Colorsound - Wah

nickthemen · Post by **nickthemen** » 31 Dec 2008, 13:56

I know this one sounds very nice!

Post by **modman** » 08 Oct 2021, 12:33

http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/201 ... d-wah.html

george giblet · Post by **george giblet** » 10 Oct 2021, 07:25

Actually the schematic is for an inductor'ed wah whereas the layout is for a Inductorless wah.

The schematic posted for the inductor'ed wah has a 100 ohm in the emitter. As far as I know
that happened on Issue 5 or Issue 6 circuits and after which were in the 80's

The other difference is the caps are 150n. I don't know enough to comment but it could
be Issue 6 or later.

The emitter resistor on the left-most transistor is likely to be 10k not 100k.

uncleboko · Post by **uncleboko** » 10 Oct 2021, 08:33

How many have actually visited Macari's Music Exchange shop in London, or even their short lived shop in Edgware during the mid 1960s?

Post by **modman** » 11 Oct 2021, 07:45

I just attached the linked schematic to the post

The layout seems to correspond to this schematic:
http://beavisaudio.com/Projects/ColorsoundWah/index.htm

This seems to be the guts of the Colorsound inductorless wah:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ ... -288324289

Strangely familiar to the only pedal that even Discofreq doesn't feature: Cactus Wah Wah
viewtopic.php?t=21771

They are still selling an inductorless wah:
https://www.macaris.co.uk/the-inductorl ... man/p/p138

I have trouble finding a real old Colorsound Inductorless wah guts...

ringworm · Post by **ringworm** » 11 Oct 2021, 20:40

here you go....

: down078.jpg (165.85 KiB) Viewed 2969 times

: down077.jpg (139.4 KiB) Viewed 2969 times

george giblet · Post by **george giblet** » 12 Oct 2021, 01:11

Thanks Ringworm, I've been digging through some stuff and intended on re-posting your pics today but you already did it.

The most complete and accurate account of a schematic is this one, with the addition of the BC549C transistor which you can see from Ringworm's pics. The BC549C is consistent with builds from the UK.

The thing to note is the base-collector resistor is 3M3. The schematic with the resistor at 5M7 and the 2N5088 transistor does not represent the pedal. You can see the 3M3 resistor on the Korean board. In Ringworms pics it's hard to tell if it's 2M2 or 3M3.

The 5M7 value could be 4M7 or 2M7. However, I've seen one board with 2M7 so I'd go with that as an alternative build. On the 2M7 unit the 6n8 cap might be 4n7.

There's not a lot of info on these unit. As far as I could see there's a big dip in info on Colorsound products between mid 80's and 1994. At which point Macaris started to sell "ReIssues". From what I can see "ReIssues" didn't always means clones. Dick Denney was somehow involved in some of the products in this era. He apparently designed the inductorless wah so I assumed the inductorless wah appear as a result of this work.

At the same time the Colorsound inductored wah seemed to have disappeared in the dip between mid 80's and 1994.

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 12 Oct 2021, 03:46

ringworm wrote: ↑11 Oct 2021, 20:40 here you go....
down078.jpg

down077.jpg

I want to make a PCB clone, what are the dimensions of the board?

ringworm · Post by **ringworm** » 12 Oct 2021, 21:14

Sorry, I don't have the board anymore, just the pics I took from back when I did. You could maybe estimate from the pitch of the resistors and caps which I think was about 10mm, so approx 3cm x 7cm.

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 12 Oct 2021, 21:53

ringworm wrote: ↑12 Oct 2021, 21:14 Sorry, I don't have the board anymore, just the pics I took from back when I did. You could maybe estimate from the pitch of the resistors and caps which I think was about 10mm, so approx 3cm x 7cm.

Thank you, I came to the same result.

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 18 Oct 2021, 23:43

I made two PCB clones one like the original PCB the other with additional solder lugs to connect the wires.
The values I have taken as far as I could see them from the PCB shot, the others from the schematic of the post above.
There is a difference in the values of C1 and C6, in the schematic they are both 100nF on the PCB-shot 10nF.

Ready to print PDF files:

ColorSoundWahOriginalLayoutComponentsSide.pdf: (11.23 KiB) Downloaded 145 times

ColorSoundWahOriginalLayoutSolderSide.pdf: (2.1 KiB) Downloaded 113 times

ColorSoundWahModdedLayoutComponentsSide.pdf: (11.61 KiB) Downloaded 129 times

ColorSoundWahModdedLayoutSolderSide.pdf: (2.17 KiB) Downloaded 126 times

Sprint Layout 6.0 file:

ColorSoundWahLayout.zip: (23.12 KiB) Downloaded 105 times

mictester · Post by **mictester** » 19 Oct 2021, 18:57

I've built these on offcuts of Veroboard. It's worth using a stereo pot, and cascading two of these, with the centre frequencies slightly offset for a really radical Wah! I've also wired them so that the resistance of one Wah pot increases as the other decreases, so the two Wahs "go past" each other in opposite directions - (you need to introduce series preset resistors to adjust the starting frequencies of each) - and you get a very "vocal" effect if adjusted correctly.

mictester · Post by **mictester** » 19 Oct 2021, 19:02

uncleboko wrote: ↑10 Oct 2021, 08:33 How many have actually visited Macari's Music Exchange shop in London, or even their short lived shop in Edgware during the mid 1960s?

I actually worked there during a summer break when I was a student in the 70s. I was the only one there who could get much out of the Synthi AKS, so I used to demonstrate those to prospective buyers.

george giblet · Post by **george giblet** » 22 Oct 2021, 21:05

As for the inductored wah schematic in the first post I'm yet to find a PCB pic which matches the 2x150n caps and also the 100R emitter resistor on Q1. The 100R implies 80's era. Perhaps there weren't many of these units around.

The 1974 Issue 3 units with the big mustard cap across the board (and SEI inductor) had a 150n cap and a 15n cap but no 100R emitter resistor. It's safe to say the schematic is not for this unit.

Colorsound - Wah [schematic]