why does my brownsource sound like s**t > with audio example

[ulysses]

hey guys

can someone tell the technical name for what my brownsource clone is doing? it sounds like the opamp is shitting itself.

does everyones brownsource do this?

BROWNSOURCE CLONE > VOL 90% > DRIVE 50% > TONE 0% > TONE KNOB SET TO OFF

heres an mp3 demo, three clean strikes, 3 effect strikes
http://www.mixset.com/brownsource_problem.mp3

im pretty sure i got the perf layout all correct. but when i listened to others examples it doesnt sound like theirs is shitting itself..

cheers
ulysses

[John Lyons]

That sounds about right unfortunately...same as mine through my twin reverb.
The BS sounds like poop through a clean amp, fizzle and an unattractive fuzz.
BUT...Through a slightly dirty amp it sounds nice.
Search for Lovetone, Loveclone, or Brown Source and you will find some dialog and mp3 samples about this subject.
Here's the most current thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=50834.0


John

[Meanderthal]

 Is that the infamous South Park brown sound?

[jonathan perez]

sounds good to me

[ulysses]

BROWN NOISE
“An oscillation of sound that causes the bowels to loosen. The brown noise is believed to be ninety-two cents below the lowest octave of E flat.” “The brown noise was discovered by the French, and tested as a weapon during WWII. It is a 12-14hz sound wave that, when played loud enough, relaxes your sphincter, causing loss of bowel control.”

no.. unfortunatly this pedal does not make you shit yourself, it shits itself.

in fact, if you turn the drive right down it actually acts as a high pass filter, and the low end is removed.. even with the tone knob set to off.

cheers
ulysses

[KerryF]

BROWNSOUND
"An oscillation of sound that causes the bowels to loosen. The brown noise is believed to be ninety-two cents below the lowest octave of E flat." "The brown noise was discovered by the French, and tested as a weapon during WWII. It is a 12-14hz sound wave that, when played loud enough, relaxes your sphincter, causing loss of bowel control."

Sounds like a nice school experiment.
STEP 1. Build Brownsound sound simulator with speaker.
STEP 2. Place under enemy's desk.
STEP 3. Turn on and put ear plugs in.
STEP 4. Lock the door so he/she cant get out of the classroom.
STEP 5. Laugh as hard as you can 

That would be horrible though. 

[Meanderthal]

 Don't bother trying to find the Brown Note.  Mythbusters tried it with a HUGE wall of subwoofers and like 10000000 watts, all it did was shake your eyeballs... Was pretty funny on South Park though(but then again, what isn't?)

Btw, thanks for the warning about the brownsource... I might have found myself building it someday otherwise.

That would be horrible though.

Especially because plugging your ears wouldn't make any difference. You'd just drop a deuce too! IF it worked it would be in the subsonic range anyway- you'd never hear it either way.

[burnt fingers]

I think that sounds pretty close.  Maybe a little fizzier than I remember but I had my friends chees source for a while and that's pretty close to what the source side sounded like. 

It's no tube screamer. 

I rather liked it into my mesa with just a hint of dirt from the amp.

Scott

[RaceDriver205]

I do recall that Tesla did some experiments with a vibrating platform, which did produce the bowel effect. That man did all sorts.

[JHS]

If you have used Nelson's schem it sounds like shit, the wiring of the 2nd stage in the schem is just wrong.
Correct the output wiring on the 2nd stage (move it to or 1 or 7, depends on the IC wiring) and you get the sounds from the samples.

JHS

[ulysses]

tesla did some good work

would like to see Tom Bearden's MEG based on tesla's theories come to light

cheers
ulysses

[ulysses]

If you have used Nelson's schem it sounds like shit, the wiring of the 2nd stage in the schem is just wrong.
Correct the output wiring on the 2nd stage (move it to or 1 or 7, depends on the IC wiring) and you get the sounds from the samples.

JHS

i did build one many months ago on vero. i think it was torchys build, the one with permission given to indyguitarest.com . it did sound like shit. in fact it was almost unuseable.. if i remember correctly it did barley nothing..

this one (audio demo provided above) is this build http://www.mixset.com/LBS_Web(with_corrections).gif
i believe people said this is the correct one? has there been further updates since this one?

cheers
ulysses

[9 volts]

If you have used Nelson's schem it sounds like shit, the wiring of the 2nd stage in the schem is just wrong.
Correct the output wiring on the 2nd stage (move it to or 1 or 7, depends on the IC wiring) and you get the sounds from the samples.

JHS

Can you please clarify this. I was just looking at Nelsons schematic/pcb layout and the second stage comes off pin 1 which is connected to pin two via a 22k resistor. Pin seven seems to be used in the first stage of the effect.

ps Wheres Nelson?
Hope all is well and you found a new place etc!

