Drum Roll Please........Introducing the XOR Ultra Sick

[jmusser]

http://www.geocities.com/diygescorp/xorus.jpg   (Hopefully the address is correct)  This circuit started out as a request I made of Marcos to give me a circuit with 2 octaves up, and two octaves down. The first approach was with 4040 counter. It worked, but did not give the desired result. When I prototyped it, it gave me 3 fundamental square wave outputs, and 3 filtered square wave outputs. Marcos said to try his next approach, and I prototyped another circuit. It again uses the front end of Tims "Digital Octaver Fuzz", along with two 4013 flip flops. I told him that I had built it through the 3rd XOR, and that approach didn't work either, but... it does this other stuff (I was getting a pretty fair octave down). Well, I thought, since I'm not going to get the second octave up with the 3rd XOR, I'll just forget wiring the flip flops, but...I still have this last XOR leftover...hmm. I added that in with another pot, and that's when the magic started. Since it's based on Tim's design, it has all the traits of the DOF, but it also does 1 and 2 octaves down along with it. As you can see, this circuit is not a thought out design, but an accident that ended up in one of the sickest messes I've ever heard! As it says in the schematic notes, I can get square wave, filtered (face type) square wave, one octave up, one and two octaves down, white noise, one octave down, with an immediate second octave down echo (or a full second delay), or with second octave down "bumblebee" background, I call "ghosting". It would take a hand book to write down all the potential variations, when you combine the 4 XOR pots with the guitar's volume, tone, and pic up selection, along with pick attack. The guitar volume seems to set the bias for Q1, so you have all types of gating style selections with it. You can make a whole different animal out of it, with pick attack alone. For example, if you pick lightly in one setting, you can get the "Satisfaction" type fuzz tone. Pick just a little harder, and you get mosquito fuzz. In another setting with the guitar volume maxed, you get nothing but first octave down if you pick lightly. Pick a little harder, you get fundamental square wave, with 1st octave down echo. Harder still delays the echo, and all you did was change pick attack. With everything set the same way, just lower your guitar volume to 6, and you get a mosquito fuzz, with a fundamental square wave echo. pick harder, and you get a sqarewave fundamental, with a mosquito break up, like Tim's Bronx Cheer. It can have sustain for a week, or none at all. I have even found an adjustment where it gives a phaser swirl! Marcos built it himself, and said that a master volume was definitely required, so that's been added too. I'm really pleased with our accident, and it just goes to show how fellow forumites can put their heads together, when one's in Brazil, and one's in Ohio!

[bluesdevil]

I'm so excited to see this, I nearly vomited....hahaha!!!! Getting a big order from Mouser this week and I think I have the 4070 chip in it because I was getting ready to build Tim's DOF.  Can't wait to start spewing some sickness!!!

[octafish]

Looks cool. Mark is going to love your pot names.

[nelson]

    . That certainly sounds interesting!

[ethrbunny]

Any chance of a sample?

[jmusser]

I would definitely like to get some samples out, but there would have to be a bunch of them, to show what it will do. The only thing I have seen thus far that has as many tones as this thing is Charley's "Dirty Bird", and i'm sure it has way more than even that one. It has some nasty noisy spots in it, that would be mostly just for annoyance, but I'd say about 85% of it is useful, and could be used in gigs, especially if you got used to actually "playing" the effect. You have a lot of different tones to get out of it just by pick attack alone, so if you could get the subtleties of that down, you could have a really unique solo. There are adjustments where you can just thrash away on it like any other fuzz too. My advice on this, is to have the XOR pots labeled 1-10, so you could catalog the settings and their tones, since there are so many of them. It would probably been more correct to call it the "XOR Interactive Fuzz", since every adjustment effects every other adjustment. I can hardly wait to hear what people think of it after they build it. iI's a whole lot of tones out of one transistor, and one chip!

[StephenGiles]

Very good indeed, if you look at the EH Guitar Synth circuit I drew which is on Mark Hammer's site, you can see how to include a ring modulator using another 4070 section - I think it is interchangeable with a 4030 in the EH circuit.
Stephen

[jmusser]

It would be wonderful to know why this thing does what it does. I don't even have a remote clue as to what an XOR chip does. :?  If I get the gist of the XOR concept (an I probably don't) then whatever goes in, is the exact opposite of what comes out every time. It's not "this" OR "that", it's exclusively "that" every time. Even if this is the case, I still have no idea how this thing amplifies, but it sure does, with every output. One thing I couldn't get it to do, was do a second octave down by it's self. It will echo it, but it will not produce this tone separately. It makes me wonder if I were to add yet another XOR, would it separate that tone out too? The 4th XOR, seemed to really define the 1st octave down, that was less distinct with just the 3rd XOR, and also wasn't separate either, before the 4th XOR was added. I will look at your EH Guitar Synth. The 4040 Counter chip for our initial trial, was what Marcos extracted from the Harmonic Generator on Mark's site. I was really fired up about getting 3 octaves up and 3 octaves down, but apparently, there is a reason why that other "stuff" is on the Harmonic Generator schematic, besides just a square wave generator input to the 4040.  :roll:  This has been real exciting for me, even though I don't have the first clue as to what I'm doing. It's a totally different experience to hear something for the first time, when you don't know what to expect, than when you do have a general idea. Marcos will eventually put this on his site. Hopefully, this circuit will be just another "tip of the iceburg" for other mods, just like Tim's initial DOF was for these.

