Tanabe.tv - Zenkudo

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 01 Mar 2009, 10:57

Got one of these in for repair recently.
No goop on this one, so it was an easy trace.
It's a fairly straight clone of the Zen Drive with a couple little tweaks and selectable diodes.
The strangest thing to me is the 10n cap on the input. It's one of those nasty little multilayer ceramics...
There are some other things... like the 2M resistors that seem superfluous and out of place... please don't ask me for any explanation as to the logic of why he did that.

Anyway, it sounds decent... like any other Zen derivative I've messed with. I like the setting with no diodes. I find it interesting that he chose to name the no diodes setting "Dumble" when it's the sound with diodes that the "standard" Zen has that people claim sounds like a Dumble.

Here it is:
members/soulsonic/schematic/Zenkudo.GIF

I will post up a couple photos of the board soon. I won't do any gutshots of the entire unit because it has been rebuilt so extensively it would not represent the original work of Mr. Tanabe.

noelgrassy · Post by **noelgrassy** » 01 Mar 2009, 11:47

Soulsonic,

Is it one of the Abalone shell lookin' pedals? If so, can you identify what that material
actually is? It's really stunning in the pics I've seen.

What repairs did the pedal need?

Did they happen because Mr Tanabe's design was flawed?

Thanks,

NG.

MoreCowbell · Post by **MoreCowbell** » 01 Mar 2009, 15:16

Interesting -

the 2M in the beginning is placed oddly and the 2M on the end shouldn't be necessary at all...as you mentioned Martin.... the combo 10n+470n is a little strange too...

I wonder how it would sound (or any Zen clone) if you changed R7 to a 10k trim and adjusted the bias point by ear (kind of like the assym. setup on the Timmy) ? Better...worse...not much difference ?

It seems to me that it would be easy to improve the tone control as well

Thanks for the schematic and your hard work Martin !

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 02 Mar 2009, 05:03

noelgrassy wrote:Is it one of the Abalone shell lookin' pedals? If so, can you identify what that material
actually is? It's really stunning in the pics I've seen.

Yes, it is one of those. The abalone looks like some kind of plastic or something... some sort of laminate stuff... I don't think it's real abalone, but I've never really worked with the stuff, so I can't say for sure.
Here's the problem (at least with the one I've worked on...); the labeling seems to be done with a waterslide decal.... an inkjet waterslide decal. And there isn't any lacquer or clearcoat or anything over it either.
So, what do you think happened when I tried to clean this poor thing with a moist cloth?

So, yeah, it looks great... just don't get it wet!

noelgrassy wrote:What repairs did the pedal need?

Did they happen because Mr Tanabe's design was flawed?

All the wiring had to be completely replaced. This was not because of any fault in Mr. Tanabe's work. The owner of the pedal loaned it to a friend who thought he could take it apart to trace and build a clone... let's just say he wasn't successful and it wasn't put back together properly. Fortunately, nothing was damaged on the board, so all I had to do was replace the wiring.

MoreCowbell wrote:the combo 10n+470n is a little strange too...

I think he came up with that by just playing around with a straight Zen clone, and he probably just tried sticking that cap there to see what it sounded like, and he liked it, so that's how it stayed. As you can see in the photos, it's very small, and maybe he chose the small size because it would be easily hidden under goop, so most people looking at a gooped one might guess that it only has the big 470nF input cap.

Here are the board pics:

: Tanabe Zenkudo; ZenkudoBoard1.JPG (42.5 KiB) Viewed 4660 times

: Tanabe Zenkudo, trackside.; ZenkudoBoard2.JPG (62.88 KiB) Viewed 4641 times

: Tanabe Zendkudo, board detail; ZenkudoBoardDetail1.JPG (34.81 KiB) Viewed 4651 times

briggs · Post by **briggs** » 18 Mar 2009, 00:18

What I don't understand is why those guys over at TGP aren't slating this guy more for building a blatant clone and charging more than the original? Oh sod that argument - it's far too late for that

I've lost my head at the thought of going through that 20 page thread on TGP.... I love that finish! Woop.

IvIark · Post by **IvIark** » 18 Mar 2009, 00:48

They never slate a (stealth) clone that is more expensive because that means it is better

Greg · Post by **Greg** » 18 Mar 2009, 05:06

You're a legend Soulsonic..

I can't see properly.. is that Tanabe or Wannabe on the board

bagge · Post by **bagge** » 05 Apr 2009, 12:58

Isn't the 2M resistor at output about altering the pot in some way. I believe it's called a tapering resistor. I suppose it gives a wider control at either end of the pot?????

Fuzzer · Post by **Fuzzer** » 05 Apr 2009, 14:43

Greg_G wrote:I can't see properly.. is that Tanabe or Wannabe on the board

soulsonic · Post by **soulsonic** » 06 Apr 2009, 04:28

bagge wrote:Isn't the 2M resistor at output about altering the pot in some way. I believe it's called a tapering resistor. I suppose it gives a wider control at either end of the pot?????

Not a value that high. If it were something like a 10k, then maybe something would happen. As it is, it's just an extraneous pulldown that doesn't need to be there.
Same one can be found on the Jetter (except connected directly to the output jack after the bypass switch... not true bypass!).
I don't know if the original Zen has this or not.

