MXR Stereo Chorus - M205

 The MXR dates from around 1983. Its very heavy.

 It's a great sounding pedal

The era of BBD based delays & chorus appears to have just been very short . Between 1976 and 1983 ?
So this comes from the very end. It appears that pedal companies all released digital  based delays in the 1980s killing the demand for the BBDs.

..

Uses a Reticon SAD4096.... super long delays.

 The SAD4096 is super rare. It's a general purpose 4096 bucket (2048-sample) n-channel BBD. It's useful where a long delay is required. (2ms to 250msec). The delay is controlled by the clock frequency.

The RC4558 is a texas Instruments General purpose dual Op amp.
The MCI458p is also an op amp

The SCL4013 is of course a CMOS logic chip. Dual flop flop.
The CD4013 provides an excellent clock source with their Q and -Q outputs.

The Clifford Pier - Singapore

Located at the first floor of The Fullerton Hotel Singapore this beautiful and historic building is well worth a visit.

Built in 1933, it was a landing point for immigrants and a ferry terminal to the southern Islands like Kusu & St. Johns. It was the melting pot for the interaction of different races and cultures.

In the early days, the car park surrounding the entrance was transformed into a hawker centre. It was the meeting point for musicians, night owls, and lovebirds. Today it's still a meeting place but it's been transformed into a something very stylish.

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Click here for more travel postcards

They'd Rather Be Right - The Forever Machine by Mark Clifton & Frank Riley

 

"They'd Rather Be Right" (also called the Forever Machine) won the 1955 Hugo-award for best Novel. 

It's actually a sequel to two short stories: "Crazy Joey" and "Hide! Hide! Witch!" by Mark Clifton & Alex Apostolides. 

 

"The only way to have immortality is to free yourself of your convictions".

This is the central theme of the novel. 

It's a good idea, however I felt this wasn't convincingly argued. 

The book puts forward the notion that inflexibility in knowing you're right is the only reason you're growing old. 

 

 

I've always felt that being able to put yourself in someone elses shoes is a good way to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Forever Machine is a classic example of 1950's sci fi. ... I don't think its a bad novel. Sure its a bit long and at times ...you think they could have got rid of 20%  but the idea is interesting.

 The main character, Joey (Joe Carter), in the prequels is a telepathic kid who doesn't fit into society.

 

He is an object of hate. But he uses his powers to help build a telepathic computer , Bossy, an AI.

 

BTW, Bossy is an unusual choice of name for a super computer .....It's no wonder the general population were concerned it might be a future problem for humanity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, rather than use Bossy  to fix the many problems of society, they hook it up to an ex-prostitute and turn her into an immortal super-woman. Maybe this is a missed opportunity??? Anyway, she becomes smarter, healthier and develops the power of telepathy.

 

I wonder why the authors chose this purpose for Bossy?  John Campbell , one of the main editors of Astounding Science Magazine, was a supporter of L Ron Hubbard and his idea of "Dianetics."
(December 1949 to April 1950). Is there a connection ??? I'm not sure.

The Forever Machine continues to receive lots of criticism, most reviewers describing it as the worst winner of the Hugo Prize. They may have a point when one considers the other novels available at that time such as
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov and The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

 

Anyway, If you are like me, trying to read all the Hugo winners , you may decide to leave this book till later. 

 

The illustrations on this page are from the story's first appearance in Astounding Science Fiction magazine.

 

 

If you can get hold of the original publications, do it.

Reading them in their original format puts the story in it's true historical context.

 

Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov 1954 

 

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sci Fi Index

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MXR Time delay

Picked this up on Ebay.
I am addicted to Reticon bucket brigade chips. So couldn't pass this one up.

Heavy, and built like a tank.
This one dates from around 1981 to 83.

M206/Series 2000
Serial No. 206-001729

The seller described it thus:
"This is a supremely luscious vintage analog delay. Thick, decadent delay repeats you could cut with a butter knife. Forget that Panasonic/Matsushita malarkey: Reticon did it right."  Yes !!!!

Reticon SAD4096 bucket-brigade delay chip with in'n'out running through a NE571 compander. It's socketed as are the op-amps (MCI458p)

NE571N Compander

....SCL4013BE ... CMOS chip ,,, its a dual D-type flip flop

 Built with love in beautiful Rochester

Buchla Easel - Portabellabz bob expander.

