Saturday 16 November 2013

Jen HF Modulator / Gretsch Playboy

Now get your irons out and build it. Place your favourite fuzz in front of it and get ready for some psychedelic brain melting action. The circuit is the same in both, Jen HF Modulator and Gretsch Playboy. For this layout, i've once again swapped the transistor pinout to match your everyday devices. Original has 2N5172 general amplifier transistors in it, but 2N5088, 2N3904 and many others are very close to those in their specs. If you want to use the original ones, just mind the pinout. I've also added series polarity protection diode and pulldown resistors for in and out to prevent your circuit from popping when switched on and off.



Here's a little dcemo clip of my build:


Monday 11 November 2013

Mutron Micro V

As Javi liked the idea of the simplified controls I thought it would be worth adding a layout for the original pedal too.  It may seem strange with it being a "stripped down" Kraken, but it actually worked out a column wider using the Kraken layout as a template because removing the Attack pot means a resistor needs to go from the 3rd to the 15th row, but what can you do? :o)  Anyway the option is here if anyone wants to build this instead.






Saturday 9 November 2013

Madbean Kraken

We had a request to do the Mutron V or the Madbean Kraken so I decided to go with this one for the extra controls.  Info from Brian about his modification:

The Kraken is a modified Mutron Micro V™ envelope filter. The Mutron Micro V™ is the “little brother” of the more fully featured Mutron III™ having only a Range pot and a Hi/Low switch for the filtering. The Kraken expands the controls to include Attack and Decay for the envelope response. This is the only alteration to this classic and great sounding envelope!

Controls
Range: This controls the intensity of the envelope dynamics generated by your pick attack. Higher settings yield greater sensitivity, which in turn drives the intensity of the swept filter.
Attack: This control lets you dial in finer adjustments to the attack of the envelope. It is interactive with the Range pot.
Decay: This control determines how long it takes for the envelope to sweep the filter. Higher settings yield longer decay times.
Hi/Lo: This switch controls the range of the filter that is swept. Hi is thin and resonant. Lo is full and dark.

Mods

Try a pair of diodes with lower forward voltage for D1 and D2. This may improve sensitivity to picking dynamics. You can use 1n34a, BAT41 or BAT46.
Try a higher value pot for the Decay control for even longer decay times. Suggestions are 250kB or 500kB.



I can't find a vid of the Kraken and so here's the Mutron V.  I will swap this for a Kraken vid when someone here verifies this and posts one for me :o)