The Honey Bee Challenge

[briggs]

I'd be fine with that. I'm sure soulsonic's offering will wipe the floor with mine but I'd love to send my pedals round with it

[anxiousmofo]

This is exciting stuff to see. I'd love to hear what ye all have come up with and think Bjorn is a champ for encouraging this kind of thing. I have no knowledge of pedal electronics or DIY, mind you, aside from some hearty aspiration.

Hi, by the way!

[Corksniffer]

Built last night and cranked this afternoon. Im liking this circuit more and more for a dynamic cleanish drive and realy kicking up other pedals. It gets along really well with my LM386 distortion. Nice and warm addition to the signal with lots of dynamics even when stacked.

[briggs]

I like that build Corksniffer! It even looks like a Soulsonic original, rubber stamps and all

I'm just finishing off some instruction pamphlets to send around with the Hummingbird and Silver Orchid then I'll ship them off for you guys to try

I should explain that the designs for both pedals did not develop independently from one another. I came up with a "rough sketch" for both circuits and then refined them back, constantly stacking them into one another to see how the tone was developing. The outcome is a couple of boxes that can be stacked into one another with very pleasing (For me anyway!) results. The Hummingbird on its own is a very low/medium overdrive, depending on what you are driving it with (singles or buckers), the Silver Orchid is a slightly hairier affair which can produce a greater amount of clipping. By stacking them into one another you can achieve tones from light, spangley overdrives to smooth, feedback laden rock tones. There is a lot of range to play with as some of the controls are pretty interactive

[jfromel]

A lot of people struggled with the parts that get wrapped around the board last time so it might be a good idea to include an enclosure, jacks, pots, etc... and make the price a bit higher to compensate. You could probably pull it off really well for $50 a kit with a good board and parts.

A kit would be a lot easier but it makes the process of building more paint by numbers than even the Folk Fuzz was and that is really no different in educational value than a BYOC kit.

On the flip side there are parts that everyone is going to need such as the Jacks, pots, switch that are not going to change and sourcing those individually would be more expensive than buying in a kit.

It seems that there are different levels on which people want to participate, which is totally understandable.
Someone who just got their first soldering iron would benefit most from a complete kit, but there were a lot of people who took part in the Folk Fuzz that were experienced builders, many of which have their own line of products. Most of those guys just wanted boards.

[Corksniffer]

AFAIK we didn't really hear from most of those people so all the posts I saw were from new builders who were struggling with some of the standard stompbox wiring methods. I think there is a difference between offering all the parts in a kit and completely holding someone's hand as they put in every single part and solder every single wire. I made a tutorial for the last one because someone asked for better instructions. Thats closer to BYOC but just having all the parts in a box doesn't really ruin the learning process. Unless you consider the mistake-laden parts ordering process for beginners integral to their learning experience but I dont really think that is encouraging for most people. Its best to let them learn by building with the right stuff and learning to build from a schematic rather than handing them a board and telling them to sink or swim.

It might be wise to make the boards and instead of providing an actual layout, print what the part is in simple words on the board like 'input cap' and 'output cap' so people could learn what changing those parts does. Many people who build kits are still in the dark about those type of simple elements.

[soulsonic]

I would like best to do a board that doesn't have any silkscreen or solder mask. But that's mostly because it makes the boards less expensive, and gives that homemade look. The clean look should make it easier to really understand what's going on in the circuit too.

But, I must emphasize that the main learning opportunity here is from the analysis of the circuit itself. The creative use of feedback for tone shaping is intended to both give an insight into some of the techniques used by designers such as Björn and myself, but also stimulate intellectual conversation about the subject so that we could all possibly learn more about it. Just making the decision to use the techniques gave me reason to research the subject and learn, and my hope is that others would as well.

People who buy full kits are almost always looking for "paint-by-numbers" anyway, and people who are more serious about building should be able to make the whole thing from scratch with just a schematic and no need for a kit, or even a board. Even an intermediate builder should be able to easily build this on unclad perf board. For the leisurely hobbyist, there is no reason to make the kit unnecessarily complicated, because in most cases, the person just wants to be able to easily put it together and have it work on the first try - that's part of the reason why I made the circuit so simple and non-critical; anyone should be able to throw it together with very basic skills and have it sound great right away. I plan to include good instructions with the kit, that should answer any questions that may arise from a beginner attempting to build it.