These are my build notes for the Bucha easel BOB by Portabellabz.
You can find the docs here .
It's quite a neat little unit. And it's expandable.

The two ICs are a TL071 op amp and a CD 4093. The TL071 is I think used to invert the EG.... the second left output jack.  The 4093 is I think used for converting gates to triggers ???... for the pulser trigger out ???

The trimmer sets the voltage level of the pulse trigger out. ... If using eurorack the voltage level of the pulse out can be reduced to 5V

Papz has left a section on the right blank to add your own circuit.
I'm putting in a square wave LFO/audio oscillator which you can find in the build notes.
I first tested this on some bread board.

Used just one 741 op amp, one capacitor (220nf) & 7 resistors.
The uber basic circuit is here

It's about as simple a circuit as you can get. An op-amp with positive and negative feedbacks.
The inverting input is connected to a RC (resistor capacitor) network. The non-inverting input is connected to a voltage divider.
It's classified as a astable multivibrator which has two states, neither of which are stable. It is constantly switching between these two states with the time spent in each state controlled by the charging or discharging of the capacitor through a resistor. The op-amp works as an analogue comparator... comparing the voltages at its two inputs.
The full schematic is here:

 Yup. It works both as a modulation oscillator and a audio oscillator.

Now to build it into the board.

So the the connections from left to right are:
- sequencer pulse in
- envelope inverted out / envelope trigger out (switchable)
- pulser pulse in
- pulser trig out (the internal short pulse occuring at the end of its cycle, not the ramp on yellow bananas)
- MO modulation switch CV
- LPG1 mode switch CV
- LPG2 mode switch CV
- LPG2 signal routing switch CV
- extra oscillator - switchable between LFO & Audio.

Ibanez FL-303 pedal

Vintage Ibanez FL-303 Flanger.
Picked this up the other day on Reverb.

 Great sounding pedal. Runs on two 9V batteries.

speed (or rate), width (range or depth)
Regen : The regen (intensity or enhance) knob feeds some of the delay output back into the input.
It intensifies the flanging effect

 The delay Chip is a Reticon SAD 1024. My favourite BBD IC.

The MCI4013. ... CMOS Dual D-type Flip flop. ?

SN72L022P .... I think it's a dual general purpose low power op amp, using the standard pinout for a dual op amp (same as a TL082, LM358, etc.)

For more on SAD 1024 BBD - Bucket Bridge devices

EHX Big Muff - Basic build

This must one of the most studied, rebuilt, cloned, copied circuits ever.

The Big Muff Pi (π), often known simply as the Big Muff, is a fuzzbox produced in New York City by Electroharmonix (and their Russian subsidiary , Sovtek). These are mainly guitar pedals.

 
The famous Mike Matthews Electro-Harmonix Big Muff guitar pedal. Pink Floyd used it. So did the Smashing Pumpkins. Jimmy Hedndrix gave it immortality. The list of artists is endless.

There are countless variations too. You can buy kits on the net with PCB & parts supplied to save you the hassle of understanding the circuit. But I like to know how things work. I'll build this on perf board.
So here is the basic circuit.

So how does it work?
The signal comes in through R2 and C1 before hitting the first stage, a basic transistor signal booster (Q4). Once the signal is boosted, it goes through C4 and enters R24 (the sustain potentiometer). This controls the gain. 

The signal goes through C5 and R19 before hitting the next stage, which is doing 2 things. Boosting  and clipping the signal. The clipping is achieved via the diodes (D1 and D2) & C6/C12.

The signal then goes through C13 and R12 before hitting the next stage : tone control.
It's identical to the previous diode clipping stage apart from the tone pot (R25) which pans between a high-pass and a low-pass. This explains why when you turn the tone control down the sound is very bassy, while turning it up cuts the bass, and it gets very bright.

After leaving the tone pot, the signal goes through C3 and enters into the final signal boosting stage before exiting through C2 and going out of the volume control into the pedal’s output.

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Many thanks to Kit Rae for a wonderful website.
If you haven't visited it yet here is the link:
http://www.kitrae.net/music/music_big_muff.html
This is the site to go to for everything you could ever need on this topic.

The first pedals came out in the late 1960s and over the last nearly 60 years the designs have barely changed. It says a lot about how good the basic design is. Of course there has been lots of tweaking over the decades. At one point the four transistor design was changed to op amps. And for another one of those decades Electro-harmonics transferred production to Russia.

