Saturday 7 October 2017

Boss CE-1 - Chorus Ensemble & the Panasonic BBD

I'm addicted to bucket brigade chips. Ever since I first heard a Serge WAD I can't get enough of their beautiful sounds. The WAD used the Reticon SAD1040.
BBD (Bucket Bridge Delay) ICs are great for effects like reverb, vibrato, chorus, phasor, flanger & echos.
My favourite Chorus pedal is the Boss CE-1

It doesn't use SADs but still sounds great.

Created in 1976 when Roland founded Boss, the CE-1 is viewed as one of the progenitors of the chorus/vibrato effect & is timeless.

It uses Panasonic MN3002 BBD chips. They are single 512 stage IC's.
They also featured in the 1975 Roland Jazz Chorus.
Yes , It's a guitar amp.

Another chorus pedal that I think is worth checking out is the Electroharmonix small clone.
EH4600.

From 1979 to early 1981 it seems that, EH used either the MN3007 delay chip or the RETICON SAD1024.
The sonic differences are subtle. The SAD1024 version has been described as more “watery” sounding, adding a slight “boost” to the signal, while the MN3007 allows higher levels and less noise without signal clipping. The most sought after unit is the 1024 one, mostly because this was the version used by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain on “Nevermind” and the “MTV Unplugged” sessions.
The vintage units have a clear and smaller (3mm) LED versus the red and larger (5mm) LED in the reissues. Also, the originals don’t have a dash mark (-) separating the words FULL and CHORUS.
The reissues have FULL-CHORUS (with the dash) written on it.

 The MN3007 is a 1024 stage long delay low noise BBD that provides a signal delay of up to
51.2 msecs. They seem pretty easy to get on ebay.

 It's found in many popular pedals like the DM-1 and CE-2 & CE-5 by Boss, the MoogerFooger 108M Clusterflux, theMemory Man by Electro-Harmonix, AD-999 by Maxon or Analog Delay by MXR.
Moog Delays (MF104)used MN3008 chips ??? I think.
The 3008 chips are very hard to get these days. Thus those MoogerFooger delays are not made any more & go for ridiculous prices on Ebay. They are a single 2046 stage chip.

 This rare Korg 5 channel mixer uses a single MN3005 to produce the delay.

Pansonic BBD IC characteristics:
MN3001 Dual 512 stage  (0.64-51.2msec for 512x2stage)
MN3002 Single 512 stage (0.32-25.6msec)
MN3003 Dual 64 stage     (0.32-6.4msec for 64x2 stage)
MN3004 Single 512 stage  (2.56msec-25.6msec)
MN3005 Single 4096 stage (20.48-204.8msec)
MN3006 Single 128 stage  (0.32-6.4ms)
MN3007 Single 1024         (5.12-51.2msec)
MN3008 Single 2046 stage (10.24-102msec)
MN3009 Single 256 stage   (0.64-12.8msec)
MN3010 Dual 512 stage low noise (5.12-51.2msec for 512x2 stage)
MN3011 3328 stage with 6 different output stages
MN3012 BBD with 3 parallel signal delay lines with a clock generator
MN 3101 CMOS clock generator for BBDs

There are some clones starting to appear:
Coolaudio: MN3207/3208/3205
Visual sound: MN3102/MN3207
Belling MN3208 and MN3207 (with the designation BL3208 and BL3207)
Xvive Audio : MN3005

The two Panasonic series of BBD chips go by the ID:
MN30xx
MN32xx (Low voltage : 5V) 


Devices using Panasonic BBDs
MN3001
Eventide Instant Flanger FL201.
Tycobrahe Analog Delay Line (used four 3001s)

MN3002
Roland Jazz Chorus; Boss CE-1

MN3003
MN3004
Reissued A/DA flanger (MN3004, MN3210 or the MN3204)
Ibanez AD-230 Analog Delay (used 18 MN3004s)
Doepfer Eurorack A-188-1A with 512 stages BBD (MN3004/MN3204)

MN3005
blacet Time Machine.
Memory Man EH 7810 
Deluxe Memory Man EH 7850  
Deluxe Memory Man Tap Tempo 1100 (4 X MN3005's)
Boss DM-2 (later versions use the MN3205)
Boss CH-1 Super chorus (Up till 2001) 
Roland DC-10 Analog Echo
Roland DC-20 (BOSS DM-100)
Behringer VD400 Vintage Delay (CoolAudio V3205 chip)
Way Huge Aqua Puss MkII (CoolAudio V3205 chip)
Frontline Delay (Panasonic MN3205 chip)
DOD FX90
Dod FX96 Echo FX (Panasonic MN3005 chip)
IbanezAD202 
Ibanez Analog Delay 100 
Ibanez AD 80 - Analog Delay (c1980)
Doepfer Eurorack A-188-1D with 4096 stages BBD (MN3005/MN3205
Korg EM-570 Echo Mixer
Korg SD-400 Signal Delay
Pearl F-605 Electro Echo Analog Delay 
Pearl AD-33 Analog Delay
Guyatone AE-5 Analog Echo (c1974)
 
MN3006
Guyatone PS-002 Stereo Analog Chorus (MN3101 clock and MN3006 BBD)
Doepfer Eurorack A-188-1X with 128 stages BBD (MN3006/MN3206)

MN3007
Boss: DM-1; CE-2; CE-5; BF-2(MN3207)
MoogerFooger 108M Clusterflux,
EHX: Memory Man
EHX Smallclone.
Maxon: AD-999
Maxon BC-01 Stereo Analog Bi-Mode Chorus (MN3207) (late 1980s)
MXR: Analog Delay
IbanezAD202 .... Analog Delay
Ibanez FL-301DX (MN3207) ...flanger
Ibanez FL-9 (MN 3207) .... flanger
Ibanez FL 301 (MN3007 BBD and MN3101 clock) 
Doepfer Eurorack A-188-1B with 1024 stages BBD (MN3007/MN3207/BL3207) 
Yamaha FL-01 Analog Flanger (MN3007)
DOD Stereo Chorus FX65

MN3008
Deluxe Memory Man Echo Chorus Vibrato XO (reissue in mid'00s).
                                                               (The XO version uses four MN3008s.)
Deluxe Memory Man TapTempo 550 - 4 X MN3008's
MXR Carbon Copy (2x 3208 chips AFAIK)
Moog Delays (MF104)
Doepfer Eurorack A-188-1C with 2048 stages BBD (MN3008/MN3208/BL3208)
Maxon AD-9000 Analog Delay (uses four Panasonic MN3008 high-voltage BBD's. The AD900 runs off a special 12-volt adaptor. Some earlier models used the MN3005)

MN3009
Roland Juno 106
Roland Juno 06 - uses 2 in the chorus section
Doepfer Eurorack A-188-1Y with 256 stages BBD (MN3009/MN3209)

MN3010
A/DA Flanger (Original 1979)

MN3011
A/DA STD-1 Stereo Tapped Delay 

Links:
Doepfer A-188 manual
Panasonic BBD datasheet
Serge WAD (Wilson Analog Delay)
Florian-Anwander

3 comments:

  1. The Yamaha E1010 and E1005 model also use MN3004 :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Who can pick out for me the best product from the list provided in this site?https://latestmusicalinstrument.com/best-tremolo-pedal/

    ReplyDelete
  3. The article is much informative which i was searching for .Nice intro good explanation thanks for sharing.
    https://www.enrgtech.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete