DIY Jawari build

My fourth, exactly...



Schematic found near the bottom of this fine page

Samplerate reducer + resonant LPF

Just a rehouse of the blue samplerate reducer/LPF I build several months ago. Was never a huge fan of the original paintjob.

Hollow Earth (v2)

First prototype of v2 is done. Things to do include minor software tweaks, getting expression-out working, cosmetic changes. I figure I'll have a small batch of these available for around $200-225 US in july/august.

Hollow Earth v2 - populated PCB

Hollow Earth v2?

Alright.....

I posted the video sample and details of that Hollow Earth pedal I built a couple weeks ago on about 5 forums. It went slightly viral on a few others thanks to a few users. Anyways, interest in it has been a little overwhelming! So much so that I've convinced myself that I should build a batch of revisions of this to spread around.

Things I'd like to add/change:
-Eight to ten presets, all overwritable with your own shapes
(with LED digit display)
-Expression-in for the shaping
-Expression-out to "shape" other effects
-Rugged footswitch for record instead of the flimsy button
-Random mode
-Triggered envelope mode
-Sample input as waveshape
(the last one is a biiiig maybe)

After a 10-day break from this stuff to play jams/gigs, I started tinkering again. I got random mode mostly working, and I've started the preset saving bit. 8 pin DIP 24LC eeproms are a wonder!

Hollow Earth video demo

Hollow Earth waveshaper

You know that feature the Goatkeeper has? Waveshaping? "design" your own LFO and then use that as a trem? Yeah, that. But a bit more!

Hold down the "record" pushbutton, "draw" out an LFO/envilope shape with the "shape" knob (it can be several seconds long), and release the button for it to start looping the shape and modulate the volume of whatever instrument you have plugged through it. AKA "tremolo". Push button again to design a new one. [U]Or[/U]! Or toggle "punch-in" switch to edit the existing shape with whatever you feel! "smotheness" knob makes it smooth if the waveshape sampling feels a bit too steppy/aliased. It happens if you sample at a very slow tempo and keep it very slow. "speed" accelerates or decelerates the LFO. I forget what "volume" does.

Two LEDs on either side of the bypass switch (under the decals/finish). The one on the right follows your wave "drawing" as well as when it's looping. "firmware upgradeable"

Video sample tomorrow.

AVR programming and effect automation...

If there's one thing I'm really bad at, really really really bad at, when it comes to electronics, it's control logic. The little bits that need specific timing, when to do such thing and when not to do it, if voltage dips below X then do so-and-so, etc, that kind of crap. Using traditional logic chips, I just can't get my head around it. Ever. I've also been wanting to integrate more automation in my synths/pedals. Thus, easy to program AVR microcontrollers have been interesting me as of late.

Here is the kit I've just purchased (thing on the left):



I did a lot of Basic programming in school. QBasic, Visual Basic, etc. It's pretty easy stuff compared to assembly or even C. Microcontrollers at first seemed daunting to me because I wasn't prepared to learn any good language, but then I found out that these little AVR chips can be programmed from a Basic environment called BASCOM! It took me a few days to get serial com to work (had to go out and buy a serial PCI card, the USB-to-serial adapter I had was rubbish, I found out days later). Once I was up and running though, it was pretty easy to get basic things going. Blinking lights, input, potentiometer reading (ADC) and PWM (sPitting out Waves that I can use for Modulation or whatever).

The little project in the photo is something I started today. It's one push-button, two potentiometers and a LED, all hooked up to the programmer. I got it so that pushing the button will make the MCU go into "record mode", where it will record pot-twisting for up to several seconds (one byte per sample at 60 sampels a second). As soon as I let go of the button, or if the severa lsecond limit runs out, it loops the recorded twisting which can be observed through the LED! The other pot can adjust the speed of playback/record.

This opens up all sorts of fun additions to effects! I could for instance "record" a certain knob on a delay or synth, and have it automatically loop! Exciting stuff! Once content with my program, pop the chip out of the programmer (that long chip in the center) and stick it in my own circuit. Done!

They make smaller chips. I'll get different sizes depending on how I need them.

new build

simplified TS clone with a few mods

Tremulus Lune

the Tremulus Lune is a popular DIY tremolo design. I've already bought the one with speed modulation straight from 4ms (who are an awesome company with awesome philosophies), but sometimes I need a minimal one that doesn't take up the space of 4 regular-sized pedals. hence I made this.





two LEDs. the red one is bypass LED, and the yellow one blinks the shape and speed of the trem (even when bypassed). the LEDs are *under* the finish too, so it's quite seamless!

commonsound layout. the gain pot is inside because I have no use for that when playing. I have it set as very slightly louder than bypassed, to make up for the dips in the trem modulation. I accidentally etched the PCB backwards, and was too lazy to re-etch it. so I just populated everyhting on the "wrong" side of the PCB.

