Silicon Tone Bender

Original effects with schematics, layouts and instructions, freely contributed by members or found in publications. Cannot be used for commercial purposes without the consent of the owners of the copyright.
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alnico
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Post by alnico »

ckyvick wrote:^WHERE did he say mkii???? I believe he is referring to the Jumbo/MKIII SILICON TONEBENDER relased under Macari
He didn't have to. The circuits posted in this thread bear more relation to the MKII topology than to the Jumbo or Supa, both of which were knock offs of the Big Muff. The fuzz and tone controls in those don't stack up with the description of the "bad" Macaris circuit, which is why I was (and still am) confused.

I'm not getting into who had the idea first. I just wanted to know which Tone Bender mictester was talking about and how its shortcomings translated to what we see in this thread.

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Post by Hides-His-Eyes »

mictester, you're smart enough to keep your online persona completely seperated from your real identity, which is fine. Pretty wise, even. But you can't then invoke your real life reputation in an argument about the source of a couple of tone stack values, of all things (if it wasn't an 8n2 cap but a standard value I wouldn't see how there was any discussion here at all!) It just seems like an attempt to have your cake and eat it. I don't really care where you get your circuit diagrams from, I've certainly seen you give enough good advice that you're quite capable of making them yourself; but accusing Doug of ripping off a circuit out of one of your pedals, when nobody even knows what name you're making pedals under, seems a bit of a stretch. How did he get it? How many of these boxes were shipped abroad? I don't even know what country DougH is in but I don't get the impression it's this drizzly little island.

It'd be one thing to say "It's a passive tone stack, I'm sure it's everywhere", quite another to actively accuse dougH of reverse engineering yours (poke around in any mystery tonebender boxes in the late 90s, doug?)

As for the Blencowe thing; surely you more than anyone would realise that two engineers are far more likely to reach the same solution to a problem than two hobbyists? That since your electronics training had a large formal element, that you would both pick the "right" way of doing something?

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Post by Greg »

As for the Blencowe thing:

Both sides were given every opportunity to present their case in the Glass Blower thread, but mictester...
you backed away from that one in a hurry when confronted, so I don't see how you can raise it here and again claim you were ripped off... AND call Blencowe a charlatan !!
If you believe that then why didn't you follow through in the other thread ?

What about this:
mictester wrote:
earthtonesaudio wrote:Even if I assume Mictester is and has always been 100% truthful, I still think he should have kept his mouth shut. If it was such a big deal that he get credit for his own work, why keep it a secret until AFTER someone else publishes it as their own? That's the price you pay for trade secrets. Once it's "out there" in the world, you lose the ability prove it was your idea first.

On the other hand if it's really not a big deal to him, why make such a serious claim on another person's reputation? Why not just call it a coincidence and leave it at that?

Bottom line: if you're going to make accusations, you should back them up. I think we can all agree on that. If not, I have a sketch somewhere that proves I invented the iPod, Kung Fu, and also the universe. It's dated "before the big bang" so there should be no question to its validity.

:thumbsup
You're entirely right. I hope that this can be safely forgotten. I have nothing further to say on the matter, except that I regret making any comment about Elektor publishing something really close to a circuit I used to make. Elektor (as before) refuse to make any comment on the topic.

I'm glad that I'm 10 years on from that era of circuits!
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Post by mictester »

Hides-His-Eyes wrote:mictester, you're smart enough to keep your online persona completely seperated from your real identity, which is fine. Pretty wise, even. But you can't then invoke your real life reputation in an argument about the source of a couple of tone stack values, of all things (if it wasn't an 8n2 cap but a standard value I wouldn't see how there was any discussion here at all!) It just seems like an attempt to have your cake and eat it. I don't really care where you get your circuit diagrams from, I've certainly seen you give enough good advice that you're quite capable of making them yourself; but accusing Doug of ripping off a circuit out of one of your pedals, when nobody even knows what name you're making pedals under, seems a bit of a stretch. How did he get it? How many of these boxes were shipped abroad? I don't even know what country DougH is in but I don't get the impression it's this drizzly little island.

It'd be one thing to say "It's a passive tone stack, I'm sure it's everywhere", quite another to actively accuse dougH of reverse engineering yours (poke around in any mystery tonebender boxes in the late 90s, doug?)

As for the Blencowe thing; surely you more than anyone would realise that two engineers are far more likely to reach the same solution to a problem than two hobbyists? That since your electronics training had a large formal element, that you would both pick the "right" way of doing something?

Electronic Engineer, not Electronic Artist.
When I suggested that "Doug H" had "borrowed" my design, I was being sarcastic. Or possibly ironic.

I must remember:

1. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

2. Irony doesn't transmit well on internet fora!
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Post by mictester »

Greg_G wrote:I'm glad that I'm 10 years on from that era of circuits!
I'm actually much more than 10 years on from there - Class D amplifiers and modern loudspeaker technology have both completely changed stage back-line gear. Cheap, high quality, and reliable digital wireless audio links are now available, obviating the need for long cables, balanced audio and line drivers. Cheap digitisation and cheap computational power has rendered many specialist audio processing ICs (BBDs, VCAs etc.) obsolete.

