Colorsound Vocalizer vero

[pinkjimiphoton]

got two 910p caps yesterday, put them in to replace the 1n ones...it's ALL good!! gonna go shoot a demo clip.

i'm thinking two rotary switches with different cap values. that way you could choose which vowels you want to juxtapose.

add the lfo in to auto sweep, and let the treadle control either the lfo time or the tracking of the pedal things could get really sick.

[pinkjimiphoton]

 


more stupid pedal tricks for your perusal. the vocalizer sounds much better louder than in this, but i didn't wanna distort the audio or wake my roomates.

[digi2t]

Well, I screwed around with a Vactrol on this sucker, but I came to the realization that I'm trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Considering that I have a Stereo Panneur (among a cornecopia of other trems) at my disposal, I decided to abandon the LFO idea. I tried injecting the LFO on the side going to ground, while leaving the side controling the 3080 manual, but all that gave me was a tremulating, sort of manually auto-wah... without the YOY . I guess it's critical that the trajectories align not only at the right frequencies, but at the same moment, which is accomplished by the pedals dual pot. It dawned on me that this must be why they made a Dipthonizer, and a Vocalizer, but no combo of the two. Even the Dipthonizer, with it's multiple vocals, is set at fixed settings.

Which leads me to respect my Ludwigs even more. I wish I knew how they managed to allow you to sweep in and out of the YOY frequencies, on the fly, WITH oscillation!!. Then again, do a parts count of the Vocalizer, or the Dipthonizer for that matter, and compare it to the Ludwig. My handle ain't R.G., but I figure there must be some big time s**t goin' down in dare! So, if you want simple, build this, or a Dipthonizer. You want fancy? Build a Phase II. Don't waste you're time.

Anywho, I poured over R.G.'s wah and the human voice article in my spare time (at work... again!), and decided to just see if I could refine the YOY some what, by mixing different cap values on either side of the 4138. This one has promise. I found that you don't have to change both caps on one side of the 4136 to get subtle differences. So far, I've found that swapping one of the 4n7's for a 5n6, and one of the 680pF's for a 470pF, stretches the frequencies at either end just a tad more. I get a more pronounced YOY, deeper O, and higher Y (or I). As R.G. states in his article, the fact that the best frequencies can fall between cap values, and the wide tolerances that can be found at times, you may have to mix and match your caps to taste. I'm using el mucho cheapo ceramic caps in this case, so needless to say, I'm playing with a 20% tolerance here. So far, I've tried a bunch of different values, including different materials as well (ceramic, poly's, mica), and found it sounds best (for me) with the spec'd caps in ceramic. They have a tad more edge in the higher frequencies, sounding brighter than the chicklet's or mica's, which is fine by me. Bonus is, they also take up a hell of a lot less space on my layout  . I guess if you really want to be anal about it, you could build in a selector switch, to flip between caps if ever you're teaming this pedal up with a fuzz box, i.e. bright fuzz, darker caps, or vice versa. I dunno, whatever blows your skirt up I guess.

As for the PNP silicon transistor, I tried some different ones here as well. I was just curious to see if the gain of a particular transistor would impact on the workings. I went with 2N2904A, 2N2906A, 2N3907A, 2N3906, and 2N5087. The gains were 55, 140, 160, 280, and 400 respectively. None of then made a lick of difference to my ears. They all do the switching job perfectly well, so you could go with whatever is on special...

but...

The germanium question still nagged me. So I yanked out what i had on hand, and gave them a whirl. An AC128, oh my...an 2SB172, and a friendly looking Russian MP20B over there in the corner. Well, I was surprised. Not a HUGE difference, but a difference between between them, and their silicon brethren nonetheless. Don't get me wrong, they do the job, but I noticed one thing that seperated them in particular. From the full toe down position, coming back towards the heel, the first 15 - 20 degrees of the pot rotation, the germaniums are quieter. By quieter, I mean they don't dig back down into the deeper frequencies like the silicons. The way I heard this was by NOT playing the guitar, cranking the amp, and sweeping the pot. At the toe end, coming back about 20 degrees quickly, you get an OOH AAA sound in the background. With the silicons, the OOH is deeper, and much more pronounced than with the germaniums. The "knee" between the OOH and the AA is also gentler with the germaniums, and harder with the silicons. As a matter of fact the OOH always seems to be under the surface of the YOY with the silicons, throughout the sweep. So the germaniums produce more of a cleaner YYOOOOYY through the entire sweep, whilst the silicons it's more of a YYOOOOYYAW, with the YAW always hanging around, like a brother-in-law without a job. It's subtle mind you, but it's there. I'm guessing that the different forward voltages between the two, causes the 3080 to vary the resistance slightly differently, pushing the 4n7's side of the 4138 differently. I don't think leakage will play a role here where the germanium is concerned, so I guess any germanium tranny that didn't make it through fuzz school will do. This might be somewhere else one could go either way, depending on ones taste, er... ears. My advice, socket the suckers, and go with what works in your set up.

DO NOT bother with Ge diodes for the network going to the 4.7 volts. You're not getting enough voltage at the end of that chain, and it just about kills the YOY factor. Needs silicon here. I used 1N4148's. I tried 1N914's as well, no difference. As for the clipping diodes, that's a toss up, but mind you, silicons do give a more focused YOY than germaniums when you dial up the fuzz. Just my 2 bits. If you're going to drive it with another fuzz, well, all bets are off.

And there you have it. Along with another fabulous installment of "Stupid Guitar Tricks" from my bro Jimi, I'm calling this mother VERIFIED. Thank you brother for being the guinea pig, and enduring me on this one. You've got a heart the size of a bus!

