Mid-fi Clari(pirate)

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Sesh
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Post by Sesh »

Hi there!

So I was starting to build a mid-fi pitch pirate deluxe, and I looked on the Mid-fi Electronics website to check out what pedals they currently hold. There I saw that the maker, Doug Tuttle, has combined his two most popular pedals, Pitch Pirate and Clari(not), into one pedal. I love knobby pedals and want to turn my Pitch Pirate Deluxe into the Clari(pirate) if possible.

Both circuits are well-known DIY circuits, and both schematics and vero layouts (I'm doing pedals in vero) are available online.

Now, the description states that's it's simply the envelope follower of the Clari(not) and the LFO of the Pitch Pirate running into a shared delay line. And on the forums here I found this Clari(not) envelope daughterboard with schematics and vero layout:
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/ ... c=122809.0

My question is this as my electronics knowledge is limited: can I simply add the daughterboard to the pitch pirate deluxe (at the correct pin of the PT2399) and add the Tracking+Depth pot for the Envelope follower?

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Nocentelli
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Post by Nocentelli »

Brief answer - Yes, I should think so. You'd need to take a tap off the input signal from the main board to feed the envelope daughterboard input, and you might find some odd interaction between the two depth pots, but it's a pretty wild pedal anyway.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Sesh »

Nocentelli wrote: 10 Sep 2020, 18:24 Brief answer - Yes, I should think so. You'd need to take a tap off the input signal from the main board to feed the envelope daughterboard input, and you might find some odd interaction between the two depth pots, but it's a pretty wild pedal anyway.
Odd interaction is the name of the game, haha!

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Post by Nocentelli »

You could do it without using a second 386 chip: The daughter board in your link is designed as an add-on to pt2399 delay circuits which typically won't have enough boost from their input stages to drive an LED. You could use the output from the pitch pirate's 386 (pin 5), and run it through a "flying" 10u cap to the tracking pot: The vactrol could be mounted on the back of the tracking pot (or strung between tracking and depth pots) with the 1k attached to lug1 of the tracking pot and you wouldn't actually need a daughter board at all.
sketch-1599775731648.png

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Post by Sesh »

Awesome, thanks! Makes it way easier and more spacious inside the enclosure.
Don't I need a 1k on the depth pot as well? And do the pots act as ground in this case or do I need to run ground wires?

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Post by Nocentelli »

The depth pot 1k isn't strictly necessary, but again, you could have a flying component.

Yes, it is possible to use the case as a ground point: You would need to solder a short length of wire (or 1k resistor) from lug1 to the back of the pot, and the case of the pot *should* be grounded via the enclosure. This method is often found in vintage pedals, but there are too many fail points for my liking: You need a good electrical connection between the input/output jack and the enclosure AND between pot case and enclosure, and corrosion/oxidation on the metal surfaces, or slight loosening of the retaining nuts over time can make ithe connections intermittent. Additionally, soldering to the steel pot case is tricky, requires scratching up the back of the pot and a braod-tipped, very hot soldering iron so you also risk a failed connection or a damaged pot.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Sesh »

Nocentelli wrote: 11 Sep 2020, 17:41 The depth pot 1k isn't strictly necessary, but again, you could have a flying component.

Yes, it is possible to use the case as a ground point: You would need to solder a short length of wire (or 1k resistor) from lug1 to the back of the pot, and the case of the pot *should* be grounded via the enclosure. This method is often found in vintage pedals, but there are too many fail points for my liking: You need a good electrical connection between the input/output jack and the enclosure AND between pot case and enclosure, and corrosion/oxidation on the metal surfaces, or slight loosening of the retaining nuts over time can make ithe connections intermittent. Additionally, soldering to the steel pot case is tricky, requires scratching up the back of the pot and a braod-tipped, very hot soldering iron so you also risk a failed connection or a damaged pot.
Thanks for the help thus far.

To revive this old thread... I've been busy with tons of other pedals, but finally doing something about this..

@Nocentelli, if you see - or someone else - sees this: the Clari(pirate) has an "Envelope" knob which I presume is the "Tracking" knob on the schematic posted above.
But it also has a "Sensitivity" pot, described on the site as "LFO Sensitivity". I wonder what resistor might be turned into a pot to get this extra parameter?

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Post by Nocentelli »

Weird isn't it? There's also only six controls listed on the midfi page, plus the square/triangle shape is mentioned in the text (which I assume is the job of the "wave" knob) but it has an 8th knob, just marked "LFO". I would have assumed this was for LFO depth.... hmmm. Not sure what LFO sensitivity might do, unless you can also get the guitar's envelope to vary the LFO rate!? That would be truly bonkers

The pitch pirate has a 10k resistor leading from the waveshape pot wiper to the LED that flashes LDR to wobble the pin 6 delay line. You could get an LFO depth control by just swapping this resistor for a pot (maybe 50k or 100k, and maybe in series with a smaller resistor of 1-10k to set the maximum brightness).
Last edited by Nocentelli on 04 Mar 2021, 09:01, edited 1 time in total.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Nocentelli »

OK, further to this - If you look at the "Doombutter (modified)" schematic over at madbean pedals forum, it appears to be a pretty much a clari(pirate), before doug actually released the midfi version.

