TC Electronics - Dark Matter  [schematic]

All about modern commercial stompbox circuits from Electro Harmonix over MXR, Boss and Ibanez into the nineties.
User avatar
Nicht Bernd
Breadboard Brother
Information
Posts: 75
Joined: 26 May 2010, 11:08
Has thanked: 98 times
Been thanked: 7 times

Post by Nicht Bernd »

any news?

User avatar
Ice-9
Degoop Doctor
Information
Posts: 1094
Joined: 31 Mar 2009, 15:29
my favorite amplifier: Marshall
Completed builds: Far to many to afford the enclosures for them all. :)
Has thanked: 134 times
Been thanked: 359 times
Contact:

Post by Ice-9 »

Nicht Bernd wrote:any news?
Sorry no news yet as I have been too busy with other shit life throws at you for a few weeks. I promise to get back to it tho ASAP.
It's fairly straight forward, if you want to start it , press start. You can work out the rest of the controls for yourself !

No silicon heaven ? preposterous ! Where would all the calculators go ?

User avatar
johnnyoarat
Information
Posts: 1
Joined: 08 May 2011, 17:48

Post by johnnyoarat »

Hi guys!
Any opinions about the resemblance of this pedal (circuit) in relation to others?

User avatar
pb+j
Information
Posts: 7
Joined: 16 Sep 2016, 12:00
Been thanked: 3 times

Post by pb+j »

I just got this pedal and I totally love it. I'm mostly interested in jazz and I've been looking for years for a darkish tone with some hair on the low end, sort of Kenny Burrel/Midnight blue. Not a high gain tone, but jazz with some funk on it. This pedal really delivers that without losing dynamic sensitivity. Most pedals leave me feeling like there's something in the way that I'm playing through. This one feels like I'm playing an amp. I'd really like to know what they did here

User avatar
pb+j
Information
Posts: 7
Joined: 16 Sep 2016, 12:00
Been thanked: 3 times

Post by pb+j »

pb+j wrote:I just got this pedal and I totally love it. I'm mostly interested in jazz and I've been looking for years for a darkish tone with some hair on the low end, sort of Kenny Burrel/Midnight blue. Not a high gain tone, but jazz with some funk on it. This pedal really delivers that without losing dynamic sensitivity. Most pedals leave me feeling like there's something in the way that I'm playing through. This one feels like I'm playing an amp. I'd really like to know what they did here

OOPS! Stupid me! I meant the TC Electrnics MojoMojo--that's the pedal Im loving. I'm assuming the Dark Matter has the same drive circuit.

User avatar
quantum
Information
Posts: 6
Joined: 14 Jun 2011, 18:20
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 6 times

Post by quantum »

IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm

User avatar
Warpeggio
Information
Posts: 9
Joined: 24 Sep 2016, 15:09
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 1 time

Post by Warpeggio »

quantum wrote:IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm
Nice! Is this a fairly common way to achieve low-pass filtering? Where else might i see this?

User avatar
Ice-9
Degoop Doctor
Information
Posts: 1094
Joined: 31 Mar 2009, 15:29
my favorite amplifier: Marshall
Completed builds: Far to many to afford the enclosures for them all. :)
Has thanked: 134 times
Been thanked: 359 times
Contact:

Post by Ice-9 »

Warpeggio wrote:
quantum wrote:IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm
Nice! Is this a fairly common way to achieve low-pass filtering? Where else might i see this?
You could check out schematics for a lot of pedals that use BBD delay lines which quite often have similar filtering, the likes of the Boss chorus, flanger and delay pedals as well as many others. You will also see this type of filtering used in cab sims as well as many other circuits.
It's fairly straight forward, if you want to start it , press start. You can work out the rest of the controls for yourself !

No silicon heaven ? preposterous ! Where would all the calculators go ?

User avatar
quantum
Information
Posts: 6
Joined: 14 Jun 2011, 18:20
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 6 times

Post by quantum »

Warpeggio wrote:
quantum wrote:IC2.1 looks like a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter as buliding block for the voicing.
http://www.calculatoredge.com/electroni ... 20pass.htm
Nice! Is this a fairly common way to achieve low-pass filtering? Where else might i see this?
Not too common in distortion effects , more common in octave down effects like the boss octaver and the dod octaplus. However a moded Anderton "tube sound" fuzz used one at the end for filtering. That is where I would expect to see an active low pass filter. So the dark matter having one at the input is rather unique. The dark matter is advertised with an active filter for tone , so this is probably where this filter w/the voicing circuit comes into play. Major tone shaping before the distortion stages.

http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/mhtsf.gif

User avatar
rcustoms
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 426
Joined: 01 Oct 2009, 14:12
Location: COLOMBIA
Has thanked: 363 times
Been thanked: 520 times
Contact:

Post by rcustoms »

let me help you guys,from my cellar,just for look how is work, not for comercial use.

enjoy dark schematics
materia oscura 2.pdf
(444.04 KiB) Downloaded 1672 times
Rcustoms
http://www.rcustomspedals.blogspot.com
guitars,pedals and amps.
@zuleta.rafael(Instagram)

User avatar
Chugs
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 277
Joined: 16 May 2009, 09:47
Has thanked: 63 times
Been thanked: 47 times

Post by Chugs »

Thanks.

Are the parts with a cross through them not fitted on the circuit board?

