Colorsound Vocalizer vero

[digi2t]

I'm going to go over the vero again. I managed to find a pdf of trace side layout of the Vocalizer PCB. I'll compare it to that and see what comes out of it.

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, don't freak, it's not a total wash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i got it working...sorta. the board works...so that's hip...

there's a problem with the 22k stacked pot wiring. if i short parts of it together, suddenly i have wah.

pin 3 on the part of the pot closest to the shaft seems to need to be connected to pin 1 of the other half of the pot.

so something is screwy...it works, it passes signal, but it's really mostly just a fuzzwah at this point.

i'm gonna chill for tonite, and attack it again in the morning bro. no worries...we're gonna figure this sucker out!! it passes signal, so that's more than half the battle...and it wahs, so that's even more. i'll hit it with a fresh brain tomorrow, and we'll figure it out!

'

[digi2t]

Or maybe I'll just go here and pick up a new one;



As soon as I get the vero of the Solasound Time Machine done 

[pinkjimiphoton]

rotfflmao...

a tl082 works in this, too...sounds nice stacked even!!

i've got a little formant...it ain't no pII, but it's definitely vocal!!

'm gonna try and splice in a buffer tomorrow bro, i have a feeling that will help it.
it's a little less than unity gain when on...and i gotta figure out how to widen the sweet spot...but i think it's working now...we gotta mess with the 22k pot tomorrow.

off like a prom dress bro...catch ya in the morning!

[digi2t]

pin 3 on the part of the pot closest to the shaft seems to need to be connected to pin 1 of the other half of the pot.

Dude, that's marked on the layout. Upper left, purple wire, goes to terminal 1 & 3 of POT 2. Since I always number the pots looking from the backside, POT 1 is the pot closest to you, POT 2 is the one underneath (spindle side). Terminals 1 & 3 connects to the purple wire, or, purple wire to 1 (or 3), and jumper.

There is one thing really bugging me right now, it's the fuzz pot. I'm not sure if one of the terminals needs to be grounded as well. There's something that looks "off" on the schem. Right where the fuzz pot is drawn, there is an arrow drawn right through the wiper symbol. Maybe something, maybe nothing. I'm working on it. What tranny did you use btw?

I'm going to retrace the layout this morning, and I'll let you know if there's something stinky.

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, then i have the treadle pot wired backwards then.

the fuzz pot doesn't seem to do much..if it's wired the way you said, i believe that means it should be a variable resistor, right? so no connection, or if there is one, wired to ground.

i'll play with it and see what  i can come up with bro.

[digi2t]

OK, I've traces the pcb to the schem, and the vero layout to both, and everything rhymes. According to the pcb layout, only the fuzz pot casing is supposed to be grounded. The three terminals are connected to their respective places in the circuit. As per the schematic and pcb, 1 and 3 of the fuzz pot bridge between pins 3 and 4 of the 4136 chip, and the wiper is fed by pins 8 and 14 of the same chip, after passing through some caps and resistors respectively. I re-re traced it on the vero, and everything lines up.

As for the unity, looking at the schem, there is a 330 ohm resistor going to ground, right at the output. Maybe pull this out, and wire in a pot as a variable resistor here, maybe a 5k or 10k to start, and see if increasing your resistance to ground here will bring your volume up.

Maybe swap out the PNP Germ for a Si with more gain as well.

[tiges_ tendres]

Never trust those NTE parts.  Is the pin out the same as the CA3080?

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, i'll look at swapping that resistor for a pot bro.

the nte part is fine, the weirdness is that i had the pot wired backwards (the 22k dual gang one) , i've been working all day on this fugging klon(e) i think i just blew up.

gimme  a little bit, dino.

and remember, we're dealing with a fairly old pedal i'd imagine, so it may just be buggy.

