other DIY Project suggestions ....

[Donner]

Well nothing says we cant have more than one going at a time....

Im pretty sure everything has been done to death --- that hasnt stopped us yet though


How about

a 'Learning' build ~ exploring distortion or phasing section by section

and an 'adventure/advanced' level build 8 1/2 xstage phaserflanger with reverse ramping and beer holder/cheetos dispenser

[Corksniffer]

I too have never needed a phase shifter & don't own one unless you count the presets in my Lexicon.
Here's my take on our next build and the desire to learn about forcing electrons around in the little boxes, could we step-up to the collegiate level of the phase shifter and build one that not only ramps up but could be panned with an expression pedal?
Corksniffer, you're the king of flanger builds, how different is a phase shifter from a flanger? Does your Toneczar Halophase do panning as well? Any ideas about what's going on in one of those?

I'm pretty sure OD's have been done to death. Besides, my amps do that to the nines.

I'm very curious about those 2N7000 xistors. A fellow named Soulsonic (on another DIY site) has incorporated those in some markedly disparate pedal designs.
I have yet to do anything with them, but make no mistake, I'm having fun. Both in Bjorn's way and that loveable pinhead Zippy's way.

Im hardly the king of flangers but thanks for the compliment. The biggest difference between a flanger and a phaser is that a flanger involves a very short delay line while a phaser uses an LFO to sweep through variable stages of phase shift. One is delay based while the other is basically a filter with an LFO.

I dont own a Halophaze yet but I respect Ed far too much to delve into spreading his trade secrets or designs throughout the DIY community.

[jfromel]

Well I just about have the schematic finished for a modded phase 45 with a LERA - there are other ways to do the ramp up/down function but the LERA seems to be the most tuneable, and I like using Vactrols

Once the schem is done I will send it off to Bjorn if he wants to take a look at it and make any suggestions.

Flange, chorus, and delay are all what I would consider college level builds. The Fuzz was high school. How I devlop this next project will be largely determined by how the survey gets answered that Donner posted - so get voting.

[JKoeth]

hmmmm right an educational tutorial/tour of the circuit board would be useful I would think.....

This is a great idea!

[JKoeth]

I know that I am new to building pedals but I would really like to build a flanger, chorus or delay that BJ has designed. I'm up for the challenge!

I also suggested a tuneable buffer circut to BJ a while back. That might be interesting.

[BJF]

Hi,

Right, if you all are warmed up by now maybe somethingelse fun can begin.
That would be great fun jfromel. Are we talking a four stage phaser or two?

Indeed a tunable buffer could also be fun and maybe also useful.
I have had a few request for this, but it's not something I have any time to build, but this could be a great project also from the standpoint that there could be a lot to tell about loading and use of buffers.

Ahum, chorous and flanger....well perhaps best to wait a bit with that- actually I'd need to define for myself what either of those sounds would do in a manner that I'd really enjoy.............working on it
At any rate this would be a more advanced circuit- but hey does not have to be that difficult if there's a pcb like the ones made for Folk Fuzz...still sound you know...........I'll work a bit on it and we shall see.

OK Delay hehehehe, perhaps that could be an analog delay Ahum that would be expensive however.

I'd think starting with a tunable buffer and jfromel phase skills could be practiced and fun had and useful things be made and in the meantime something more advanced could be worked out.

Have fun
BJ

[jfromel]

well I started sourcing parts for the phaser with the LERA and CLM6000 for the LERA is pretty out of spec. I bought a batch of 200 and only 16 were within spec, about 1/2 were close, this could be fixed by adding resistance in parallel with the LDR side of the CLM6000 but I think a better design could be had with a VTL54/C, The VTL's are more expensive but they don't need to be individually tested as they fall into spec pretty well.

I will shoot the schem over to Bjorn, its based on a phase 45 (2 stage), can be switched for phase or vibe and the ramp feature is optional. I might do it as two separate boards because the LERA can be used on most modulation effects with a speed control.

The other difficult part of making a good phaser is matching the FET's, if used only as a phaser it's not such a big deal but to get it to Vibe well matching the FET's is pretty critical. Without getting too technical the phase 45 uses the FET's in a way that was not anticapated by the manufacturer, so even though all the FET's are within spec for what they were designed to do, they may not be in spec for use in a phaser. All that being said, matching the FET's takes time and everone that goes into the discard pile adds expense to the good ones. So if I need to end up charging $2 for a $0.25 FET it is because of the time to match them and account for loss.

Let's hold off on flangers and chorus, my current chorus has almost 200 components on the PCB and my failure rate on the first bath was about 40%. Now that I have the bugs worked out every board fires up fine but it really is a pisser when you spend 4 hours stuffing and soldering a board only to have it not work.

If we end up doing another dirt box I would like it to be at least a bit different schem than the one we just did, there are some improvements I would like to make to the board as well such as sizing for germainium trannies. I don't mind supplying a full kit including all the outboard stuff but I still want this to be educational and not a paint by numbers BYOC kit.

[BJF]

Hi,

Well, let's say when I taught teenagers to make a folk fuzz I made them make their own layout from a schematic and drill and etch the pcb so they'd know the flow of the circuit well enough to put the right component in the right holes.

Perhaps I deliberately then with such an excellent pcb thought it just fine to stuff the board according to the schematic.

It is so though that after a while when you have worked with circuits and electronics just like anything in fact that once you know a certain amount many things become explicit while really only my limited time and current workload has prevented me from taking greater part in the pcb stuffing tutorial.

Indeed it is a major frustration putting anything over let's say 45 parts on a pcb and ending up with it not working and the more components the more there is that can potentially go wrong.

Some sort of advanced kit may perhaps later be possible, but then it must be fault proof and bulletproof, becuase remember building things should really be fun and rewarding and more complicated circuits take a whole lot more time constructing as an a tutorial.

That's saying not impossible but not possible right away maybe later

The Folk Fuzz is I'd say an easy build and jfromel proposed a more advanced build and this I'll give my input on.
Indeed matching j-fet's close enough for phaseshifting or vibe requires a very close match and while the transistors might be just ordinary priced the time it takes to group and match say 500 units also has a price, because it is time.
I know quite a bit about this since I match most components I use and it does take quite a bit of time.

Indeed photocells also need matching in linear circuits

With the vactrol I will have a suggestion and this is a daring one;)

Anyway, I hope you look forward to as much fun as I do with next project and in the meantime and also for continued time if there are any questions or help needed in building the remaining folk fuzzes just ask away.

Personally I cannot promise prompt answers so please be patient if an answer is not up. I'll go through the threads and see if there are any loose ends I can tie



Stay tuned and have fun in the meantime
BJ

[Hulakatt]

just bringing this one back from the grave here.

a.) The world can always use another fuzz, especially one that isn't a fuzz face.

b.) a Folk Overdrive would be awesome and would probably be a good circuit to play with tone controls/clipping sections/buffers and whatnot

c.) I would love to build and learn about what goes into a Tremolo. A Folk Trem would be at the top of my list. It was one of the earliest effects (well, on amps but there you go) and I see it less and less but I still love a good trem. I would like to learn about shaping the swells, controlling the speed and the rest. Also, it is not a dirt box and sometimes it seems people get bored with dirt all the time. Just something different.