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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destro
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Post by destro »

That is f@cking awesome!Love The Wire.

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Post by LaceSensor »

Thanks sir! Simple and powerful graphics for a simple and powerful pedal !

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Post by Cub »

Could you Sili Bender Builders have a look at the guts and a listen to the tone in the clips in this thread: REQ: Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe

I think there might be a possibility that John Lyons got the inspiration for his Scarab and Scarab Deluxe from pedals with schematics similar to the ones posted in the Silicon Tonebender thread.
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Post by jbgron »

I built this using my own layout, sounds fantastic but the Abuse/Fuzz pot hasn't got much range. It starts fuzzy and then gets slightly more fuzzy at the end of the dial. Is this correct behavior or I have I missed something?

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Post by ckyvick »

Cub wrote:Could you Sili Bender Builders have a look at the guts and a listen to the tone in the clips in this thread: REQ: Basic Audio Scarab Deluxe

I think there might be a possibility that John Lyons got the inspiration for his Scarab and Scarab Deluxe from pedals with schematics similar to the ones posted in the Silicon Tonebender thread.
There's no ic and I don't see many(if any) ideas from this thread. He explains how it works here:
http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/ ... =8&t=26085

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Post by Nocentelli »

jbgron wrote:I built this using my own layout, sounds fantastic but the Abuse/Fuzz pot hasn't got much range. It starts fuzzy and then gets slightly more fuzzy at the end of the dial. Is this correct behavior or I have I missed something?
Have you experimented with the trimmer? On my build, with the trimmer set around halfway, the fuzz pot has quite a wide travel.
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 »

ckyvick wrote:There's no ic and I don't see many(if any) ideas from this thread. He explains how it works here:
http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/ ... =8&t=26085
IC? Both circuits are based on the silicon TB MKII, yet both have four transistors and a tone control: Seems pretty similar to me. That doesn't mean, of course, that John Lyons took his ideas from here - If you read the entire thread, the is some passionate "discussion" about where mictester may have got his ideas... Either way, it wouldn't be much effort to add the scarab bias and input cap blend pots to this circuit.
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 ckyvick »

Nocentelli wrote:
ckyvick wrote:There's no ic and I don't see many(if any) ideas from this thread. He explains how it works here:
http://www.buildyourownclone.com/board/ ... =8&t=26085
IC? Both circuits are based on the silicon TB MKII, yet both have four transistors and a tone control: Seems pretty similar to me. That doesn't mean, of course, that John Lyons took his ideas from here - If you read the entire thread, the is some passionate "discussion" about where mictester may have got his ideas... Either way, it wouldn't be much effort to add the scarab bias and input cap blend pots to this circuit.
Yeah, I had it confused with one of mictesters other threads on the ic :slap: There were si tonebenders with tone controls prior to this thread.
I don't know if lyons used anything from this thread either, the guy does know how to work the fuzz :blackeye

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Post by jbgron »

Nocentelli wrote:Have you experimented with the trimmer? On my build, with the trimmer set around halfway, the fuzz pot has quite a wide travel.
Turns out my trimmer was dodgy, replaced with new one and its working fine. Good sounding pedal.

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Post by Nocentelli »

jbgron wrote:
Nocentelli wrote:Have you experimented with the trimmer? On my build, with the trimmer set around halfway, the fuzz pot has quite a wide travel.
Turns out my trimmer was dodgy, replaced with new one and its working fine. Good sounding pedal.
Glad to hear it!
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 mictester »

Last week I found the original Macari's pedal PCB that this was based on.

It was actually broken (I'd forgotten that, it was so long ago) and I had glued the PCB back together and bridged the fractured tracks. It worked, but it sounded horrible. I thought that there might have been some physical component damage that I couldn't see and I decided that it wasn't going to be reliable anyway, so I rebuilt it on a piece of Veroboard. The rebuilt version also sounded horrible. It was wrongly biased and the voicing was all wrong. The original Macari's box was re-used to house a really dreadful analogue echo thing with three BBDs that I never got quite right...