I drew the girl. the patterns were "found". paints are acrylics and mostly painted on with a toothbrush. everything coated with clear epoxy resin.

samplerate reducer 99% finished!

still not named as of yet





sound/video clips maybe tomorrow if I find my camera (the one that does video). still needs a bit of tweaking. LPF resonance can get loud at times so I'm gonna hook up clipping diodes. resonance pot is also wired backwards, and I want to paint lines o nthe knobs!

yet-to-be-named bitcrusher

the ringmod from two weeks ago is being broken-in by a buddy so I had a bit of time to do something different. bitcrusher/samplerate-reducer type effect! this sports the taditional atari-ish samplerate reduction sound, a break knob that makes it spazz out in a cool way and a droning resonant low-pass filter. also blend control and a noise gate.



it's also my first project where I didn't touch the PCB autorouter....

the epoxy coat takes about 24 hours to harden before I can comfortable handle it. I'll try to populate the board before then.

Turmoil 2 proto

It's aliiive!

Blend control isn't working for some reason, but otherwise it's working. Doesn't seem to like onespot power supplies though! At all! Works fine with my Diago though. onespot sucks!

Clips when I get blend working.

Turmoil ringmodulator running...

I found a bit of time to redo the design of a ringmod I built exactly last year. This new one has an added lowpass filter, fine-tuning control and expression pedal support for the frequency. I've also improved the noise gate enough that I no longer need a control pot for calibration. It sounds much better! Carrier bleed is pretty-much non-existant even with high-frequencies. I've removed triange/squarewave blending because square wasn't very interesting and in fact worstened the bleed.

Over the next few days, I will be drawing up a PCB layout and hopefully building a final prototype before I make batches of these.





Happy new year!

another Dying Sonar video

First 3 minutes are random noodling/bad playing. I was playing better earlier today, honest! Then for 30 seconds I'm having trouble with the sound. After that it's all drone. Main purpose of the video is to show how it interacts with a guitar.

Dying Sonar pedal synth

Have a little time this xmas holiday and I'm not quite inspired enough yet to start doing the PCB layout for my massive dronebox project, so I started something easier.





It's a simple idea. Make an oscillator (I used the ones I fixed up for the dronebox project), make an LFO (based on part of the Tremulus Lune and somewhat modified) and have the LFO modulate the volume of the oscillator. And make it in stompbox format.

It can either be an instrument or a pedal somewhere in the middle of the chain. It does absolutelly nothing to the guitar signal that passes through it. It will add pulsating beeps, drones, tones how fast and how slow you want them. It's great for electroacoustic/ambient sets where you need a rythmic bassy tone in the background! Loop it, and all kind of layering possibilities open up! The controls are as follows:

Volume: volume. does not affect passing-through guitar signal.
Smooth: blends between sawtooth and squarewave LFO
Space: space between pulses less or more
Speed: tempo of the LFO. extremelly slow (like 2 BPM) to way too fast (pulses smeared together)
Shape: oscillator shape blends between triangle and square
Freq: frequency of oscillator. used with Range toggle switch will get you anything between 10Hz to >18KHz

Paints are acrylic and the finish is clear epoxy resin. It has a couple impendance and volume problems which I need to fix, but it works okay if you don't use an amp. Here's a brief video with me goofing off on it:

drone box preview

drone box. it's a synth, basically. designed to make walls of tones and drones!

not really based on any existing circuit. it's a bunch of simple ideas that will all be wired together in weird ways. at first it was going to be pseudo-modular but decided I'd rather mess with well-planned switching and relays instead. here's how it basically functions:

6 oscillators each with a wide frequency range, fine-tuning and triangle-square shape control. sub brings the range down to literally pulsating textures (less than 1hz in frequency). the highest is ear-shattering/borderline off human-hearing. each oscillator can independantly and selectivly be pitch-modulated by either of the two sequencers. each sequencer can be hard-synched or independant. portamento blends the steps so that they flow more naturally if wanted. either sequencer can be set to loop or to be triggered. if triggered, it stops after the eighth step. each oscillator can be independantly panned (left to right) and mixed to a final stereo mix for potentially wicked awesome stereo soundscapes! the final stereo mix volume can be modulated by either of the two sequencers as well.

a bit of technical info: oscillators are opamp based. I use tl072s. sequencers are just 4017s. I use vactrols to modulate stuff around.

Voetsek tremolo DIY guide..

Some people have asked for a guide for that insane 16-step tremolo I built. Here's an archive with the guide as well as PCB transfers in 600dpi. I'll be the first to admit that this circuit needs some tweaks and could be much better! I'm learning about this stuff, and I'll make a better one sometime.

Cacophonator build

Built a Cacophonator for someone. Needless to say, I'm going to miss it!

Here's a 4-minute sample:
cacophonator_sample_01.mp3

Blog-doing

In the last few years, effect-making has rapidly become a near-obsession of mine! Because I had been posting these personal creations in various places on the internet, people were starting to take genuine interest. This blog is an effort to keep them informed of any custom jobs or short runs I might make, and to keep me organized.

I'm by no means an expert. This is relitavelly new to me! My builds are still a mess inside, and I frequently annoy pros on how to do this-and-that's. I am getting better though, and I think I've gotten up to a level where I'm confident enough to build a few, sell, and not worry too much about the reliability or robustability of the paintwork.

A familly photo of those I've made. Doesn't include the ones I later dismantled for parts.



A lot are based heavily off existing designs and were excersises in making them look pretty or understanding how they work. Others (top-left, top-center, top-right, bottom-second and third) are original designs. I'm most likely to make a batch of the ringmod (white with all the circles) for those interested, as well as several little feedback loopers like the one at top-right.

I'll update this blog with ideas, finds, prototypes, samples and others' works of interest!