neutral, buffered bypass with a unique layout, I have not seen it yet on other FX-boxes, but it works perfect.

IMHO paul don't think much of commen designs, he's more a technician with a lot of technical know how thinking in circuits and how he can get an IC to to what he wants it to, and the results are those unique designs.

I like his class-A trick, his bypass design and his asym. clip method.

JHS