The original pedal had a good reputation, so I thought it was worth tweaking to see if I could make it sound really good. The result is what I put at the beginning of the thread. The original had three PN108 transistors (plastic BC108). I've built loads of them over the years and use one on my pedalboard instead of the usual Fuzz face! There are a few well-known guitarists who have recorded with them...
"Why is it humming?" "Because it doesn't know the words!"

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Post by HEAD »

+1 Totally agree. The best and useable fuzz I've ever build. Built 4 different versions up to now.... the one posted here, one with a James tone controll, one with "scarab deluxe" mods to it and another one with a slightly different James tone controll. Always turned out great.

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Post by Nickblueberries »

I seem to be having input gain problems with this pedal. The only changes i have are a 4.7 uf in C5, Bc109B's, and the 100 nf Caps are 630v which i ordered by mistake. When I hit it hard it sounds awesome but if i just play normal it doesnt really do much.

If anyone can help out, it would be greatly appreciated.

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Post by mictester »

Nickblueberries wrote:I seem to be having input gain problems with this pedal. The only changes i have are a 4.7 uf in C5, Bc109B's, and the 100 nf Caps are 630v which i ordered by mistake. When I hit it hard it sounds awesome but if i just play normal it doesnt really do much.

If anyone can help out, it would be greatly appreciated.
You've probably got a bias problem! Check all the bias resistor connections are good. I'll lash another one up in the next day or two and put a set of known-good voltages up here. The voltage rating of the caps won't matter at all, as long as they're higher than the supply rating. 630V is a bit excessive, but won't matter at all!
"Why is it humming?" "Because it doesn't know the words!"

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Post by HEAD »

Don't give up! This is one of the most cheap and best sounding tb variants you can imagine of! Put a baxandall style tone controll after it and be amazed by the variants of sounds you can get! The standard tone controll isn't bad though. It's the only fuzz I still have always on my pedal board.

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Post by billyapplesauce »

Silicon Bender.jpg
Silicon Bender.jpg (24.71 KiB) Viewed 3904 times
photo (3).jpg
photo (4).jpg
[attachment=3]photo My first build and i was hoping for some help.I wasn't certain which way the positive 9 volts was flowing through my electrolytic caps and i wanted someone to tell me if I have them positioned correctly. Help? I would also like to know if anyone spots any glaring mistakes. I did substitute a 6.8 uf capacitor on C2 for the 4.7 capacitor. The 6.8 cap. was as close a value I could find on hand. Will the circuit still function properly with that alteration? Last question, I am also lacking a 50k linear pot. for the abuse knob, but I do have a 25K and 100k linear pots. Would one of those suffice as a substitute? Help would be highly appreciated.

EricK
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Post by Nocentelli »

The electrolytics will have a stipe down the case which indicates the negative terminal leg: The negative leg for the input cap needs to be connected to the input side out the circuit, and the 4u7 (6u8 in your case - the slightly larger value won't make much audible difference) needs to have the negative leg to ground.
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 »

billyapplesauce wrote:I am also lacking a 50k linear pot. for the abuse knob, but I do have a 25K and 100k linear pots. Would one of those suffice as a substitute?
I assume you mean you don't have a 50k for the "sparkle" aka tone knob. You could try a 25k or 100k for the sparkle and it will sound a bit different but will still work - 25k will have less noticeable effect on the tone, 100k will be more dramatic than the original. It's pretty similar to a Big Muff tonestack, which uses a 100k pot, so i'd try that value first.

The "abuse" (aka gain/fuzz control) really needs to be a 1k for the third transistor to be correctly biased. if you haven't got a 1k pot for the abuse, you could probably get away with a different value pot with a fixed resistor wired across lug 1 and 3 to achieve the correct value by parallel-ing resistors: The taper will be different, but at least it will actually work properly.
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 »

Now I'm on a pc and not my phone, it looks like the orange electro cap input cap is reversed but the fuzz pot cap is ok. What transistors are you using, and have you checked the pinout?
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 billyapplesauce »

Nocentelli, I really appreciate the time you took to look at my project. I got wrapped up with work and had to take a little break before continuing. Last night I turned around the cap you mentioned and also replaced the 6.8 for a 4.7 cap. I also began work on the enclosure and it's wiring. I'll upload some more photos when I make time and will likely have more questions if you are up for answering them. Your time is much appreciated.

Erick

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