ShortScale.org

Here's another thing I built yesterday. This worked first time (phew!)

It's a noise reduction circuit for the 'deluxe' black Percolators I'm gonna make. Does good dobbly with virtually no tone-sucking. Needs dip switches to bypass and low-profile caps though. And metal film resistors if I'm being fussy.

What is it that is going to make these black Percolators deluxe?

johnnyseven wrote:What is it that is going to make these black Percolators deluxe?

Built-in noise reduction, soft switching with that relay circuit, and three position switch for si/off/ge clipping (assuming I can get the right switches in the small size right for my boards). All the caps will be Wima and all the resistors metal film. I'm only making 10 of them from a batch of 100 (the rest are 55 blue, 35 beige).

Do you think any of your customers are really going to care about the switching method you use?

It still seems proper overkill to me to be making those boards with ICs and transistors just to achieve bypass which is doable with a simple footswitch for less money (even if you make in bulk, that's going to come out more expensive than a 3PDT or DPDT method and also occupy loads of your time unnecessarily).

I can fully appreciate the art of the design side of things but it just seems like you're overcomplicating things, and making work for yourself for something your customer most likely doesn't care about, and in fact might be afraid of. People are well into their true bypass, for better or worse.

timhulio wrote:

johnnyseven wrote:What is it that is going to make these black Percolators deluxe?

Built-in noise reduction, soft switching with that relay circuit, and three position switch for si/off/ge clipping (assuming I can get the right switches in the small size right for my boards). All the caps will be Wima and all the resistors metal film. I'm only making 10 of them from a batch of 100 (the rest are 55 blue, 35 beige).

I don't really know what all these things are but what's important is - is it going to sound awesome?

Mike wrote:Do you think any of your customers are really going to care about the switching method you use?

It still seems proper overkill to me to be making those boards with ICs and transistors just to achieve bypass which is doable with a simple footswitch for less money (even if you make in bulk, that's going to come out more expensive than a 3PDT or DPDT method and also occupy loads of your time unnecessarily).

I can fully appreciate the art of the design side of things but it just seems like you're overcomplicating things, and making work for yourself for something your customer most likely doesn't care about, and in fact might be afraid of. People are well into their true bypass, for better or worse.

Quite simply, soft switching with a silent momentary contact switch is far sexier than a clunky old 3PDT. So on a small number of pedals I plan to charge a premium for it's the switching method of choice. Relay switching is true bypass, besides. These ten pedals I want to be the very best I'm capable of making at this point, and this is the best switching method I've tried so far.

re. time to make- I should probably time this at some point, but populating a bunch of boards at once means this is so quick. There's only 3 different resistors and 2 different caps in there, so these boards will be easy as.

It's electronics. There is nothing remotely sexy about it.

Mike wrote:It's electronics. There is nothing remotely sexy about it.

It's design, which is very sexy.

Tim, is this the kind of switch Korg use in their DT-10 and PitchBlack tuners?

blacktaxi wrote:Tim, is this the kind of switch Korg use in their DT-10 and PitchBlack tuners?

Similar, but that doesn't use relay switching. Cusack uses this system, and I've got some of the same switches:
Cusack Pedals

Blackulator!

timhulio wrote:

johnnyseven wrote:What is it that is going to make these black Percolators deluxe?

Built-in noise reduction, soft switching with that relay circuit, and three position switch for si/off/ge clipping (assuming I can get the right switches in the small size right for my boards). All the caps will be Wima and all the resistors metal film. I'm only making 10 of them from a batch of 100 (the rest are 55 blue, 35 beige).

n/b I didn't have room to fit-in all of this shit unfortunately. The black ones will have switchable noise reduction, all metal film resistors and mojo-grade expensive wima caps. Aside from this, the components are the same vintage-correct bits that are in the blue ones.

Nice focussing, Kodak Zi8! I seem to have found the distance which is too far for the macro, and too near for landscape mode. Sheesh.

[youtube][/youtube]

I must say i liked the Blue one best. The black had a certain sort of midrange and clunkyness that i enjoyed but the blue one was just this delightful creamy smooth sweet and other nice adjectives

Cheers dude! Listening back I'm undecided. The beige sounds 'tighter' to my ears. Perhaps a little harsh. The mids with the Black HP are purely down to the noise reduction. I switched that off and couldn't tell the difference from the Blue at all, despite capacitors and resistors which cost four times as much. But then, I don't have audiophile ears!

so no more fancy switching? did you ever get any of those fancy mushroom switches?

and yeah, blue one sounds like it clips more and sounds a bit thicker. it's nice. personally I don't know if I would use those wima caps in a distortion device. I think they're good for things like EQ filters where you want a real exacting roll-off. but distortion is supposed to be just that, distortion. I think it benefits from the shoddy roll-off of cheaper caps.

timhulio wrote:But then, I don't have audiophile ears!

no, but you are wearing an audiophile's uniform!



PROOF. (as seen in the background)

Mages wrote:so no more fancy switching? did you ever get any of those fancy mushroom switches?

and yeah, blue one sounds like it clips more and sounds a bit thicker. it's nice. personally I don't know if I would use those wima caps in a distortion device. I think they're good for things like EQ filters where you want a real exacting roll-off. but distortion is supposed to be just that, distortion. I think it benefits from the shoddy roll-off of cheaper caps.

I've got one of those mushroom switches. It's a big gold one- free sample from the switch company. When I've enough percs built to last a little while I'll build a nice one-off using it. Sad fact at the moment I'm not geared-up to accurately and neatly make big holes, and would have to hike up prices to account for the £13 switches. It's more an aspiration of where I'd like to go with pedal making.

I'm gonna offer relay switching as an option on any of the percs if people wannit.

Cheers for the advice on the Wima caps. I could not discern a difference yesterday, but I'll A/B some more today. The beige HP has ceramics, the blue has poly film 'greenie' types.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:

timhulio wrote:But then, I don't have audiophile ears!

no, but you are wearing an audiophile's uniform!

PROOF. (as seen in the background)

Don't you have a B&O too? Post pics!

Oddly, that needs a few caps replacing. The stereo balance is off unless the slider is way to the left. Unfortunately these aren't as serviceable as the proper Danish-made B&Os. Really hankering for one of these:

Beocenter 7700... nomnomnom

I rewieved your Harmonic Percolator in an german gear forum: http://www.musiker-board.de/reviews-e-g ... ost4817106

In conclusion: Great for 60s fuzz sounds and Neil Young bloom, but to my impression lacks a little volume. I linked the picture from your website, if that's not ok I'll put one on photobucket or so?