Electric Mistress Deluxe or Electric Mistress

[billou_35]

Hello,

I'm new there so sorry if I'm not posting at the right place and sorry for my English... 

My question :

I bought a Deluxe Electric Mistress Green (European plug) but I am very disappointed. In fact, I'm a huge fan of Gilmour. I'm a lucky owner of a Sovtek green Muff + Chandler Tube Driver Mk.I but this Electric Mistress deluxe, even with all control to zero,  has really too much effect compared to the subtle sound of Dave in Empty Spaces or Comfortably Numb solo in the album The Wall Live 1980-1981...

I saw a project for Electric Mistress which is, I know, the one Dave owns but is there really so much difference between Deluxe and not Deluxe I wonder if there is no correction to make with the trims inside because it seems that the sound with all controls to zero is like detuned guitar : I don't know if it is normal flanger effect or an unset trim ?

Many thanks for your help ! 

[alteredsounds]

Hi, Welcome to the forum!

I'm at work so cant check what the exact differences are but I have 3 Electric Mistress pedals, 1 Deluxe, a standard 70's 18 volt one and a slightly later 9v.

To my ears the Deluxe sounds really poor in comparison to either standard models and the 18 volt model by far sounds the best.  I find the flange on the Deluxe is weak and brittle.

As far as building one, it looks a tricky build to me but I'm fairly new to this.

Try: http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/humperdinck/223/effect.htm

Anyways, thats my opinion, hope it helps some.

Cheers,
Nick,

[billou_35]

Many thanks Nick !!! It's very kind of you ! :+)

I got more questions please. In fact, I want to be sure the problem is in the design or in my mistress so I wonder if I have to begin the diy project or not.

My concern is that I found my Deluxe not subtle at all and not precise. In Gilmour sound, there is really more transparency. It seems that you say that in your 18V, it is even more present ?

Thanks again ! 

[Bernardduur]

I can agree on this, but I like my 9V version better than the 18V version I once owned.

[StephenGiles]

There must be something wrong with your deluxe EM, as it is possible to set it from almost no flanging to mucho flanging. I have an old deluxe at home which I will check out for the first time in about 5 years!
Stephen

[alteredsounds]

Def nothing wrong with my DM Mistress, I've had a couple of them and feel the same.  No aurgument it can do the full-on flanging but to my ears its the quality thats 'not right'.

[billou_35]

Thanks to all of you, it's really kind of you. 

In fact, I got flanging to full flanging (I guess) but there should be something wrong because I got too much flange (to my ears but it's the first time I hear a Mistress so... no reference except Gilmour) and if all full, I got a very pronounced whistle very annoying.

I'll very happy if you got information on how to check everything ? I got multimeters and scope so no problem.

Again many thanks !!! 

[alteredsounds]

Sounds to me like you will be able to cure that by adjusting the internal trimpot(s) (thinks there's 2).  I've had to do that on one before.

[billou_35]

OK, great, sound good to me if just trims adjustment. Does anyone know how to check these trims ? Which waveform, which amplitude, which frequency and so on ? 

The best will be pics of scope ! 

[alteredsounds]

To be honest I sat there strumming a guitar and tweaking the pots until it sounded good with all control setting.  Call me old-fashioned but I'd rather trust my ears than a scope for some things.

Cheers,
Nick,

[billou_35]

Hahahaha 

I totally agree with you ! I spent a year to make my Univibe clone from RG Keen and JC Maillet has been helping me a year long (and is always there to help me) and I was looking with my scope all the signals. At the end, I did a LFO with proper signals but at least, sounded so bad.... The original LFO is really the best and so, as you mentioned, only ears are right !

What I wanted to ask you was more if it was dangerous for the circuit to play with the trims but it seems that not so I'll make it with old school style too !

Thank you once more ! 

[billou_35]

Just to mention that I bought a Standard Electric Mistress 18V on Ebay and it's clear that it is sounding really better than the Deluxe version, nothing to compare... I'm now a really happy man, I'm just curious to hear an 9V version... 

For the difference between 18V (12V) & 9V, it should be enough to make a difference, I made a clone of the Univibe and I use 24V instead of 18V and I got much more headroom, dynamics...

Thanks to all of you for your experience...

[Dave_B]

It's worth pointing out that Tonepad is working on an EM circuit that features "the LFO of the Deluxe (including it's controls) and the signal path of the ORIGINAL Electric Mistress."

[Basstyra]

I up this thread to share my experience...

I currently have at home a non deluxe 18v EM (green label on front), and a Deluxe EM (black and white) powered directly from wallwart.

The schematics are differents, first. The 18v version schematic can be found on freeinfosociety.com, the Deluxe one on ggg.com.

The 18v sound just wonderfull, and I was having great expectations concerning the deluxe. But when it arrived, it just sounded bad. So i opened it, and the fact is here : the Deluxe is loaded with lots of trimpots (feedback, bias, gain, balance, clock adjust). Way more than the 18v version. After some time tweaking, I got pretty decent sounds out of the deluxe.

But yeah, I agree with what's been said, the 18v version sounds better. The Deluxe is not bad, once you correctly set the trimpots, but...