Here, seven of the eight controls on the official clari(pirate) are shown, with only the LFO shape pot missing since the LFO schematic used is slightly different to the deluxe pirate:
The schematic image below was taken from a thread at tagboardfx:
http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabbl ... 23884.html
Moddedclarinot.png~original equals claripirate.png
This suggests that the "sensitivity" pot on the midfi clari(pirate) is probably the control marked "depth" on the schematic above: i.e. a depth control that determines how sensitive the delay time is to being modulated by BOTH the LFO and the envelope.

The main problem I can forsee with trying to hack a deluxe pitch pirate layout by adding the clari(not) envelope section (i.e. tap off the output from the 386 and add in the tracking and "sensitivity" pot) is that you also somehow need to also hack in a second LED from the clari(not) that faces the LDR alongside the pitch pirate LFO LED. Looking at vero layouts for the PPD, this is actually going to need some reworking of the board.

You might be better off going to http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/p/forum.html and posting the schem above in the "requests" section.
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Sesh »

Nocentelli wrote: 04 Mar 2021, 09:00 OK, further to this - If you look at the "Doombutter (modified)" schematic over at madbean pedals forum, it appears to be a pretty much a clari(pirate), before doug actually released the midfi version.

Here, seven of the eight controls on the official clari(pirate) are shown, with only the LFO shape pot missing since the LFO schematic used is slightly different to the deluxe pirate:
The schematic image below was taken from a thread at tagboardfx:
http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabbl ... 23884.html

Moddedclarinot.png~original equals claripirate.png

This suggests that the "sensitivity" pot on the midfi clari(pirate) is probably the control marked "depth" on the schematic above: i.e. a depth control that determines how sensitive the delay time is to being modulated by BOTH the LFO and the envelope.

The main problem I can forsee with trying to hack a deluxe pitch pirate layout by adding the clari(not) envelope section (i.e. tap off the output from the 386 and add in the tracking and "sensitivity" pot) is that you also somehow need to also hack in a second LED from the clari(not) that faces the LDR alongside the pitch pirate LFO LED. Looking at vero layouts for the PPD, this is actually going to need some reworking of the board.

You might be better off going to http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/p/forum.html and posting the schem above in the "requests" section.
Thank you so much! Really appreciate it.

I'm using the layout from Dirtboxlayouts: https://dirtboxlayouts.blogspot.com/202 ... eluxe.html
Shouldn't there be space there? ALternatively, can't a daughterboard be a solution?

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Post by Nocentelli »

Have you built the whole board?
modman wrote: Let's hope it's not a hit, because soldering up the same pedal everyday, is a sad life. It's that same ole devilish double bind again...

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Post by Sesh »

Nocentelli wrote: 13 Mar 2021, 12:00 Have you built the whole board?
Nope, didn't have the dual gang pot, so I'm waiting on the order from Banzai. They're not known for their speedy deliveries...

But actually, I think I'll relay the circuit mods to Anders/Fuzzhead himself - he's been very kind to take and fullfill requests. I assume more people are interested in making it - it's such an awesome, weird one.

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Post by doug deeper »

LFO = LFO/Pirate depth
Envelope = Clari depth
Sensitivity = Clari Tracking

The delay pot is 100k with two 250k depth pots in parallel.

Ditched the 386 on the input ages ago, that’s just an opamp buffer now. The dual gang blend pot is also long gone.

Maybe only 10 Deluxe Pirates had this set up.

One of these days I’ll get an updated correct schematic up here for y’all

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Post by Sesh »

doug deeper wrote: 26 Mar 2021, 00:24 LFO = LFO/Pirate depth
Envelope = Clari depth
Sensitivity = Clari Tracking

The delay pot is 100k with two 250k depth pots in parallel.

Ditched the 386 on the input ages ago, that’s just an opamp buffer now. The dual gang blend pot is also long gone.

Maybe only 10 Deluxe Pirates had this set up.

One of these days I’ll get an updated correct schematic up here for y’all
Thanks for being so forthcoming, Doug. I would love the updated correct schematic.

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Post by emptybuckets »

doug deeper wrote: 26 Mar 2021, 00:24 LFO = LFO/Pirate depth
Envelope = Clari depth
Sensitivity = Clari Tracking

The delay pot is 100k with two 250k depth pots in parallel.

Ditched the 386 on the input ages ago, that’s just an opamp buffer now. The dual gang blend pot is also long gone.

Maybe only 10 Deluxe Pirates had this set up.

One of these days I’ll get an updated correct schematic up here for y’all
bump!

Any chance we could still see this? Thanks, Doug!

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