[BJF]

Hi,

I got the impression that more Folk Fuzzes would have been built if there had been an easier way for those that don't happen to have hardware parts at their disposal to finish of.......some also expressed wishes for painted boxes.

This has now several times come down to the total cost of a unit.

I know from expeerience when the Folk Fuzz DLX 3,5% ran as an article in FUZZ magazine http://www.fuzz.se
that I got questions about parts for a complete build, and now while the electronics on the pcb were not too expensive, building just one complete pedal in an unpainted box would then in parts land at 1500SEK which was about 220USD at the time......OK sometime ago then

This was comparable to what a BYOC entry level would cost today in retail in Sweden.

Ahum well prices on parts aren't the best in the world in Sweden Also buying in bulk makes a lot of difference.

OK so it would be easy to see that just a pcb would make an attractive alternative financially.

As a designer I'd like to work from the outside of the box with a sound a behaviour a colour and then what goes on pcb is less important.
I also do not think that the possibility to build something from scratch to fully working in anyway harms the learning process, but instead may expand it.

A major reason for this challange in this thread was to inspire discussion on techniques on filtering and feedback and I would think that will take it's own path.

Ah well first out now is the Soul Sonic Folk Driver. I see some have allready built a unit and I would not doubt some can make their own pcb's aswell as complete pedals.

I think it is an excellent idea with the kits consisting of pcb and parts.

Considering that hardware can be made the same for many things I would propose a seperate thread for mechanical wirings and parts the how to's and where to get et.c.

Shortly I gather the Soul Sonic Folk Driver will be part of a tourbox together with Briggs' hummingbird and sounds can be explored and reported on in actual use.

I also understand that fully built units with a special feature may be available from Soulsonic in time for this.

To conclude I think a complete kit that would allow a fully built unit would be most good while I also see that a schematic may be enough and for some just the pcb.

I wonder if not all can be done to make everyone happy?

Specifically on the Folk Driver: Soul sonic told that he could probably come up with a similar sounding or inspred by unit as compared with the Honey Bee if he had one to listen to and play through.

I believed him and sent a Honey Bee for this purpose. Now I am curious of course, aren't you?

I took a look at the schematic and it's a clever design, with a rather unusual tonecontrol.......

I also told at the time that whatever comes outof that would be Soulsonic's to do with as he pleases.

I told the same to Briggs and I am as curious to what has come from his lab while that would be circuits inspired by the written word

Ah, but let's all have fun and there's more to come
BJ

[soulsonic]

You can hear a very good-sounding clip of the Folk Driver here:
http://formantfive.net/folk_driver_2n5088_sample.mp3

Here is the description of the clips, made by FSB member ibodog2:

There's a sound sample of my build with the 2n5088's in it. Sorry for the repetitive riffs. I start playing clean then turn on the FD with Timber at Noon. Then I play with the Timber to the bass side and then to the treble side. About half way through I start kicking on boost pedals in front of the FD with Timber set back at Noon. First is SS's "Crackle N'ok" mosfet boost. Then a Klon clone. Finally a modified LPB set up as a treble booster.

Recording chain is Am Std Telecaster w/Seymour Duncan bridge pickup ->(boosters) -> FD -> Pod X3 set to a "warm clean" setting w/ a little verb. Recorded from the Pod's USB into Wavelab and saved as an mp3. Sorry I couldn't mic up an amp - everyone else in the house is sleeping!

This sounds pretty much exactly how my first one sounded.

[Donner]

There are some great ideas here...

I know one very important part of t he Folk builds is education and also camraderie,,, in a perfect world we could get the kits out t o everyone and they could be built simultaeneously as a group and much education and fun would spring from this.......

I think corksniffer is onto something also with the built in education of explaining the circuit with the board......

It might alos be fun to have everyone build the 'straight' version and then go back thru each major part and do some group experimenting while documenting alll the attempted variations and their effects........

Maybe we can learn from last time and eventually come to a method to really explore these things as w ell as getting a cool pedal