Today the company is strong and still building Big Muffs. I highly recommend the modern versions (I own a few and love them) but I think it is fun and educational to explore the older variations. These go for astronomical prices on Ebay & Reverb today. Vintage "Triangle" and "Foxey Lady" pedals regularly change hands for over $1500.
If you can afford the real vintage thing go for it as I think nothing really beats vintage components. They have a persona which only the years can give. But probably the only chance I will have to experience something like the vintage sound will be to build my own.  So below is a brief comparison between the different variations. It's a great way to explore the evolution.

Starting with the early "Triangle" pedal

Triangle V1
	Circa 1971	Circa 1971/2	Circa 1972-73
R1
R2	33k	33k	33k
R3	100K	100K	100k
R4	2.7K	2.7K	2.7k
R5	33k	33k	39k
R6	10K	12K	12k
R7	390K	390K	390k
R8	33k	33k	39k
R9	470k	470k	390k
R10	150R	100R	82R
R11	15K	15K (or 12K)	22k
R12	8.2k	8.2k	8.2k
R13	15K	10K (or 15K)	22k
R14	100K	100K	82k
R15	470k	470k	390k
R16	100K	100K	82k
R17	470k	470k	390k
R18	10K	10K	12k
R19	8.2k	8.2k	8.2k
R20	100K	100K	82k
R21	100R	100R	150R
R22	100R	100R	82R
R23	1K	820R	820R
R24	100K	100K	100k
R25	100K	100K	100k
R26	100K	100K	100k
C1	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C2	1uF (or .1uF)	0.1uF	0.1uF
C3	1uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C4	1uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C5	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
C6	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.05uF
C7	1uF	0.1uF	0.05uF
C8	0.01uF	0.01uF	0.01uF
C9	0.004uF	0.004uF	0.004uF
C10	500pF	500pF	500pF
C11	500pF	500pF	560pF
C12	500pF	500pF	560pF
C13	0.12uF	0.1uF	0.1uF
Q1	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
Q2	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
Q3	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
Q4	2N5133	FS36999	FS37000
D1	1N914	1N914	1N914
D2	1N914	1N914	1N914
D3	1N914	1N914	1N914
D4	1N914	1N914	1N914

 

The values seem to have changed slightly over those 3 years.
There is a lot of scope to do some tweaking to find that sound that's right for your needs.
Maybe play around with carbon vs metal resistors? In the 1970s those carbon resistors would have been 10% tolerance or more ???

R24, 25 & R26 are the pots.  
Vintage USA Big Muffs (V1, V2, V3) used single-gang, linear taper, 24mm,100k pots.
A possible future mod could be to use B100K for R25 & R24 & A100k for the Tone (R25).
Log pots (A-100K type) have a longer usuable mid position and less at the ends. ... better fine tuning.
Could be useful for the tone section.

 Leakage current for the 1N4148 as 5 µA .... I think the same as the old 1N914

What transistors to use???
They need to be NPN bipolar
BC549C, BC550, BC239, SE4010, and 2N5210 work according to Kit Rae.
2N5088, 2N5089, MPSA18, 2N3904, 2N4401 are possible candidates.
It might be best to use sockets to allow experimentation.
Were the transistors matched in the early pedals?

Kit Rae's valuable diagnosis identifies three sets of components which alter the BMPs the most.
1. The clipping blocking caps. (C6, C7)
2. The feedback / filter caps. (C10, C12, C11)
3. The Tone stack filter. (C9, C8, R8, R5).

The clipping blocking caps

" C6 & C7 determine the bandwith to be clipped by the diodes". They are usually identical in value and have a great effect on the sound. The smaller the value, the more bass. From the photos I've seem it looks like these are ceramic.

Feedback Filter caps;

C10,C12,C11 usually have identical values. They determine how buzzy/fuzzy the pedal sounds. "They filter the amount of high frequencies. Larger values roll off more highs and smaller values give more crunch and buzz to the sound. The better sounding vintage Big Muffs tend to have the larger values and sound smoother and warmer. Modern Big Muffs tend to have the lower values and sound a bit more buzzy/fuzzy." (Kit Rae).

The pics of vintage units indicate ceramics.

The ToneStack filter.
These 4 components surround the tone pot (R25).

