Top Gear - TG 55 - Synthesizer

borislavgajic · Post by **borislavgajic** » 28 Feb 2011, 00:10

it would be nice to get this done

Top Gear TG 55 Synthesizer

borislavgajic · Post by **borislavgajic** » 28 Feb 2011, 00:12

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... tAa2iYHfAw

borislavgajic · Post by **borislavgajic** » 28 Feb 2011, 00:14

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... tAbuq8jqDA

Dirk_Hendrik · Post by **Dirk_Hendrik** » 28 Feb 2011, 17:34

You cannot escape....

The Goop!![/b][/i]

borislavgajic · Post by **borislavgajic** » 28 Feb 2011, 21:14

they did not have 5 Kg to goop all boards

DrNomis · Post by **DrNomis** » 01 Mar 2011, 14:21

Looks Phat, probably sounds Phatter too....

uncleboko · Post by **uncleboko** » 01 Mar 2011, 14:31

Looks like Maplin's veroboard, probably the fundamental extractor is gooped!

nightraven · Post by **nightraven** » 14 Jun 2011, 16:50

pdf attached (not mine)
would like to find one of these one day but apparently only 12 were built so the odds are against me to say the least...

AnomDisturb · Post by **AnomDisturb** » 04 Nov 2011, 02:39

Hi Folks,

Came across this thread when doing a Google search re: the Top Gear TG 55. BTW, I don't build pedals.... but just use them... I have a approx 200 pedals in my collection.

I'm the owner of the Top Gear TG 55 pictured in this thread - the guts pic. The other google link is a picture of Graham Massey's TG 55.

I was also contacted by these guys, who wanted to post some info about it. (the top 3 photos - including chassis with "No. 1" written on it are mine. The other pic is the one owned by Graham)

http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/topgear/tg55

I have unit No. 1, as you can see. I have been trying for years to find more info about it. I bought it new in Toronto in late 76/early '77 or so. I'm trying piece together a history on this rare unit. For years I thought I had the only one, but discovered one at Sphere studio in France (They bought it at an auction and know noting about it, when they replied to my query).

http://www.sphere-studio.com/Photo.asp?Subject=studio (see top row - 3rd pic from the right)

I then discovered that Graham Massey from the UK techno group 808 State has one too, but he is also searching for info. A prog rock band from Portugal, Tantra, also listed one as being used on two of their albums in the late 70's. I tried to contact the guitar player by email but no reply.

I used mine with my prog-ish band circa '77-'79. At the time, I was looking to buy a Synthi Hi-Fli and one of the guys at Kalua Music in Toronto, Guy Beresford (also of GBX amps, now with Yorkville Sound according to Wikipedia) told me about this unit that he had just seen at a trade show in the UK. I expressed interest and a month or two later it arrived. Had it modded for NA power in the 80's (before that I had a power transformer). The store also eventually carried the Top Gear line of pedals (also rare). According to Analog Tom in his book, Top Gear was a music store on Kensington St. in London.

I'd like to find out who designed and made this thing!

So, if anyone has any info on these rare beasts, please let me know. I can be reached via my website; www.anomalousdisturbances.com

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Terrence (Terry) O'Brien

uncleboko · Post by **uncleboko** » 04 Nov 2011, 07:58

AnomDisturb wrote:Hi Folks,

Came across this thread when doing a Google search re: the Top Gear TG 55. BTW, I don't build pedals.... but just use them... I have a approx 200 pedals in my collection.

I'm the owner of the Top Gear TG 55 pictured in this thread - the guts pic. The other google link is a picture of Graham Massey's TG 55.

I was also contacted by these guys, who wanted to post some info about it. (the top 3 photos - including chassis with "No. 1" written on it are mine. The other pic is the one owned by Graham)

http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/topgear/tg55

I have unit No. 1, as you can see. I have been trying for years to find more info about it. I bought it new in Toronto in late 76/early '77 or so. I'm trying piece together a history on this rare unit. For years I thought I had the only one, but discovered one at Sphere studio in France (They bought it at an auction and know noting about it, when they replied to my query).

http://www.sphere-studio.com/Photo.asp?Subject=studio (see top row - 3rd pic from the right)

I then discovered that Graham Massey from the UK techno group 808 State has one too, but he is also searching for info. A prog rock band from Portugal, Tantra, also listed one as being used on two of their albums in the late 70's. I tried to contact the guitar player by email but no reply.

