Any cool 555 circuits?

[aut0tek]

I was just curious... If not, I am thinking about TRYING to design a simple something so that I feel I have contributed like you guys... PLUS I'll be able to say I made the pedal.

I prolly shouldn't bother considering I can't even get my Bobtavia working right. :-/ It's a BobFuzzia. LOL. I'll make some sound samples, it's actually pretty cool if I needed a fuzz. (Hmm... Thrash Metal Fuzzbox??? LOL)

Anyhow, I'm off to research the inner workings of the 555 to see how difficult this will be and maybe get ideas for something else to do with 555's.

-aut0

[col]

There is a Babani book dedicated to the use of the 555 in various projects but most of them do not relate to music. However there is a computer voice simulator which sounds quite weird with a guitar! There are other books in the series by R A Penfold that do use the 555 but I can't think of the names offhand, I'll have a look tonight. I have built a few of these circuits but they suffer from a click which is probably due to my stripboard layout with the wrong components located near to the 555. If this could be sorted out one of the tremelo circuits I built sounds great apart from that. The phaser was a bit of a dissapointment though, even if I could make some strange noises with it by setting it wrongly.

Col

[soggybag]

Build Tim Escobedo's Ugly Face. I think this sounds awesome! It gets synthy octave downy in sort of a square wavey style. In some settings you get a harmonies, it can sound like a 5th down. It's even got an envelope setting. Easy to build, just two chips and a handful of parts.

[spudulike]

If you want to know teh ins and outs of the 555 then check this excellent on-line tutorial ...

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/gadgets/555/555.html

The rest of the site is pretty cool as well

[Ge_Whiz]

Col - the 'click' is probably inadequate supply decoupling, especially if you used the old '555' instead of the updated CMOS versions. Most books have a fair bit to say about these problems.

[birt]

Fig.9 Schmitt Trigger: A very simple, but effective circuit. It cleans up any noisy input signal in a nice, clean and square output signal.


what would it do to guitar signal?

[gez]

Fig.9 Schmitt Trigger: A very simple, but effective circuit. It cleans up any noisy input signal in a nice, clean and square output signal.


what would it do to guitar signal?

In the schematic shown the input is biased at half Vcc so, with 9V supply, the input signal is going to have to swing at least 1.5V +ve/-ve to trigger the input.  It would needs amplifying a fair bit for the circuit to work well, but basically you're talking about a comparator fuzz.

I often use 555s as Schmidt Triggers, though usually at the output of a comparator and DC coupled (just tie pins 2&6 to the output of the comparator - no bias resistors or cap).  It cleans up the signal giving it nice straight sides, which is useful for driving CMOS chips with picky inputs (the clock input of a flip-flop for example).  Although there are other chips that can do this the 555 only has 8 pins so, unless I need other devices in a 16 pin chip, a (CMOS) 555 is my prefered choice.

You can also use it to interface between different supply voltages - the discharge pin connects via a resistor to the +ve rail of the second supply and acts as an output to drive whatever is powered from this second supply.

[aut0tek]

Holy cow gez that's some in-depth stuff! lol.     

-aut0

[Ge_Whiz]

 

Somewhere in the dim and distant past I recall seeing a 555 tachometer circuit. I was just thinking that it might be possible to build a 555 'shredometer', with an analogue meter or LED bar display that goes higher and higher the faster you widdle!

Sorry, couldn't resist sharing this idea.

[brett]

Hi.
Here's an unabashed plug for something I dreamed up: the Modulatron.
The 555 switches a CD4066 between in and out of phase copies of the guitar signal.  Every switch adds 0.5Hz to the frequency of the resulting signal (technically, it's a balanced modulator).  Some pitch shifts give those effects used for robot and Dalek and Vader voices.
cheers

[col]

OK, The Babani books I have are as follows

Electronic Music projects by R A Penfold,
Auto Wah, I did a stripboard layout but never built one. This is time based and does not relate to the playing.
Tremelo I built one and it clicks, I used a 7555 but I aim to try some bigger caps in it. The tremelo effect is very good
Phaser, I built one and the wah type effect works but not the phasing.
Envelope shaper, it supposedly produces a percussive effect from the guitar, not built

IC555 projects by EA Parr
Compter voice, strange effect. Imagine a dalek singing your guitar sound
Signal generator, very useful.
Lots of different alarms and noise makers.
Metronome

and some model railway circuits!!!!

Hope this helps,

Col

[birt]

OK, The Babani books I have are as follows

Electronic Music projects by R A Penfold,
Auto Wah, I did a stripboard layout but never built one. This is time based and does not relate to the playing.
Tremelo I built one and it clicks, I used a 7555 but I aim to try some bigger caps in it. The tremelo effect is very good
Phaser, I built one and the wah type effect works but not the phasing.
Envelope shaper, it supposedly produces a percussive effect from the guitar, not built

IC555 projects by EA Parr
Compter voice, strange effect. Imagine a dalek singing your guitar sound
Signal generator, very useful.
Lots of different alarms and noise makers.
Metronome

and some model railway circuits!!!!

Hope this helps,

Col

scanned schematics would be great

[gez]

Babani books cost next to nothing new, even less second hand.  Take a look on Amazon and you'd be surprised how cheap they are.

Support a company that puts out decent project books, don't give it to them up the you know what...

[soggybag]

I have one of the RA Penfold books, Electronic projects for Guitar. It has some interesting projects like, Dynamic tremolo and Dynamic treble booster. Plus a slew of standard projects, phase shifter, chorus, wah, distortion etc. I have yet to build anything form this book so I can't vouch for the quality of the projects. I think they are planned out for stripboard.

[TheBigMan]

http://www.velleman.be/Downloads/0/Manual_MK105.pdf

gives a schematic for what looks like a potentially useful signal generator based round the 555 and a few other very common parts.

[birt]

Babani books cost next to nothing new, even less second hand.  Take a look on Amazon and you'd be surprised how cheap they are.

Support a company that puts out decent project books, don't give it to them up the you know what...

you're right

[col]

The 555 circuits book is available at Maplins in the UK for £4.99 new. I have seen lots of other Babani books for sale for half price or less in other shops and I'm sure you can find them on the internet. They explain how the circuits work and some have info on all the semiconductors used in a section at the back.

Col

[aut0tek]

Couldn't you make a "Cranked Tremolo" type effect where the 555 would the output signal in and out fast? Once again, pardon the newbness on theory.

-aut0

[aut0tek]

Okay, so that was a no. ;-)

-aut0

[Transmogrifox]

Couldn't you make a "Cranked Tremolo" type effect where the 555 would the output signal in and out fast? Once again, pardon the newbness on theory.

-aut0

Where the 555 would [what] the output signal...?

Take a look at Brett's modulatron.  Maybe this is what you were thinking of? 

I think you could make a booster/amplifier type circuit with it.  You would just need to set it up so the input pulse-width modulates an ultrasonic square wave on the output, then RC filter