String damper built, hell yah, it works....but...

[pinkjimiphoton]

it works great, actually... i was sitting here playing "are you experienced" earlier with a fuzzface driving it...

you can really fake it or yourself into sounding backwards...very cool. an envelope follower with it and a fuzz can be savage and sick in a good way.

but...ya knew this was coming...

the 9(*&^%'n thing has a volume drop. and a BIG one.

i'm assuming cranking up the gain of the buffer stage before the lm13600 isn't cool, cuz ya don't wanna overdrive it?

this is what i built, this old layout from the great pcb site, an anonymous forumite sent me the pcb for it:



here's the schematic:



the original layout, from mark hammer's site:



and finally, the BOM



what do you guys think would be the best way to get this thing to have more volume on it's output? it really needs to be about twice as loud,
it's gotta be about a 6db drop. the thing sounds great, but it plain needs more bal.....err...intestinal fortitude.

help!! please!!



i really wanna get this thing on my live board!!!! i've gotten quite addicted to it today.

i did a couple mods.. used 1n34's for all the diodes, as per mr. hammer's suggestion...
and i added a dpdt and used it to switch c9 between 2.2u and 4.7u, which is SIGNIFICANTLY slower.

the effect is great, but a pia to dial in... worth messing with, worth making it RIGHT.

thanks guys...my newbe @$$ is stumped...again.

[haveyouseenhim]

sorry  cant help, but is that a two sided pcb?

[PRR]

Double R13 and R15.

[pinkjimiphoton]

thanks paul, i will try that....

have you seen him, no, single sided bro

[haveyouseenhim]

Is there a transfer for etching floating around anywhere?  I saw this on hammers site the other day and thought i would give it a try.

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey paul,

i tried doubling r13 and 15, slightly better...

right now i've gone from 4.7k and 10k to 22k and 39k...

it's closer...but not enough... do ya think i could get away with maybe 39k and 100k? i MAY have an 82k, if it matters... or would i be better off with 47k and 100k?

sorry for all the questions...definitely working towards the right direction!! thanks sir!

have you seen him.... you can use the layout above...the only etching i've seen, you may have to clean it up with paint or something, but you should be able to scale it properly from the greatpcb pic.

[haveyouseenhim]

ah ok. i was trying to avoid doing that, but i guess i gotta. if you get it working properly I'd love to see a stupid pedal tricks vid on it

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey bud, it's absolutely working, and it's cool as hell, it's different from all the slow gear kinda things, for me, it's much closer to backwards.
slow gears sweep each note, but when you're actually PLAYING backwards, the phrasing doesn't swell on each note necessarily, it does it more over the course of a phrase.
this does that admirably.

i just need to get it louder.

time to try 47k and 100k...i have a feeling that may do the trick.

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok....PRR!! thanks man!!

ok, we got it.... to get this thing up to unity gain, and make it more useable, a couple mods are in order.

first, as paul suggested, make r13 and r15 bigger... don't double it, multiply by 10.

make r13 47k instead of 4.7, and make r15 100k instead of 10k. you could probably go even higher, maybe use a 250k pot and a 100k trimmer.

at 47k and 100k tho, it's close enough to unity for rock and roll, seems to have done the trick.

cool!!

stupid pedal trick to follow soon...

peace out!

[pinkjimiphoton]

also, forget if i mentioned it....

but if you take a dpdt switch, and put a 2.2u cap on one pole, and a 4.7u cap on the other, and take the center terminals to where c9 would be on the board,
you can double the attack time, which can be really cool...

think the harmonic swell at the beginning of "roundabout" by yes.

pretty groovy.

happy building!!

[John Lyons]

Interesante Jimi. Looking forward to the clip.

[haveyouseenhim]

stupid pedal trick to follow soon...

cant wait

[pinkjimiphoton]

will try to get to it in the next day or two, i  have a couple things i've GOTTA get done i've been putting off.

but yes, it does work, and it's a weird effect..ya really gotta get a feel for it under your fingers and "think" backwards to get the best effect.

it sounds REALLY cool with a strat > autowah>octave fuzz>vibe>echo>string damper>leslie sim (i broke out a bunch of dano minis cuz they were handy)

could get some really weird, synthetic sweeps of sound i've never heard before. the pairing with fuzz and an autp wah is pretty magical.. i was surprised the echo before it worked well..

neat effect, cuz ya can gate the repeats and control them with your pick attack!

or maybe i'd just smoked a little too long on the cigar and everything was not necessarily ston....err...

[PRR]

>> about a 6db drop
> don't double it, multiply by 10

Something else ain't right. Ask your kid/mom/dog to go over all the part-values. I strongly suspect an orange-stripe where should be a red-stripe, or some other "small" error you can't find yourself.

[pinkjimiphoton]

seems to work fine now...i'm wondering if the reason so many people had issues with it was if
the original magazine article did the opposite, and THEY made the mistake?

for exactly the reason you state paul maybe?

what if they made the mistake, and it should have been 147k and 100k all along?

it's just off the opposite way...one decimal point to the left.
just thinking that's maybe why every build report i checked out talked about it having issues?

will i damage something using it like this? cuz it seems to do everything it's claimed to do, but didn't, stock.
and i did double the resistors...from 4k/10k to 10k/22k, then 22k to 39k....

actually, i never did the last one, i think i was gonna but decided for the sake of the board (i'm not the best de-solder hand unfortunately and had lifted a trace or three)
to just try 47k and 100k. seems plausible, but i am yet an egg, and far from the enlightened path of being more than a hack at best.

all i can say is it appeared to work, i'll try and do a stupid pedal tricks video when g. leaves for work.

[Paul Marossy]

This sounds like a cool circuit. Hadn't seen this one before.

[pinkjimiphoton]

it's been on mark hammer's site for years, paul. it's neat...different.

[Paul Marossy]

it's been on mark hammer's site for years, paul. it's neat...different.

Yeah, I just never ran across it until now. I like the Slow Gear a lot, maybe this is something for me to try also...

[pinkjimiphoton]

it's different...the slow gear is on each attack...this is more like on the beginning of each phrase.

screw it...stay tuned...stupid pedal trick imminent.

[pinkjimiphoton]

here ya go...takes a little getting used to to get the best effects out of it, but fwiw, i like it:

thanks, "anonymous forumite!!" this was a gas!!!