Sola Sound - Tonebender Mark II Professional  [schematic]

Discussion regarding early stompbox technology: 1960-1975 Please keep discussion focused and contribute what info you have...
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Masuto
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Post by Masuto »

:mrgreen: a compressing 100k resistor?!
:slap: goddamit, we've got an excuse to build YET ANOTHER TONE BENDER!!! :applause: :applause: :thumbsup
Seriously... Today i built a London Fuzz, and it was a breeze. The Tone Bender is much more engagin in MANY WAYS!

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Post by Electric Warrior »

jalmonsalmon wrote:Dumb question cause I see them on mouser/ebay but those 5uF and 50uF caps are pricey so I just use 4.7 and 47 uF caps and use the ones that are measured on the high side...
But does anyone actually use those Sprague atom caps at 5uF and 50uF or does that really matter?
With 20% tolerance ratings? Hardly.

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Post by jalmonsalmon »

Put a nice trio of AC125s leak/hFE as:
Q1 281/82
Q2 281/70
Q3 341/82

Pedal works flawless with those transistors... I have a butt load of those AC125s to go through and it seems that everyone I test is around the 50-80 hFE range and most are perfect for tonebenders so with that...
I am a happy camper LOL


thanks again for all the help from this thread!

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Post by LucifersTrip »

The hfe's are up there with some Supa Fuzzes reported...and those are some mighty hefty leakages. I have to admit,
out of all the ones I've built, I haven't gone that high.

Killer that it sounds great!

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Post by LucifersTrip »

just realized, I read your leak/hfe in reverse....I saw those 200-300's and instantly thought "Supa Fuzz"

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Post by Electric Warrior »

That would probably be the Supa Fuzz that Dave Main used to own. The gains were not all that high. Under 200 iirc.
As that unit was made by Sola Sound, it uses the same kind of Mullard OC75s as the Sola Sound Tone Bender branded ones. Their later units had slightly different looking transistors. Not sure how they measure - and I'm not willing to unsolder the ones from my Supa.

I have some Valvo OC75s that are pretty gainy - up to 200hfe iirc. They make a great MKII. A little brighter than the Philips I have. Leakage is really high, but that's not a problem. The hfe range doesn't make all that much of a difference in my experience.

AC125s can be great, indeed! I have some Valvo branded ones that are awesome. I tried to buy more, but I ended up with unbranded ones which don't leak enough to sound good to me. :(

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Post by DrNomis »

jalmonsalmon wrote:Dumb question cause I see them on mouser/ebay but those 5uF and 50uF caps are pricey so I just use 4.7 and 47 uF caps and use the ones that are measured on the high side...
But does anyone actually use those Sprague atom caps at 5uF and 50uF or does that really matter?

Personally, I don't think it really matters since electrolytic caps tend to have at least a 10% tolerance +/- the marked value...... :thumbsup
Genius is not all about 99% perspiration, and 1% inspiration - sometimes the solution is staring you right in the face.-Frequencycentral.

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Post by copachino »

hi, i want to know what are the cables coming from the legs of the trannies??.... are these shrinking tubes???
Attachments
solasound_tonebender-mk2-re-dam_003.jpg
MKII_06.jpg

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Post by Electric Warrior »

No, just insulation. I usually strip it off 0.25mm wires.

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Post by copachino »

and those grey big ones are capacitors???

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Post by Electric Warrior »

Yes. They're styroflex types.

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Post by copachino »

its just me, or those D.A.M. MKII pro have mor capacitor than the original sola sound???

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Post by Electric Warrior »

Depends on which vintage unit you're looking at.
The "small board" units, which are essentially MK1.5s upgraded to MKII specs, don't have the capacitor between input and ground. Some of the OC81D units don't have that one either.

Most small board units and the earliest large boards have an additional resistor, limiting the range of the attack pot.

And many of the large board units have an additional 25µF in parallel with the power filter cap, bringing the value up to 50µF.

As you can see, component count varied a bit. :wink:

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Post by copachino »

i see.... i want to build something that comes pretty close to the original sound, im planning to use the tonepad layout, and small bears transistor, i bought these trannies about a week ago and they have not come yet, but i see now that there are no more trannies available, im not so sure about specs but small bears its a very good supplier as far as i know, i was planning using normal electro caps 4.7 and 47uf for the build

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Post by jalmonsalmon »

copachino wrote:and those grey big ones are capacitors???
iskra's Polystyrene caps there! ( i could be wrong ) :oops:

I have tried a lot of capacitors in my builds.... I settled on tropical fish for my latest build... and those iskra's Polystyrene that are in the picture would be ideal and seal in that mojo factor but more or less you can use any quality tone caps imo :hmmm:
I have made a tone bender using metal film resistors, Panasonic caps, & lelon 4.7 / 47 uF caps with great results as well on a smaller layout. But if you go for the mojo TB project... expect to pay a price to source all of that mojo stuff! :whappen:

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Post by jalmonsalmon »

copachino wrote:i see.... i want to build something that comes pretty close to the original sound, im planning to use the tonepad layout, and small bears transistor, i bought these trannies about a week ago and they have not come yet, but i see now that there are no more trannies available, im not so sure about specs but small bears its a very good supplier as far as i know, i was planning using normal electro caps 4.7 and 47uf for the build
Small Bear is great for the transistors... when you have your build complete and if you do it right, you will have a BIG smile on your face for sure! :applause:

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Post by LucifersTrip »

I'm not sure if Small Bear gives you correct transistors for an authentic MKII. I remember multiple times someone posted that
Q3C voltage hits 4.5V (instead of 7.5V-8.5V+ like originals).

A couple quick searches, I found this one
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/ ... ic=45496.0

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Post by lowbrow »

That's probably true if you use the resistor values he supplies with them, but they work well and sound good if you just slap a 100k trimmer on Q2C and tune for 7.5V +/- with rest at stock values.

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Post by copachino »

LucifersTrip wrote:I'm not sure if Small Bear gives you correct transistors for an authentic MKII. I remember multiple times someone posted that
Q3C voltage hits 4.5V (instead of 7.5V-8.5V+ like originals).

A couple quick searches, I found this one
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/ ... ic=45496.0

WAITTTTT.. am i missed something???, as far as i remenber fuzz central, in the sola sound schematic says that the value for Q3 its -4.5v..... where did you get thos 7.5v???

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Post by copachino »

jalmonsalmon wrote:
copachino wrote:and those grey big ones are capacitors???
iskra's Polystyrene caps there! ( i could be wrong ) :oops:

I have tried a lot of capacitors in my builds.... I settled on tropical fish for my latest build... and those iskra's Polystyrene that are in the picture would be ideal and seal in that mojo factor but more or less you can use any quality tone caps imo :hmmm:
I have made a tone bender using metal film resistors, Panasonic caps, & lelon 4.7 / 47 uF caps with great results as well on a smaller layout. But if you go for the mojo TB project... expect to pay a price to source all of that mojo stuff! :whappen:

in fact im not looking for the mojo in the visual side of the pedal, but in the sound of the pedal, my friends and i are making a big zep tribute, so this pedal its like so so so important to achive those zep tones

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