Crash Sync not Syncing

[Austin73]

Just built John Hollis's Crash Sync via Torchy's layout, but having a few issue.

1. I only seem to get a reasonable amount of noise out of it by having a booster before it, otherewise it seems rather gated if that makes sense

2. It doesn't seem to make the noises that Mr Hollis has on his site. At present it makes more bit crushing type sounds but when I sweep the 100k pot i get a sort of similar sweep but manually instead.

This is my first project using 555 so any help would be gratefully recieved although what I seem to have made is still pretty cool

Aus

[reverberation66]

     yeah, the best way to enjoy this pedal is to use an external pedal to control that 100k frequency pot, or a photocell, etc.  otherwise it sounds cool but not nearly as cool...I made one of these and dropped it an old wah shell and use the pedal to control the frequency, sounds great that way. 

[oldrocker]

That sounds like it's working right.  Like you I didn't realize that on the sound clips he was somehow manually sweeping the pot as he was playing.  I put a thread below that shows what I did so I could sweep while playing.  If you go all the way clockwise with the sweep knob you get a nice octave down.
Now that you got used to the 555 chip you should try an Ugly Face too.  It's really awesome.  It uses an LED/LDR and a 386 chip too.  Do a web search for Circuit Snippets and scroll down to the Ugly Face schem.  It uses an oscillator that resets when it receives a guitar signal. Talk about analog synth from the guitar.  It's fun to play with.  Like the Crash Sync with some tweeking you can get octave effects too.  You might not need any manual sweeping with this effect but it might be cool to add one although I didn't yet.  
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=49208.0

[Austin73]

Thanks for the input so far chaps. Might build another one and try putting an LFO on it like Moose did but definitely want to build an ugly face or two next just need to get the vactrols and I'm away!

Cheers

Aus