[pinkjimiphoton]

duh...tranny mp16b ge...so far, hottest one i have hfe 135

[pinkjimiphoton]

SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dude, take that 330 ohm resistor off the layout. cuz i'm lazy, and installed it standing up, i cut one of the bare wires in half, figuring i'd graft a gain pot in temporarily.

no need...it now works, and well!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the fuzz didn't work...now it does. it's not real fuzzy, as in the knob doesn't work for balls, but it does fuzz up nice.
basically, it's a real nice little fuzzwah. when the fuzz is cranked,  it sustains really nicely.

i did hook up a pot to that resistor, and a 5k pot works well as a final gain control, but probably not necessary...it's loudest with nothing there at all.

the dual pot hooks up like this...i tried every possible combination...

pot 1
lug 1 nc
lug 2  gray
lug 3 white with jumper to pot 2, terminal 1

pot 2
lug 1 purple, terminal 1 and jumper as above
lug 2 blue (brown, in mine)
lug 3 nc

that's it bro...it works, it's not only verified, it's VERO-FIED!!!

the coloursound vocalizer lives again, thanks to dino tsiptsis!!!!!!!1

well well done brother!! a REALLY nice wah wah!! and not an inductor in sight.

gimme a call later if ya can bro, i'm gonna try and shoot a quick video while gineen's  out.

[pinkjimiphoton]

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, here's the deal...it's a fuzz wah, more wah than fuzz, but not a "formant" pedal...unless i did something majorly wrong!!

i will try and get some audio/video clips up as soon as i can...thanks dino for the great work bro!! 

[Keppy]

Nice job, guys!

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks bro!!!!! 

it's a really cool wah, alot different from what i was expecting. i'm hoping rg can figure out a way to even out the sweep a little, i think that would improve it some.

[soggybag]

It's my guess that transistor really doesn't have to be a Ge. Looks like it's there to buffer the current going into the control voltage pin of the OTA. Seems like you might get more predictable results with a silicon part here. I don't think this part has anything to with the audio, it should only be affecting the sweep of one of the filters. Plus you can save that cool metal can for something where it would affect the audio, like a rangemaster or fuzz face.

[pinkjimiphoton]

tried a 2n3906, didn't make a lick of difference one way or the other...tho the silicon will probably be more temperature stable.

[Keppy]

An uneven sweep is probably a problem with your pot taper. For example, one wah pedal I bought to gut for a project had a W taper 100k pot. With that dual-gang, you're probably limited in your choice of tapers. R.G. has used a mod in some versions of the Neovibe to allow for the use of a single-gang pot in place of a dual-gang. That might be what you need. With a single-gang pot, you'd have lots of options to experiment.

[pinkjimiphoton]

well, hopefully he'll pop in and figure it out!! the man is a genius! 

[digi2t]

YAHOO!!!

I'm super glad it worked out! For all we know the pot tapers could be custom jobs in the originals. I think when I get around to building mine, I may experiment with seperate pots, and see what manually giving different offsets between the two pots yields.

Could you check the voltage just after R6 (looking at the vero layout, anywhere along the top row, to ground)? According to the shem, it's supposed to be 4.7 vdc here. I'm just wondering what you're getting.

That's really weird that it works with the pots wired the way you did  . Every gut shot I've seen, has them wired the way I've stated in the vero layout. Even the schem has them wired that way. I'm at a bit of a loss here. I just hope that somethings not c*ckeyed, and we're missing out on something  . Where the fuzz is concerned, I'm sure that maybe a resistor, or cap, change somewhere might make a boat load of difference (330R resistor, case in point). Or, maybe the fuzz pot might have to change to another value i.e. 5K or 2K even. I think I'm going to retain the "Unverified" moniker for now, until these minor details are ironed out. It would be great if R.G. could chirp in here with his thoughts. Without a doubt, I'm sure we're missing something here  

On the other hand, I'm really looking forward to a video. I really would like to hear this puppy. I think I've been more anxious with this sucker, than even the P II !

Great job to you bro. Thanks for transforming my paperwork into something tangible. Another hen's tooth soon to be available to the common man.