User avatar
rcustoms
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 426
Joined: 01 Oct 2009, 14:12
Location: COLOMBIA
Has thanked: 363 times
Been thanked: 520 times
Contact:

Post by rcustoms »

Chugs wrote:Thanks.

Are the parts with a cross through them not fitted on the circuit board?
looks like
http://www.rcustomspedals.blogspot.com
guitars,pedals and amps.
@zuleta.rafael(Instagram)

User avatar
batflash
Information
Posts: 2
Joined: 14 Nov 2016, 04:37

Post by batflash »

Hey there,

has anyone came across any good suggestions for mods for this or the Mojo Mojo?

User avatar
AuditoryDriving
Information
Posts: 26
Joined: 17 Oct 2013, 05:55
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 3 times

Post by AuditoryDriving »

i think there is no schematic available for the mojo mojo..

User avatar
jhergonz
Breadboard Brother
Information
Posts: 122
Joined: 29 Mar 2018, 06:28
my favorite amplifier: Mesa Boogie and Soldano SLO100
Location: Earth
Has thanked: 112 times
Been thanked: 21 times

Post by jhergonz »

rcustoms wrote:
materia oscura 2.pdf
Rcustoms
This is Dark Matter, right? just curious, What are D5, D6, D7 and D8 are for? please teach me.

User avatar
manolonte
Information
Posts: 6
Joined: 01 May 2017, 16:05
Been thanked: 1 time

Post by manolonte »

Hi, this is a quite old topic, but I have opened today the mojomojo and took some pictures. D5, D6, D7 and D8 are absent (I suspect the PCB is the same as the Dark Matter). Tracing the clipping section (D1, D2, D3, D4 + OPamp) it is the same as the schematics posted above for Dark Matter. Does someone have a picture of the Dark Matter PCB to see the differences? Maybe it is already posted and I didn't see it, sorry then.
IMG_20190908_114713.jpg

User avatar
UncappedOptics
Information
Posts: 8
Joined: 08 Sep 2019, 13:17
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 20 times

Post by UncappedOptics »

Well, I just finished tracing this pedal to find there's already a schematic available (and they beat me by 4 years!), guess I should have checked here first :lol:

Still, this was my first time tracing a pedal so I learnt a lot.

Here's my schematic, I tried to keep it tidy so I haven't included any of the test points, missing components, or zero-ohm links.
It's also laid out so the signal path is a relatively straight line through the schematic. I also left the component numbers the same as the circuit board to make them easier for me to find and to make any mods a bit easier.
TC Electronic Dark Matter - Clean.png

For bonus points here's an LTSpice file of the effect, you'll need the potentiometer library as well as the spice definition of the MC33178.
It's even set up to accept a .wav file as input and spit out a .wav output.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kakym1xngm31w ... r.asc?dl=0

I'd be interested to see if anyone builds a clone of this, I found the pedal to be more of an overdrive than distortion with my Strat's single coils. Putting a boost before the pedal makes it more of a distortion so I think increasing the gain of the boost stage should fix this.

User avatar
jhergonz
Breadboard Brother
Information
Posts: 122
Joined: 29 Mar 2018, 06:28
my favorite amplifier: Mesa Boogie and Soldano SLO100
Location: Earth
Has thanked: 112 times
Been thanked: 21 times

Post by jhergonz »

UncappedOptics wrote: 01 Jun 2020, 18:06 Well, I just finished tracing this pedal to find there's already a schematic available (and they beat me by 4 years!), guess I should have checked here first :lol:

Still, this was my first time tracing a pedal so I learnt a lot.

Here's my schematic, I tried to keep it tidy so I haven't included any of the test points, missing components, or zero-ohm links.
It's also laid out so the signal path is a relatively straight line through the schematic. I also left the component numbers the same as the circuit board to make them easier for me to find and to make any mods a bit easier.
TC Electronic Dark Matter - Clean.png


For bonus points here's an LTSpice file of the effect, you'll need the potentiometer library as well as the spice definition of the MC33178.
It's even set up to accept a .wav file as input and spit out a .wav output.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kakym1xngm31w ... r.asc?dl=0

I'd be interested to see if anyone builds a clone of this, I found the pedal to be more of an overdrive than distortion with my Strat's single coils. Putting a boost before the pedal makes it more of a distortion so I think increasing the gain of the boost stage should fix this.

wow! I'am planning to redraw the schematics so that I can understand the "voice" switch, but you already made a clear copy of it. thanks a lot.

User avatar
Ben N
Cap Cooler
Information
Posts: 506
Joined: 12 Dec 2008, 03:34
my favorite amplifier: Ampeg J12D Jet
Location: Israel
Has thanked: 192 times
Been thanked: 53 times

Post by Ben N »

Considering how cheap they are, folks probably wont be much up for building clones, but it's a great sounding pedal, with great touch, as well. Some interesting stuff in there, to be sure, like the voicing switch and the gain control, and the level control being before the EQ. I don't know that I have ever seen that before.

User avatar
Ichabod_Crane
Resistor Ronker
Information
Posts: 354
Joined: 26 Apr 2016, 15:11
Has thanked: 83 times
Been thanked: 36 times

Post by Ichabod_Crane »

Thanks for sharing it, UncappedOptics.

I guess the Bass pot is reversed.

Post Reply