Malekko - Echo 300 Dark [gut shots]

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 18 Sep 2010, 20:11

Just got this in the post today.

Overall, I'll have to say that I'm very impressed with the quality of construction. And no SMD!! It sounds good, too.

The stomp switch is board-mounted, but everything else is wired off-board. I'll need to desolder the leads to the 9v jack to fully remove it from the box (I'll be doing that later on this weekend and taking more photos).

There are five small trimmers mounted on the back of the PCB (the side facing when the enclosure lid is removed) labeled: "Balance", "Delay", "Bias", "Regen", and "Gain". For me, 300ms is just a tad too short, so I'm going to play around with the Delay trimmer and see if I can eek out some additional time without having it turn to mush.

The BBD and clock are Cool Audio reproductions (V3205 and V3102). Compander is NE570N. And there's also a TL072, which I assume is for buffering?

The only thing I thought was odd on this pedal is that the pots are PCB-mount but wired off-board. Maybe they had some leftovers from another project?

More pics to follow.

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madbean · Post by **madbean** » 18 Sep 2010, 22:21

I'm calling it as a DM-2, with maybe some adjustments on the pre and post filtering. Looks like they subbed 470n's for a lot of the electrolytic 1uFs.

I suggest following the Aquaboy schematic along while tracing it. I think it's at least 90% of it. The extra diodes might be for clamping the feedback.

IvIark · Post by **IvIark** » 18 Sep 2010, 22:31

Nice one cj, looking forward to seeing what you turn up

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 19 Sep 2010, 03:43

Back to the delay!

I have no idea why they call this one "dark". The repeats seem pretty normal sounding to me, and they aren't even dirty...even maxed out.

Another thing I noticed (and this is totally irrelevant) is that the knob set screws are hex head, but also not metric.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 19 Sep 2010, 18:19

I moved the SMD vs through-hole discussion to its own topic in Member's Corner.

theehman · Post by **theehman** » 19 Sep 2010, 21:45

culturejam wrote:I moved the SMD vs through-hole discussion to its own topic in Member's Corner.

Probably a good idea. I realized after I posted it was getting out of hand.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 22 Sep 2010, 00:33

Here are some better shots of the PCB, top and bottom. And a light-through shot. And a composite of top/bottom.

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salocin · Post by **salocin** » 22 Sep 2010, 00:59

You tracing this culturejam?

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 22 Sep 2010, 01:32

salocin wrote:You tracing this culturejam?

Probably. I won't have time to start on it for at least a week or two.

If someone else is itching to start figuring it out from photos right now, the effort won't be duplicated.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 27 Sep 2010, 02:31

Just a couple of notes on this pedal:

• The hookup wiring for the pots is *really* long. I mean really long. This means that if you need to take it apart for some reason (for you techs out there), you have to be very meticulous about putting all that spaghetti back in there, or else the board won't fit in right. I was 30 seconds away from pulling it all out and redoing the pot wiring with sane, short lengths. But then I got it to fit. What a pain in the ass.

• With the Delay trimmer maxed, the repeats are still nice and clean. But, the increase in delay is fairly minimal. The stock range is maxed at 300ms. I have no way to measure the change with the trimmer maxed, but I'd say it's about 350ms or maybe 375ms? Hard to tell by ear.

Still, it's a pretty solid short delay. I like it.

rasta_maleek · Post by **rasta_maleek** » 24 Jan 2011, 21:17

hi masters.
Anyone has traced this fx at the day?
i´m pretty interested about this delay