[John Lyons]

All of this is covered in a couple more recent threads but if you take the output directly from Pin 1 (Nelson's PDF) you will get a better sound. Not night and day difference by any means but better. Should go, pin 1 > 4.7uf > 220r > 10k volum pot > out

The moral of the story is that for a full and nice boost/fuzz you need to run this into a somewhat dirty amp.
Doug hammond has some revisions on this but I'll wait until he posts them. There are some better sounds to add to the tone stack selector. Some don't do anything as per the shem in the PDF...

john

[Doug_H]

That sound clip doesn't sound right. I have the BS on the breadboard right now, I'll try it later with the tone turned all the way down and see if it has the same problem, but I don't think it does.

I have not seen a "correct" schematic for the BS yet, although the loveclone schem comes closest. Given that, the latest loveclone schem I have is the rev 5 which has the output stg wired incorrectly as already noted. Okay, so let me define what I mean by "correct"... "Correct", in my mind, means the circuit functions in a reasonable way and produces a sound that resembles the clips at the Lovetone page. It does not mean it copies every molecular detail of the original Lovetone circuit.

From what I can gather from searching the forum and etc, the first trace from the actual pcb was done in a hurry, and subsequent traces were done from photographs. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. The point is, I think there's enough potential for mistakes (as evidenced by the confusion of the myriad schematics) that I don't think anyone *really* knows what Lovetone actually did in the contested areas of the circuit. So all we are left with is doing what is reasonable and what makes sense. So, for example, I believe the 2nd stage is purely a 5x gain recovery stage to compensate for the tone control losses. It's not a buffer. It's not some weird mystical mojofying circuit that LT discovered that takes the output from the "-" pin. That will basically do nothing to the signal- you may as well leave that stage out in that case. That's basic op-amp electronics 101 and I've confirmed it on my breadboard as well. 

Again, correct me if I'm wrong but in this whole discussion on this board I haven't seen one other person actually put this on the breadboard, play with it, and let their ears tell them what makes sense and what doesn't wrt this circuit. I've seen a lot of people's conjecture about pcb traces and schematics. Others have jumped straight into building it from this info without attempting to understand how the circuit works, what affects what, etc. Then they wonder why it doesn't sound right. Where's the curiosity and willingness to experiment? There is at least one major element of this circuit that has a big impact on its sound that so far has not been discussed. In addition, I think I may understand why they tuned the input stg the way they did, although from a pure electronics perspective it doesn't make sense and it not's the typical straightforward way we design op amp gain stgs. I need to re-check the sim again on that though.

I've had this on the breadboard for a couple weeks and have been playing with it a lot. I came up with a slight simplification of it and another tone setting I prefer over the tone bypass sound. I'm about to perf it up and install it in my box. I'll upload a schem and some clips when I'm done. I'm also going to upload a writeup on what I think are some of the more interesting aspects of the circuit that so far have been glossed over. FWIW, I think it's a great sounding circuit- very cool. You have to play with it for a while to discover a lot of the sounds. And you have to set up your amp to take advantage of what it does. But what it does, it does very well.

[ulysses]

ohh im waiting on baited breath for dougs updates 

there is no way a simple pedal dude like me could look at a broken circuit and try and fix it. my skill is just not that good.

i am capable of looking at a working circuit and figuring out how it works and making mods where i see fit. which i do often, but untill my skill increases i am unable to offer suggestions on why this schem may not work.

for fixing faulty circuit designs, i'll leave it for the guys with many more years under their belts.

doug, any chance you could work in the filter freqs of the varitone using just caps and resistors to this circuit? i think that would sound quite nice.

cheers
ulysses

[Doug_H]

I tried out your control setting with my breadboard circuit and didn't have any of the problem I heard in your clip. Sounds like something's not biased right or a cold solder joint or something. Good luck.

[ulysses]

thanks for your reply doug.

when you say biased properly do you mean the bc549 could be nackered? or the resistors around it could be wrong? if you had some time to let me know i would appreciate it.

i also used 4148's, they should be interchangable for 914's..

cheers
ulysses

[ulysses]

i think i may have found a source of the problem.. but i am not sure why..

i have wired the circuit into an aluminium case using the following wiring diagram
http://generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/switch_lo_dpdt_led_in.gif

now when i have the circuit bypassed, there is still that distortion/crackle when i play.. when i pull the 9v wall wart out of the input it bypasses properly without distorting my signal.

have i chosen the wrong wiring diagram?

cheers
ulysses

[ulysses]

i just took it out of the box and rewired it straight up as you would any other pedal.

it still has that crackle. its weird, if i play softly it is clean, ie no sign of the effect. if i plau harder the effect kicks in but only offers that distorted crackle effect.

could it be the 549? is it worth while going to get another one?

cheers
ulysses