ManCas · Post by **ManCas** » 12 Aug 2009, 19:18

Hello everybody!, Do you guys know where can I find a layout to this schematic? I'm kind of confused with the toggle switch scheme. Is the toggle a DPDT On-On-On type? Thanks in advance!

PS: Thanks a lot to Soulsonic for posting this!

Dirk_Hendrik · Post by **Dirk_Hendrik** » 12 Aug 2009, 20:28

MoreCowbell wrote:Interesting -

the 2M in the beginning is placed oddly and the 2M on the end shouldn't be necessary at all...as you mentioned Martin.... the combo 10n+470n is a little strange too...

I wonder how it would sound (or any Zen clone) if you changed R7 to a 10k trim and adjusted the bias point by ear (kind of like the assym. setup on the Timmy) ? Better...worse...not much difference ?

It seems to me that it would be easy to improve the tone control as well

Thanks for the schematic and your hard work Martin !

Thanks for not having me typing exactly the same Q's

As for the pics..
f'r fck sake...learn to layout, learn to solder..

And as a personal note,
Could people stop giving tone control like names to controls (Voice in this case) that have a far more gain-like character than a tone control like character? It's confusing and the name of the control doesn't match the fuction. Thats crap on stage.

Other than that,
Thanks Martin. Wish the pedal you reversed was the same qaality as your schem.

kev01 · Post by **kev01** » 12 Aug 2009, 22:28

The material used on the top of the pedal is called abalam. It is an laminated ablo material like used in inexpensive guitars. You might check luthiers merch. I have not been able to find the thin stuff in the U.S. for quite awhile now. The last I purchased at the NAMM show directly from a Korean import parts vendor.

ManCas · Post by **ManCas** » 12 Aug 2009, 23:08

Dirk_Hendrik wrote: Other than that,
Thanks Martin. Wish the pedal you reversed was the same qaality as your schem.

That's exactly what i thought!

Spewbag · Post by **Spewbag** » 13 Aug 2009, 01:38

soulsonic wrote:
noelgrassy wrote:Is it one of the Abalone shell lookin' pedals? If so, can you identify what that material
actually is? It's really stunning in the pics I've seen.
Yes, it is one of those. The abalone looks like some kind of plastic or something... some sort of laminate stuff... I don't think it's real abalone, but I've never really worked with the stuff, so I can't say for sure.
Here's the problem (at least with the one I've worked on...); the labeling seems to be done with a waterslide decal.... an inkjet waterslide decal. And there isn't any lacquer or clearcoat or anything over it either.
So, what do you think happened when I tried to clean this poor thing with a moist cloth?

So, yeah, it looks great... just don't get it wet!

noelgrassy wrote:What repairs did the pedal need?

Did they happen because Mr Tanabe's design was flawed?
All the wiring had to be completely replaced. This was not because of any fault in Mr. Tanabe's work. The owner of the pedal loaned it to a friend who thought he could take it apart to trace and build a clone... let's just say he wasn't successful and it wasn't put back together properly. Fortunately, nothing was damaged on the board, so all I had to do was replace the wiring.
MoreCowbell wrote:the combo 10n+470n is a little strange too...
I think he came up with that by just playing around with a straight Zen clone, and he probably just tried sticking that cap there to see what it sounded like, and he liked it, so that's how it stayed. As you can see in the photos, it's very small, and maybe he chose the small size because it would be easily hidden under goop, so most people looking at a gooped one might guess that it only has the big 470nF input cap.

Here are the board pics:
ZenkudoBoard1.JPG

ZenkudoBoard2.JPG

ZenkudoBoardDetail1.JPG

God that effin horrible.....geeze.

earthtonesaudio · Post by **earthtonesaudio** » 13 Aug 2009, 02:45

Unique and innovative!

The tri-color indicator LED, I mean.

kurtlives · Post by **kurtlives** » 13 Aug 2009, 04:50

earthtonesaudio wrote:Unique and innovative!

The tri-color indicator LED, I mean.

O come on the finishing is somewhat cool.

Coma · Post by **Coma** » 14 Aug 2009, 13:55

Any vero or perfboard for this one? Looks like a very simple pedal to build.

cacophony · Post by **cacophony** » 11 Sep 2009, 18:54

I'm working on a PCB layout for this using EAGLE CAD. However, I noticed a few weird changes as compared to Zendrive's schematic.

1) The tone lug 1 is left open here while in Zendrive it is shorted with the wiper and connected in series with the 10k-ohm resistor.
2) Voice lug 1 is left open. Looking at Zendrive's, it is again shorted with the wiper and connected in series with the 0.1uF capacitor.

@ soulsonic: could you have a verification for this?

Greg · Post by **Greg** » 11 Sep 2009, 23:43

cacophony wrote:I'm working on a PCB layout for this using EAGLE CAD. However, I noticed a few weird changes as compared to Zendrive's schematic.

1) The tone lug 1 is left open here while in Zendrive it is shorted with the wiper and connected in series with the 10k-ohm resistor.
2) Voice lug 1 is left open. Looking at Zendrive's, it is again shorted with the wiper and connected in series with the 0.1uF capacitor.

@ soulsonic: could you have a verification for this?

Neither change will make a functional difference.
Those 2 pots are being used as an adjustable resistor (rheostat), and the connection is optional.