I'll be making the above annotations on the vero in the gallery. As for the "Alternate I.C." vero, I don't feel like trying it, so it will remain unverified until someone tells me otherwise.

Enjoy,
Dino

[deadastronaut]

fair enough on the lfo.. !..... nice one dino+jimi...

i know a lot of time n thought n testing goes with this shit...i respect that a lot...as i'm a dumbass mostly...

sounds cool as is...

[pinkjimiphoton]

it's funny, it's tempermental with amps...some love it, some not so much. i may try to mess with the caps some day, but not for now...this does what it does, the ludwig does it too, so screw it...the important thing is another one's back from the grave...awesome work, my brother!!

great build peeps...make your favorite guitar go yoy!!

[digi2t]

OK, here's another video, this time with the Ge tranny. Apart from the fact that I managed to get a bit better sound out of my camera, you'll hear a much better definition of the YOY. I even manage to get a WOAH WOAH in the clean setting! WICKED COOOOLLLLLLLL!!!!!!

That's with the 2SB172. I do believe I'm going to box it like this, and then see if it'll play nice with some other dirt/fuzz boxes  .

[pinkjimiphoton]

awesome bro...gonna go play with mine, yours yoy's a LOT better than mine does!!!!

sounds great, yeah, guess it's verified!!

[Ronan]

Very nice guys, glad to see you got it sorted. Great job, very good! And thanks for the clips too.

[pinkjimiphoton]

i played with the treadle a little bit but mine does a bit more of an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiii sound than an ooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiii

if ya play with it once in the pedal, you'll see it doesn't accomodate quite the full pot sweep...so ya lose a little at one end or the other. but if ya find the sweet spot, you get a couple formants...3 in fact, whether  a, e or i or  o e i. 

cool toy. thinking rotary switch with some specific cap values could give choice of formant.

[digi2t]

I'm loading mine into a Crybaby, and looking at the travel compared to my tests, I think it's alright to lose the top end. By the time you get up there, all the fun's been had. Nothing left to do but hit the bypass switch.

I don't think that changing caps will give you different vowels. From my noob understanding of things, the problem is not only frequency (caps), but trajectory (pot) as well. The frequencies have to hit each other at the right time. As is, the 22K dual linear provides the proper trajectory to each side, so that they collide at the right moment to give you a vowel sound. You can change caps, but then you have to change the trajectory as well, so as the new frequencies can hit at the right moment. I think that's why EH had their dual pots cutom made for the Talking Pedal. A 7K on one side, and an 11K with a ground tap somewhere along the travel. I don't know if that tap was at the center, but it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't. THAT... would be too easy.

You could use LDR's instead of the dual pot though. That work around already exists as a replacement for the unobtainium EH pot. Maybe a rotary switch, using one side for the cap selection, and the other side to change the rate on the LDR's (taper)? Sounds like voodoo to me. I'm sticking to the KISS principle on this one.

That's the way I see it. If I'm wrong, then I'll gladly accept a correction. Life's too short to be stubborn or stupid. I tried different caps, as per R.G. article, but I never got any other vowel sounds. Hence, I believe that the angles set in this puppy are for YOY, including a bit of WOAH on the low end clean. I find on mine that it's best to max the rotation on the heel end of things, I get the best YOY starting from there. Like you say, jump a tooth, or cant the pot a bit, and Bob's your uncle.

[digi2t]

OK, it's boxed. i used a 2.7M resistor on the fuzz side, instead of a 1M, for more fuzz gain. I went for the MP20B, instead of the 2SB172 since I have a ton of them. Gonna keep the 172 for something special. Here's some pics;









and a video of the final product;

Just some detail work left, clean up some soldering, proper stand-offs, goop the tranny and IC's, and what not, but that's it. I might change the dual pot for something more robust in the future. I'm going to explore this avenue, including maybe using a higher value dually, and bringing it down via resistors. I might really be able to dial it in even better that way. I think I'll put a 1K trimmer in place of the 330ohm as well. I didn't install the 330ohm, but it might come in handy if I have to dial it back a touch. Enjoy!

[pinkjimiphoton]

THAT SOUNDS FREAKIN KILLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

FINALLY my 3080's came in.

definitely outshines the nte replacement, nte 996.

went thru 3 of the 10 chips, number three was the magic number.

oeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoe with a hint of waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

can almost do the flying monkeys song from the wizard of oz...oEo....O o


i think it's good...if i get motivated a little, try and post an audio clip.

[digi2t]

EXCELLENT!!

I really got a kick out of this project 

I'm reworking the Ludwigs right now, but I'm torn between the Mr. Multi, or Keio Traveller right now. Guess i'll have to flip for it 

[pinkjimiphoton]

well, the mr multi is muscal and useful, AND i got one for ref... just sayin'   

[paulyy]

Wow! This sounds great! Reminds me of a talkbox. Guessing thats what it might be based off. Will there be a pcb soon? Great work guys!

[pinkjimiphoton]

heh heh....do a search for ludwig phase II   

[pinkjimiphoton]

sorry for the distortion, the soundcard in this laptop really blows.

here's the final:

[digi2t]

YEAH BABY!!! NOW DAT'S WHAT I BE VOCALIZING ABOUT  Great job bro.

Wow! This sounds great! Reminds me of a talkbox. Guessing thats what it might be based off. Will there be a pcb soon? Great work guys!

PCB already exists on the net dude, do a search, you should find it pretty easily. That's what I based my vero on. Besides, I stick to vero, since I'm not equipped to do PCB's.

[pinkjimiphoton]

dude...we need to start learning to etch sh%t!!!


thought you'd get a kick outta that...man, you should hear it with a touch of anchovie's one chip chorus set up as a doubler after it...

freeeeekin' sick!!!!!