 

C8, C9, R8 & R5. This section influence the mid frequencies. The more mids that are removed, the deeper & darker will be the sounds and the more the muff will probably stand out in a mix. The two resistors determine the amt of mids removed. Looks like 33K was the most common value for R8 & R5.
"Higher values have less mids scooped out and lower values have more mids scooped. This resistor also works in conjunction with the high pass tone capacitor (.0004uF in the example above) to affect the treble at low tone settings. Reducing this cap to .003uF alters the range and scoops slightly more mids. Increasing to .004uF reduces the scoop. Combined, a larger high pass cap and smaller resistor decreases the treble at low tone settings." (Kit Rae)

The pics of vintage V1 boards suggest C8 is a polyester  & C9 be ceramic.

Links:
Muffs Guts (Kit Rae)
Electro-Harmonic's Time Line

To be continued......

Electrofringe 17

Cant wait for this.

Electro Fringe 2017

I'll be helping Andrew (Virusinstaller) perform a set at EF17 .

#virusinstaller #electrofringe #davejones #videosynth

A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on Oct 20, 2017 at 4:33am PDT

Electrofringe's #EF17 is creating a cosmic rip in 107 Projects to liberate artists, hackers and musicians into Sydney's expanding space of electronic art. From scattering rays to altering consciousness, EF17 sets an open platform for experimental ideas, practices and techniques. Interact with bioelectrical machines, dance to a raw music program, and learn how to mousejack your housemate's computers all for FREE over one day

This is a sample

#virusinstaller #electrofringe #eurorack #modular #videosynthesizer #davejones

A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on Oct 20, 2017 at 4:38am PDT

Saturday, November 4 at 1 PM - 11:45 PM
107 Redfern St, Redfern. Sydney
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Old family Pics - malaysia

 These pics were taken in 2009 in KL Malaysia

My Aunt Judy's house

Old ... old family pics ... I think this is my great granddad and great grand mum

My grand ma is somewhere here. Not sure who.

Grandma

mum is second from left.

Third from left is colin.

Aunty judy is second from right.

Uncle conrad is extreme right

The house is in KL. Address is 1 Weld Lane. 

The house was built in a rubber plantation.

Its built on pillars. Notice the stairs leading up into the house.

There is a trap door. which protected the occupants from wild animals like tigers.

This house was on a hill. a really beautiful house.

Cars would usually be parked under the house.

There was a kitchen behind. .... a corridor to the kitchen.

Always, kitchens were separate to the house.

My grandma is extreme left. Grandpa is the middle tall figure.

..

 Aunty rita is extreme left;

Uncle steven is second from left.

Next ... my Grandma 

Extreme right is Aunty Enid

The pic was taken in KL .. 21 Yap Kwan Seng Road

..............................................................................

Uncle colin,,, below

Roseanne and Christian

Me & Joanne in Malaysia ... early 1970s ??

Grandpa and Grand ma

Is is a certificate that grandpa received from the pope.

It came with a medal for meritorius services to the church

Extreme left.. Aunty Judy. Uncle colin and grandma.

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2009... my bedroom in KL ... aunty judys place

Breakfast with Aunty Judy

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Old pics of the old house in KL //// 21 yup kwan seng road.

The car is a Austin 7

Its number plate is B2943

There was a garage behind the car. Behind this was the kitchen.

Thew kitchen was always separate to the main house. Cooking was considered a messy business.

The trees behind were inhabited by monkeys.

I remember they were rumbutan trees, My grandfather used to get angry when he heard the momkeys and he used a catapult to frighten them away.

The pic below is another view of the same house. The driveway ... notice the Austin 7.

The front porch of the house.

There was a little bench on the bottom left. My mum and dad used to always sit there.

The ramp was built because of flooding.

the old tennis court. Judy and grandma.

The front of the house.

My grandpa was a excellent pianist. The piano in the back was his.

Aunty judy and grandma.

The day Judy received a award for service to the govt.

Aunty rita is extreme left.

The wedding photo of my grandpa and grandma.

My family were so religious. notice the altar in the back of the photo.

The two babies are possibly uncle Colins two kids.

Letf Aunty Judy, Aunty Bing, Grandma, Colin Dad Mum 

Me and joanne... bottom right.

Pic taken in Australia

second from left is brother Lawrence ,,, principle of St Johns,

ST Johns Institution was a Catholic Boys school  but it took girls for matriculation (years 11 and 12).

In KL 

This is where my parents met.

To the right of brother lawerence are:

Grandpa, Grandma, colin, mum, aunty judy and conrad

This is my grandma with either Judy or Conrad