Schumann Pedals

[Pigyboy]

Does any one have one of these pedals?
http://www.schumannelectronics.com/index.html
Any info or schematics for any of them?
Anyone interested in getting one to tear apart?

[brett]

Hi
these look nice.  But are they revolutionary?  maybe not

e.g.

The LION X has a Lion circuit with two outputs. This gives you the ability to put distortion in one output and clean in the other output -- or split the signal and mix it.

One output has a vintage analog-synth style adjustable voltage control bandpass filter. The other output has an adjustable lowpass filter.

Any of the senior members of the forum would be able to whip a design like that together in an hour.  Building it would take a few hours.

Having said that - I wish them the very best of luck.  Diversity and options are what it is all about.  Most people out there wouldn't have the time, design skills or assembly skills to put these things together, so they are offering a great service to many.
just my 2c....

[Taylor]

You can make a PLL-alike by starting with the E&MM "Harmony Generator":

http://web.archive.org/web/20080315204022/http://hammer.ampage.org/files/EMMHarmoGen.PDF (this is a direct link to a PDF)

If you duplicate the CMOS switch at the bottom of the schem and send the up octaves to this, and send only the down octaves to the first switch, you can basically have a PLL.

The 2 face fuzz thing is probably a phase splitter with a separate fuzz face on each side of the wave, then recombined.

[phector2004]

Slade
President & CEO
Schumann Electronics

[Strategy]

hahaha...I don't think that's "our" slade

Slade
President & CEO
Schumann Electronics

[Taylor]

Slade is a really busy guy. Every day he commutes from Chile to Brooklyn to take care of Schumann biz, then he flies back to Chile to etch and build 10 of his own pedals. Then he sleeps for 12 minutes and starts over again.

...then again, Schumann has been "about to go back into business" for almost a year now, so I guess he's not that on top of things.

[John Lyons]

Oooph!

[Strategy]

There was a subgenre of boutique manufacturers that basically collapsed from what I call Radioheaditis. Radiohead were repping boutique pedals and the demand for said pedals among their fans or would be alternative rockers surged. Lovetone, case in point: was it long after their Radiohead endorsement that they essentially shut down?  Schumann have "legendary alt rock status" from what I know of, yet, it seems to correlate with relative unavailability of the goods.

TOTAL CONJECTURE on my part, but IIRC Schumann pedals were among those repped by some alt rock bands (incl Radiohead unless I am misremembering) of the early 00's which was later followed by "I must have that boutique pedal because my favorite band uses that"

Strategy

[soggybag]

Someone on the "other forum" had one of these and took some gut shots. It looked like a mess inside.

[Strategy]

messy = mojo?

Someone on the "other forum" had one of these and took some gut shots. It looked like a mess inside.

[Taylor]

I actually, half-jokingly, postulated that he made them so obscenely messy inside as "the goop of the new millenium". Then I read in one of their press releases (in which they call out Snazzy FX for supposedly ripping off the PLL by lying to Schumann) that, according to Schumann, he had built his pedals with "booby traps" to prevent cloners.

It's interesting to me, because many of the same spatial reasoning skills involved in laying out a nice front panel graphic could be applied to laying out the inside of a pedal.

[phector2004]

I think it includes previously built and scrapped experiments and a load of extra wires leading nowhere, with the gooped bit hiding the fuzz circuit

UNLESS

the small perfs are the fuzz circuits and the big gooped thing is a red herring. In that case, I would have added a padlock and glued a keypad into the goop to get them frantically trying to reveal its secret

[newperson]

Does anyone know what the lamps are?  What are the light covers?

[Taylor]

I don't think they're lamps, just regular old LEDs with colored lens covers.

Lots of LED lenses at Mouser starting around page 160:

http://www.mouser.com/Catalog/catalogusd/642/160.Pdf

I bet you could find something similar there.

[newperson]

Thank you sir,
I will get the book out and take a look.  I usually use those black snap in holders.  These look nice.  Maybe I will be able to find a part number.

[Pigyboy]

The 2 face fuzz thing is probably a phase splitter with a separate fuzz face on each side of the wave, then recombined.
[/quote]
Sounds interesting. Anybody want to give it a go using a +9v/-9v charge pump supply?

[Taylor]

Yeah, here's what I'd do:

Code Select Expand


input>buffer------>precision rectifier with diodes oriented forwards----->fuzz face----->buffer-
                    |                                                                                                                 |
                    --->precision rectifier with diodes oriented backwards--->fuzz face----->buffer----->output

Hmm, it's just impossible to do ascii diagrams here no matter what I try. Oh well, I think you can see the general idea. I'm not sure the point of the bipolar supply.

[Pigyboy]

I'm not sure the point of the bipolar supply.

Me either but I found this from john schumann's site.

Quote:
The LION X has a Lion circuit with two outputs. This gives you the ability to put distortion in one output and clean in the other output -- or split the signal and mix it.

One output has a vintage analog-synth style adjustable voltage control bandpass filter. The other output has an adjustable lowpass filter.

The LION X uses a +12 -12 bipolar power supply.  End quote

It is for the Lion X. I am not sure of the Fuzz power situation. I figured it was something like a negative supply for the negative swing and positive for postive.

Here are more pics of his work I found trolling.





One of the PLL


$2K on Ebay...Any takers?

[caress]

i just don't understand why/how they look so great on the outside and like garbage on the inside... 

[modsquad]

What a big lesson in paranoia 

It is obvious there are a bunch of wires in there for no reason and to confuse.  I would hope that no one would build a commercial pedal like that inside.