Building the Meat Sphere

[Taylor]

I ran out and don't have the resources to order another run yet.

[Jopn]

Would a preorder scenario work?

[KoenT]

Hi everybody,

I really enjoyed building the meat sphere and after swapping the ICs a few times it works. I have a problem with the effects loop however.
Because I didn't the switchable jacks I just connected send and return so the effect worked perfect. I wanted to try the loop so I used regular jacks and when I put a patch cable or a true bypass effect (off) in the loop it also works perfectly. But when I turn on the effect there is a little volume drop, the envelope effect disappears and the effect in the loop also doesn't change the sound (so you just get a clean sound). Does anybody knows what the problem could be?

Thanks!!

[Taylor]

Sorry if this seems obvious but might you have the cables the wrong way around? Send should go to the other effect's input, and that effect's out to return. If you had them backwards they'd work when the external effect is bypassed but kill everything but the clean sound when the ext. effect is on.

[KoenT]

You're almost right. I've been stupid. Apparently the wires from send and return cross each other to the jacks. I connected them to the closest jacks.

Thanks again Taylor

[Taylor]

For those watching this thread, I have the Meat Sphere board back in stock again, and the website has been redone. Let me know what you think.

[drj]

Taylor, Avast antivirus is blocking access to musicpcb.com (and shows a warning about a trojan) the only way I can view musicpcb.com is by temporarily disabling Avast.

it's been like this for months, is anyone else having a problem viewing the site ? 

[Taylor]

Yes, there has been some discussion of that problem. As far as I know, a hacker slipped some spam into the MusicPCB header a long time ago and though I removed it a long time ago I guess some malware software still has the site blacklisted. I don't believe there is any danger to your computer going on the site, but if you're unsure, you can send an order to me directly at taylorlivingston [the 'at' symbol] yahoo.com. Just email me with what you'd like to purchase, your country, and I will send a Paypal invoice.

If anybody with web security skills is willing to help me iron this out I will trade PCBs or cash for your help.

[drj]

^ Ok, thanks for the info.

[Dimitree]

Could anyone please explain me what should be the correct resistance values across the 2 points where we put a ldr+parallel resistor, in either full on and full off states?

[tremelo68]

So, I built this about 8 months ago and was not getting great sounds out of the vactrols so when I finally got back to it last week, I tried the green diffused LEDs and LDRs. I got better sounds, but still nothing awesome.

I can see that one of the LEDs does not light up at all. I know the LED is good because I have tested it. Any ideas on where to troubleshoot the non-lighting LED?

Thanks

[Taylor]

The envelope follower is the part in the top middle of the board. Under the lm1458 there are two 100R resistors. If one LED lights but the other doesn't I reckon your soldering on the LED or the associated 100r resistor might be cold? Or the up down rotary switch.

[tremelo68]

I'll check that out. Thanks for the quick reply

[lwatford]

Early on LaceSensor posted:

Finished mine.
Some setting give wierd results that dont sound "right" but ive found a good place to put the colour intens and blend that produce nice sounds with all other switch settings.
Something wierd goes on in the down setting, if you max the colour intensity and blend the signal all gets cut.
Im not sure if its just the idiosynscrasies of the device, but the standard lovetone "pure meatball" setting is unacheivable due to this oddness.

Did anyone else have this problem, and did you get it sorted out? The last two of these I've built have had the same issue.

[LaceSensor]

Nsl32 sound like ass
Use proper led and ldr combo like the real unit

[bcalla]

Nsl32 sound like ass
Use proper led and ldr combo like the real unit

Thanks for this post.  I had mine finished and it sounded awful.  Only a few knob settings did anything - most knob positions turned off the effect entirely.  I had a terrible static/hiss on top of the effect.  This sounded like a mess of troubleshooting, but first thing I did was pull the NSL32s and pop in a pair of green LEDs and a couple of LDRs.  Bingo.  Sounds amazing.

[bcalla]

And here it is, including the Moog switch.

[yvarg]

That's a good looking build, bcalla! I really dig the idea of using a stomp switch for the moog mod! I might borrow that idea, if you don't mind. 

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Can someone give me a link or quick explanation on the Moog mod? Whats it do? 

[yvarg]

Can someone give me a link or quick explanation on the Moog mod? Whats it do? 

. . .
Second, a mod I like to call the "Moog switch".
In contrast to the Meatball (which keeps Q constant with frequency) in  the famous Moog ladder filter Q decreases with frequency, which to my knowledge is an important part of the Moog filters sound.
I like this feature since with bass guitar (didn't check with guitar) the bass may become rather unpredictable at certain settings of the Meatball.
Although it may sound cool the sound engineer hates you for this 
I did a couple of LTSpice simulations to find out that the Moog filters Q frequency dependency can be approximated by adding a 470n cap in series with 10k resistor in the feedback loop of the Meatball.
The "moog switch" is inserted in place of the 10k feedback resistor and has the 10k and the 470n mounted to the switch. It switches between 10k only (meatball mode) and 470n in series with 10k (Moog mode).
For some reason I needed to add a 100k resistor in parallel with the 470n. Without the 100k there was massive distortion. Might be that it was just a cold solder joint on the switch that caused the distortion. Anyway, I didn't care to remove the 100k again since it worked.
Thought I'd share because I really dig the Moog mode. In fact I prefer it with bass guitar.