[jmusser]

I just saw the post about the pot names. That was Marcos's idea. He mentioned it to me while he was proofing my schematic. That's another thing about all this, I don't even think Marcos is 18 yet, unless he just turned it recently. He did an awful lot of work to make this happen. We had the key boards smokin' for about two months straight :lol: It looks like he has several years of solder fumes in front of him.

[Marcos - Munky]

I'm not 18 yet (will be in october 30th). Hope I have lots of years smelling solder fumes .

[ethrbunny]

Must be nice to be a FREAKIN' GENIUS (apologies to the ND fans out there)

Two questions:
1) some confusion on the drawing of the 2n5088 possibly?
2) Mouser has quite a few 4070s - what is specific to the one you chose?

[Marcos - Munky]

1) Yeah, I didn't noticed that. The pins C and E are reversed.

2) I used 4070BE.

[jmusser]

Man... those 17 year old proof readers! :wink:  Basically the schematic is correct, just the E and C designations are flipped. The emitter still goes through the 10K to ground like it's supposed to. I can make a revision to it to change it over with a click ot two. I'll wait for a little bit though, until after it's been built, in case someone finds something else that needs taken care of. Tim didn't designate a particular 4070 chip for the DOF, so I picked this one out at random from Mouser. I know you we're expecting a big explaination on how our "team" through exhaustive reasearch  finally settled on this particular chip in our last board meeting, but it could have been just because it was 25 cents cheaper than someone elses! :lol: It will be interesting to see what this circuit will ultimately end up as, with the proper amount of tweaking. I considered this circuit to basically a base circuit for modification. Right now, there are a lot of mirrored component values that could probably be changed to enhance certain characteristics, and probably additions to make it do even more tricks

[ethrbunny]

...bump... samples? anything? bueller? bueller?

[jmusser]

I really don't have a way to do samples, unless I go buy a bunch of stuff for it. I have a buddy who has stuff, but he's never home anymore to even play music with. Marcos may be able to provide one. Maybe BluesDevil has his about together. Since there's really not too much to it anyway, just go ahead and build it. If you don't care for it, you'll have a bunch of extra 100K pots which you can always use, and you can strip it back to either the DOF, or just the Digital Squarewave portion and use it and leave the tone and up octave pot out of it. It's one of those win/win situations you here about from time to time. :wink:  I'll tell you what Ethrbunny, If you absolutely detest it, I'll buy your leftover pots and chips for this circuit. How's that for an offer you can't refuse?

[ethrbunny]

LMAO - sounds like a good challenge. I even have a 4070 and a sack of 100Ks sitting about. Go figure!

Must be destiny. Ill post more as I get into it.

[bluesdevil]

Didn't get the 4070 chip with the huge ass Mouser order I got in, sad to say. I'm doing a Futurlec pots order next and will grab it then, even tho' it could be a month or so before I get it.... DAMN!!!!!!!  Really torturing myself waiting to get this one built. I will be glad to post sound clips when completed.... did anyone catch the Simple Octave Up clips I posted? Just wondering, 'cause nobody commented.... hope my playing wasn't too embarrassing for those here.
        :oops:

[Eb7+9]

Holy !! feeding audio through logic gates

... C8)8)L  ... way2go you guys !!

only thing is now you got me thinking of finite state machines again ... I'm in tears ...

~jc

[StephenGiles]

Just a roll just a roll
Just a roll on a drum
Just a roll on a drum, and the war has begun.......
Stephen

[jmusser]

Well Ethrbunny, I will be glad to hear your review on this circuit, and to see if you're getting the same things that I got. Oh Man Bluesdevil, XORUS...denied! What's the link to your SOU samples? I didn't know you had them posted, and as usual, I like to hear if there's some sort consistancy on the builds we do. For just general up octave thrashing, it hard to beat. They all have their own personalities. Some of them like the SOU, there is no question as to whether or not you're playing an up octave, and then on others, they have a certain bite and breakup in their distortion because of it, and you have to back off quite a bit on your volume and tone knobs, to really show off the octave portion.