Atari Punk Mods

[CheesyMoo]

Hey y'all.

I initially got interested in the Atari Punk Console because my friend was going to buy one off of craigslist for 65$... I told him I could make one with junk laying around my room...

However, that effect by itself is pretty boring so I want to modify it and make it into a respectable stomp box. Initially I thought I would use it as a carrier input for a ring modulator. After reading all there is to read about ring modulators I am pretty discouraged about going down that road. (Too many obscure parts that aren't readily available)

So anyways, on to my question:

Do any of y'all have simple mods for the Atari Punk Console (or any oscillator in general) that would make it worthwhile as a guitar pedal? I assume there are many modulation effects possible with this: tremolo? phaser?
I'm not quite sure. Any thoughts or links would be appreciated.

Great forum, keep up the good work.

[fuzzo]

Hi,

Atari punk console isn't really an effect pedal. It's more to make some noise a la Atari teenage riot or The prodigy, more for electro stuff if you want.

Here's John Hollis schematic, "crash synth" that uses a 555.


From his website :

This is an oscillator sync circuit that gives the kind of effect you find on old analogue synths. Oscillator synchronisation is performed by using one oscillator to reset another. In this instance the guitar signal is used to reset an oscillator running at a higher sweepable frequency. The effect is not dissimilar to flanging. Not one for the tone freaks, this is a destroy-your-tone effect for noise vandals. The front end is copied from the MXR blue box.

Otherwise you can make a ring modulator with this oscillator.

[oldrocker]

The hysteresis oscillator would be more of what you're looking for.  It has ring modulation type sounds and best of all it has a built it stutter type effect.  An easy build with cool sounds.
Here is a link to the guy website who first put this together.
http://www.geocities.com/worthekik/hysteresis.html

[CheesyMoo]

Thanks for all the schematics y'all. Very informative.

Atari punk console isn't really an effect pedal.

Understood, however the goal is to develop it into one. The simplicity of the circuit is desirable and the oscillator itself is controllable enough to be useful as a component in a effects pedal.

Otherwise you can make a ring modulator with this oscillator.

This would definitely be a good outcome, however most of the schematics I've seen require obscure ICs. I would prefer to make the passive one with diode ring and the two transformers... but those are also not extremely available.
I couldn't settle on any schematics for a ring modulator that used ICs, most of the ones that seemed worth it were very complex. I'm going to keep investigating this possibility and hopefully get something cool to happen.

I'm gonna breadboard those two schematics that y'all showed me and see what changes I can come up with. Thanks for tha help.

[oldrocker]

The biggest problem when using 555 timer IC's for oscillators is the audible ticking that many complain about when trying to use these this way.  That's why you don't see tremolos designed using timer IC's.   Using dual opamps for the oscillator will give a cleaner modulation.

[Br4d13y]

you could try the thing modulator from escobedo's snippets

[ohnoitshoward]

my first post!  i've got quite a few extra parts to build more atari punk consoles.  the first one it took me a while to build, since i'm a beginner to diy electronics, but its a nice starter project, and a relief to learn that the design could be used for another purpose!  thanks for posting the schematics and links.

will

[oldrocker]

If you like the Crash Sync (which is a  great circuit) maybe think about building Tim E's Ugly Face (circuit snippets).  Now that has to be my favorite 555 IC sound effect.

[CheesyMoo]

So after stumbling around the interent for a while I came across this schematic:
http://www.lynx.bc.ca/~jc/pedalsBalancedMod.html

I have all of the components to make it and just did a bread board version of it, however I'm running into problems trying to get the thing to produce any output.

I'm wondering if anyone got this circuit up and running and can double check any of my substitutions.
The assumptions I've been running on are:
I'm using an LM565CN, and using the same pin configurations, the datasheet seems to agree with me on this one.
Instead of using the 0.005u Cap, I used .0047u, I'm assuming this isn't a big problem.
I have neglected using two pots from the output of pin 3 from the IC, I am using one 25k pot instead of the 25k in series with 500. I'm not sure what the reasoning for making the circuit this way was but it seems superfulous.
Instead of using 1n4148 diodes I used 1n400x
I'm also unsure of what the function of the switches is. For the proto board model I left that as open circuits that I can connect with bannana clips... theoretically the same, but in practice?


Any info about the LM565 in general would be helpful as well, I read a bit on the datasheet for the use of it, but I have never encountered this IC before and don't know it's function as well as I do others...

[flood]

reviving a very dead topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NndG0aCoBa8

pin 3, it seems, does the trick.