I used mine with my prog-ish band circa '77-'79. At the time, I was looking to buy a Synthi Hi-Fli and one of the guys at Kalua Music in Toronto, Guy Beresford (also of GBX amps, now with Yorkville Sound according to Wikipedia) told me about this unit that he had just seen at a trade show in the UK. I expressed interest and a month or two later it arrived. Had it modded for NA power in the 80's (before that I had a power transformer). The store also eventually carried the Top Gear line of pedals (also rare). According to Analog Tom in his book, Top Gear was a music store on Kensington St. in London.

I'd like to find out who designed and made this thing!

So, if anyone has any info on these rare beasts, please let me know. I can be reached via my website; http://www.anomalousdisturbances.com

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Terrence (Terry) O'Brien

Top Gear shop was in Charing Cross Road as far as I remember. It was designed by a guy who worked at Strings & Things.

uncleboko · Post by **uncleboko** » 04 Nov 2011, 14:21

No I'm wrong, the Top Gear shop was in Denmark Street. Nothing special about it, just a small guitar shop. It's all changed around there now because of the Crossrail line and new Tottenham Court Road station construction.

nightraven · Post by **nightraven** » 04 Nov 2011, 19:00

bet they struggled to compete with the Colorsound line. the two TG pedals i have experience with both leave quite a bit to be desired

but this thing still looks really really great.

sinner · Post by **sinner** » 09 Mar 2012, 11:52

Dirk_Hendrik wrote:

You cannot escape....

The Goop!![/b][/i]

This is the most beautiful pict I've seen ever period

onebuzz · Post by **onebuzz** » 10 Mar 2012, 02:22

Any body work up a vero for this yet?

sinner · Post by **sinner** » 10 Mar 2012, 07:13

onebuzz wrote:Any body work up a vero for this yet?

scoop · Post by **scoop** » 10 Mar 2012, 17:24

onebuzz wrote:Any body work up a vero for this yet?

Maybe some ought to do a vero for the fuzz section, from the notebook it looks like just a couple of opamps

onebuzz · Post by **onebuzz** » 10 Mar 2012, 21:06

I was just having a little fun with my previous posting. I do appreciate seeing old audio gear though so thanks for posting it.

Zokk · Post by **Zokk** » 11 Mar 2012, 14:47

Do you know how is the pitch to voltage converter?
Is it accurate?

I would be very interested in drawing a pcb for this module if it worth the effort.

toneman · Post by **toneman** » 11 Mar 2012, 14:55

If U'r looking for an easy and accurate (for linear) pitch-to-voltage circuit, check out the old LM2917:

http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM2917.html#Overview

This is a LINEAR frequency-2-voltage circuit all in one chip. It's big use was in automotive tachometers.

keepbreadboarding...

mictester · Post by **mictester** » 11 Mar 2012, 18:19

toneman wrote:If U'r looking for an easy and accurate (for linear) pitch-to-voltage circuit, check out the old LM2917:

http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM2917.html#Overview

This is a LINEAR frequency-2-voltage circuit all in one chip. It's big use was in automotive tachometers.

keepbreadboarding...

NO!!! The 2917 was a dog of a chip. It was designed as a tachometer driver (to apply voltage to an analogue meter in a car dashboard) and it suffered from endless problems including temperature sensitivity (perhaps Little Lance might have a cure for that). I used one in a tone detector in a telephone product back in the 80s. The idea was to get an accurate voltage to represent particular tones on a telephone line. The drift of the thing made it virtually useless (despite trying to design the window comparator that it drove to have temperature compensation). It was susceptible to noise and is certainly NOT the way to achieve pitch extraction.

I have successfully used two approaches for pitch extraction: phase-locked loop detection and zero crossing detection. The advantage of zero crossing detection is that it's less amplitude sensitive than other methods and not affected by wave shape.