Austone - Vibrostomp  [traced]

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KindaFuzzy
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

Hey guys, I got an Austone Vibrostomp the other day and managed to trace a schematic, and get a working circuit on the bread board. Here's a link to all the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35422385@N ... 923290201/

And a link to a sound clip comparing my Magnatone 214 clone's vibrato to the breadboarded circuit and the original pedal:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10291453

I'll attach the hand drawn schematic so it doesn't get lost. If anyone's got a minute I could use help making a proper digital copy of the schematic. I'm going to work on a layout for the vibrato only circuit this weekend, we'll see how it goes. Enjoy.
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Austone Vibrostomp schematic.jpg

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Post by Greenmachine »

Well done and thank-you!

The first warbling vibrato in the clip is the pedal, correct?
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KindaFuzzy
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

Oh, sorry, the clip goes: Clean, maggie amp vibrato, breadboard circuit, Vibrostomp vibrato, Vibrostomp tremolo.

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Post by RnFR »

I can't listen to the clip at the moment, but im eager to hear how you think this thing stands up to the mag. what's your assessment, is it a worthy replacement for those of us that don't have a magnatone on hand?
I was just checking this thing out, too.
http://mysite.ncnetwork.net/reszyz1w/bi ... atopedal2/
unfortunately, I think it's gooped. or at least the spaghetti western fuzz that I borrowed was.


I can draw up the schematic some time this weekend if noone else beats me to it.
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

That magnavibe sounds great. I think the vibrostomp is pretty close, to my amp anyways. The amp vibrato seems to let the lows through unaltered, and same with the highs, they're a little clearer. The Vibrostomp is a little dark and wooly sounding to my ears, but nice, and my breadboarded circuit sounds a bit thinner, which could be a bunch of things, but might be because I used film caps instead of the electrolytic .47s, I don't know. Still need to play around with this thing since it looks like a single stage from a univibe with different cap values, lots of room for improvement.

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Post by madbean »

Thanks for the schematic. The Mangatone sounds delicious.

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Post by RnFR »

yeah, that magnavibe is nice, huh? might be a good tracer's fund project.

i got to listen to the clips, and took another look over the schematic. definitely some room to fool around here. i'm going to try and get it on the breadboard when i get a chance. i'd bet a FET buffered input would brighten up the high end quite a bit. raising that input Z might be a good place for you to start to get that magnatone sparkle back in there.


oh and i forgot to say... thanks for the trace!
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Post by The Rotagilla »

You sir F'ing rock!
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Post by highway31 »

Thanks a lot!!! :applause:

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Post by DaveKerr »

KindaFuzzy wrote: And a link to a sound clip comparing my Magnatone 214 clone's vibrato
Just curious - you got your hands on varistors for this clone, the Maggie sample is representative of a stock 214? This stuff sounds tremendous, thanks for the work.
... multiple LFO waveforms (saw up, saw down, triangle, square); a more flexible envelope with attack/release controls as well as inverted envelope. I am afraid it will have more knobs than the TGP annual convention - frequencycentral

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Post by KindaFuzzy »

DaveKerr wrote: Just curious - you got your hands on varistors for this clone, the Maggie sample is representative of a stock 214? This stuff sounds tremendous, thanks for the work.
Yep, real Magnatone ones and everything. A kind member here sold me his old Magnatone TC-1 organ chassis that had a few in there. Just glad I could pitch in, after mooching for so long.

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Post by RnFR »

anybody see any problems/mistakes?
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

Dude this is great. Only a few boo boos, D1, and u$2, are on the other side of R25, with all the 2200uf caps and that's where the board 9V is attached, where you have Va labeled is the 9v out jack. Next, on Q2, there should be a 2.2k resistor between the junction of R5 and R8 to the collector, and the .22 stays attached to the collector. Next, on Q4, there should be a 3.3k resistor between the junction of R9 R12 and C4 to the collector. Lastly there's funny labeling on one of the 470uf caps on q8. I caught one of my own mistakes too, R11, and R34 are 820R, and 8.2K. And if you want to nit pick, all the .47 caps were electrolytic, but I think it's fine labeled the way it is.

Big thanks for this. :applause:

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Post by RnFR »

cool, thanks for the corrections. I guess I should probably replace the .47s with electros in order to make it accurate to the unit. I was just thinking for our purposes we would probably be using film caps, but that's not what a proper trace is about right? I'll get on those corrections Sunday night. I forgot the files at work. :roll: :block:

have you gotten the chance to try any mods yet while you've got it on the b board? I'm thinking of just changing out all of the BJT buffers for FETs. we should definitely try and get a nice project together for the vibe side. :idea: :idea: :idea: it would be killer to make it stereo!
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

Yes, stereo would be super cool, that's what I thought it was when I saw two output jacks, but they're just wired together, boo-urns. The only mods I've tried are switching the caps around, the .005 from collector to base on the one tranny seems to really make a difference in the high end output, but at the cost of bass thickness. All the other coupling caps don't seem to really matter if they're a little bigger, I tried .1 instead of .47, and no big diff. I haven't messed with anything else yet, I was thinking of trying Jack Orman's mosfet booster on the input, used as a unity gain splitter to get the stereo thing happening, and keep the input impedance up.

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Post by RnFR »

in order to get stereo happening, would the best way be just to flip the phase of the oscillator, then run that to another dedicated side? or flip the phase of the side, and use the same osc? how do they do it on the Maggie?

I would think a buffered split would be fine, but it's all about how it sounds, so the best way is just to try and see.
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Post by The Rotagilla »

Madbean...any chance of a layout? :hmmm:
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Post by KindaFuzzy »

You know, I read RG's technology of phasers and flangers and I still don't have a really good grasp on how the maggie works, but it's down at the bottom here: http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/p ... phase.html. You're right though we could do it either way and see how it sounds. I thought if you split the signal and fed it to two identical circuits, you could put a switch to turn off just one of the LED/LDR combos, or bypass it, then use it to add the clean signal back in and get some cool phaser effects. I'm just pulling ideas out of my ass here though, I'll have to get to the breadboard this week.

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Post by RnFR »

I think it would be best to put the LFO out of phase, as there might be some strange cancellations going on if the two outputs were out of phase and right next to each other. it would end up being dependent on how far apart the speakers are, and I don't think that would be something we would want.
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Post by madbean »

The Rotagilla wrote:Madbean...any chance of a layout? :hmmm:
I'd be happy to if the completed schematic is provided. But, I don't want to step on any toes if someone is already working on one.

Not to derail, but I am totally digging the Magnatone 214. I've seen a couple of those Phil X demos on youTube before, and after listening to some of it again I'm loving the tone and vibrato from his amp. The replica he used sounds very close to the original, although not completely spot on. Maybe Craigslist will help me luck into one someday!

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