To be honest, I'm getting fed up with the digital manipulations and memory-based tricks that I've been doing for a good while (the SHARC IC range is a particular favourite). I'm thinking if starting a "back to analogue" movement, similar to the "back to mono" brigade of the late 70s!
"Why is it humming?" "Because it doesn't know the words!"

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Post by soggybag »

I feel this discussion is going in a bad direction. If anyone is making any accusations of plagiarism it should be the person who feels their work was copied. Having a third party come and start making assumptions where all of the real problems begin.

From all of his contributions to the forum I feel that mictester is on the level and presents his own work.

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Post by jmwreck »

happy new year everyone :D

i'd like to have an intermission here, this is my fuzz combo, which is derived from the fuzz factory and 4 transistor - tone bender :)

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and here is the inside of the tonebender

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and the transistors i used

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Post by HEAD »

mictester wrote:
mcaviel wrote:
mictester wrote: ...and sometimes I can't keep up with the demand for them!
So start a waiting list :wink:.

BTW it's a great design and very useful, what is the "James" type tone control?
The "James" control circuit is a passive, two knob tone control circuit. It needs the correct (calculated) source and load impedances, but it's capable of a very wide range of control including mid scoop, mid boost, top boost, top cut and so on. It's quite lossy, but is ideal at the back end of a pedal with high output (like the Silicon Tonebender or the Big Muff Pi). I'll put the schematic up later.
Still pretty interested to see that as the original 4-Knob version already sounds amazing. :)

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Post by HEAD »

Finished mine today:
Image

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Post by jmwreck »

HEAD wrote:Finished mine today:
Image

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very cool, i like the color combo of your retro and funky style design :D

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HEAD
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Post by HEAD »

jmwreck wrote:
HEAD wrote:Finished mine today:
Image

Image
very cool, i like the color combo of your retro and funky style design :D

Thanks. Retro looking? Must be because of: http://www.kitrae.net/music/supatonebender.jpg :wink:

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Post by Nocentelli »

Awesome bender build, Head!

(ps - have I just thanked a spambot?)
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 Hides-His-Eyes »

Looking good Head!

If you get any popping issues you might consider running the LED/millenium circuit straight off the input jack; from the photo it looks as if DC goes into the vero at one end and the LED takes it from the other. I know you're not supposed to do that with ground lines and I expect it's not the best practise with 9v lines either; the circuit will "see" the sudden change in current draw as the LED turns on and it'll be passed straight to the transistors.

Obviously if it doesn't pop then just ignore me!
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Post by HEAD »

Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Looking good Head!

If you get any popping issues you might consider running the LED/millenium circuit straight off the input jack; from the photo it looks as if DC goes into the vero at one end and the LED takes it from the other. I know you're not supposed to do that with ground lines and I expect it's not the best practise with 9v lines either; the circuit will "see" the sudden change in current draw as the LED turns on and it'll be passed straight to the transistors.

Obviously if it doesn't pop then just ignore me!
Thanks! I fixed right after I've done it. So the only pop noise I got was the one in my head (pun intended) saying me that's not a so good idea. ;)
I realy have to say that this an awesome sounding fuzz! I tweaked it a bit though. Kinda chimera between the first less gainy version and the hi gain version (820k/100k at Q1 and 56k between Q2 and Q3). I also added the 100pF cap at the input to ground to prevent radio noise if the input jack is unplugged.

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Post by mictester »

Nice one!

An interesting tweak you can try (tames "fizziness") is to use small value capacitors from base to collector of the second and third transistors. I used 100 pF at each on one I built today.

I've also built a bass version - bigger coupling capacitors, and re-tuned tone control. It's not quite right yet (sounds like deep farts at the moment!) This circuit is open to lots of experimentation!
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Post by HEAD »

mictester wrote:Nice one!

An interesting tweak you can try (tames "fizziness") is to use small value capacitors from base to collector of the second and third transistors. I used 100 pF at each on one I built today.

I've also built a bass version - bigger coupling capacitors, and re-tuned tone control. It's not quite right yet (sounds like deep farts at the moment!) This circuit is open to lots of experimentation!
Yeah, I tried that but didn't realy like it. Still not sure if I like 8,2nF or 6,8nF better for the tone controll. At the moment I'm playing through a pretty dark sounding amp so I realy like the highs its able to produce.
I'm still experimenting with a Baxandall (taken from the 21st century big muff but with bjt after it) and a clean blend controll for a bass version but therefore you realy need to thicken it a bit up.

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HEAD
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Post by HEAD »

I realy need to buy a full Splan version as I come up with a pretty good sounding version of this TB with a baxandall tonestack. Nearly like this better than the original one. I got a unverified layout to share though. But posting a layout without providing a schem is a bit lame - even more as it is still unverified. :D

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HEAD
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Post by HEAD »

Anyway did try to make with the oldschool diylc. Not beautifull but should be sufficient.
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TB_Baxandall.png

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Post by HEAD »

Naaaaaaaah, stupid me. Schem was not correct. F***ed the baxandall. Anyway here's the corrected one. Hopefully this time with no errors. Comments whether good or bad are welcome.
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TB_Baxandall.png

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Post by Chugs »

The last stage appears to be a buffer. If this is indeed the case then the 0.1uf output cap should connect to the emitter, not the collector.

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