Mostrando postagens com marcador PCB. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador PCB. Mostrar todas as postagens

Swamp Thang / Tremodillo

Monster Effects Swamp Thang X Diaz Tremodillo

Another amazing tremolo project to emulate fender amp's tremolo, they sound as good as Demeter tremolo despite of they don't use a LFO to drive the wave oscillation, instead they use transistors like EA Tremolo, and EH Pulsar...

Swamp-Thang produced by Monster effect was originally based on Cesar Diaz Texas Tremodillo, the only difference is that sometimes Monster Effect don't put the speed footswitch...

Look how they sound:

Monster Effects Swamp Thang

Diaz Tremodillo

I used Dirk Hendrik's schematic, and some images found on the internet from the original Tremodillo pcb...
What I think is strange is that there are many polarized capacitors in line with the signal path... I mean, people usualy say that polarized caps make pedals sounding bad... so it's quite strange...

Diaz Tremodillo Internal circuit

HAO Rust Driver

Hao Rust Driver ($150.00) is a 60's Marshall Plexi simulator in a box built by a japanese company... I's a good, practice and simple circuit with few controls...



HAO Rust Driver
"The HAO Rust Driver recreates the classic sound of a late 60's Marshall Plexi running at full bore grind. The HAO Rust Driver's carefully selected components perform faithfully with any amplifier at any volume. The result is a commanding tone with a tight, thick bottom and extremely low signal to noise ratio. A single knob controls output level and gain while three switchable EQ curves maximize tonal options without compromising your guitar sound. When you want that "Plexi Sound," the Rust Driver is an affordable, reliable, portable alternative to the real thing."

Below there is my Hao Rust Driver pcb layout with millenium 4049. You can try use another caps in the toggle switch if you dont like the way of these caps sound... you can also use a pot for tone insted of a switch... and I don't know which is the original IC, but any dual opamp works ok, then you can test and use one that fits your taste ....people tried use one potentiometer for gain control but this change was not good cause the pedal dont sounds plexi like if you change the gain amount... so i think is better do like the original...

Supa-Trem / Demeter Tremulator

Fulltone Supa-trem x Demeter Tremulator

More one case that one cloned another one...
Supa-trem ($219.00) and Demeter Tremulator ($200.00) have pratically the same circuit...
James Demeter developed his tremolo in the 80's based on a old fender twin tremolo, and later it was cloned by Fulltone and renamed as Supa-trem... Fulltone also made some mods surrounding the IC LF442... and others useless mods like put foot-switches for change the potentiometers... but who already saw square and sine waves in the same song?
anyway Demeter did a great job! its one of the best tremolos ever built...

Fulltone Supa-trem and Demeter Tremulator Boxes showing their internal circuits

....in the circuit the lfo and the amplification stages are in a quite different way... allowing a versatile 'Depth' control (called 'Mix' in the Supa-trem)
in the supa-trem the speed foot-switch is used to drive the rate pot which is a double pot 1M/500k, changing to a lower resistance we have an increase on the rate... and the Hard/Soft foot-switch is connected in parallel with a internal pot, that control the amount of bright of the lfo LED and this way controlling the wave's shape... being one fine control of depth... (in the Demeter also has this trimpot for fine depth... but not the other supa-trem's trimpot that control the level, which is replaced by a 10k resistor)...
They maybe can sound a little different just because of differences in the regulation of internal trimpots.

Here there is a video comparing Fulltone Supa-Trem and Demeter tremolator.




All components are easy to find, I had problems only with some resistors values like 7k5 and 8k8...
I used a LED/LDR isolated with heat shrink cable insted of an optoisolator like the VTL5C3...
My schematic was based on Baja Trembulator and on the original Supa-trem and the layout was based on Patrick Johnson's "Dull Bone Koopa-Gem"... i used a millenium 4049 together with the circuit and changed to use only one on/off LED who also blink with the ocillation...


My Supa-Trem Temeter Tremulator pcb
My Supa-Trem / Demeter Tremulator pcb