Seeking the perfect vibrato (for me) advice

[Killing Floor]

Walrus Julia. Reason so many people say it’s awesome is that it’s awesome.

 

[40Hz]

Walrus Julia. Reason so many people say it’s awesome is that it’s awesome.

The Julia is a very nice pedal. If I were to get a Walrus vibrato however, I’d get the new Juliana. It ticks the boxes: expression pedal feature and acceptably slow speed settings since you can introduce randomness in the LFO waveform.

But…

Fly in the ointment for me is I don’t completely like the sound it has. There’s something about the tone that doesn’t quite do it for me. Vibrato is like fuzz. Everybody has their own ideal sound in mind for any given effect. And the Julia/Juliana just misses it by a fraction of an inch to my ears.

That said I may well wind up with a Juliana. Life is series of compromises if you want to get things done. And 95% of something good is usually preferable to 100% of nothing, right?

Thx for the suggestion. A Juliana is definitely on my short list.

 

[Feral Feline]

Wow! You’re way more knowledgeable than I am. My speed is reading schematics, studying design notes, soldering up a board somebody else designed, basic troubleshooting and repairs, or (very cautiously) doing simple mods. Reverse engineering like you do is beyond my capabilities. In the digital realm (computers, network switches, etc.) I’m perfectly comfortable and capable. But analog audio? Nope. Rank amateur I’m afraid.

Got CTC’s Memphis Vibrato and The Surfy Vibe on my short list purely because I like the sound of each.

The Memphis is based on the legendary Magnatone vibrato. It’s half of CTC’s Killer V pedal, which is basically the Magnatone’s preamp and vibrato stage.

The Surfy Vibe just sounds gorgeous. So I think I want it regardless of the lowest available speed. If it doesn’t hit the sweet spot for bass either I or my SO can always use it for guitar. (She tends to cop any really good pedal we own anyway.)

Sounds like we're at the same level, DIY-wise, but I'd be willing to bet your trouble-shooting and repairs are well beyond my ken and most definitely the digital realm. I just traced one PCB, first one and only one, not even a full pedal. Nonetheless I'm buoyed by that accomplishment. I just bragged about it in the Compressor mega-thread, and couldn't remember where else I'd done so, and up pops this thread again.

I'm not aiming to fully trace my Diamond, just poke around, see if I can figure out how to slow down the speed even more. I've seen some phaser mods that make your phaser go super slow, that was adding extra capacitance, and then extra resistance speeds it up to ring-modish terratory, IIRC.

When I jumped down the DIY Rabbit Hole I just wanted to build some FX that you can't find anymore or are too expensive if you do find that rarity. One thing leads to another... I'm trying to meld a splitter with HPF/LPF crossover thingy I had in my head, and just tonight I see on TB that Broughton will be releasing something similar next month — that's very satisfying as my idea not only has merit, but somebody who really knows what they're doing has shown me it can be done. Lots of ideas have merit, like establishing a Mars outpost (arguably so) — but can it be done!?


I absolutely LOVE the Magnatone sound. There's a perf over at Effects Layouts that's called MagnaVibe... ahh and also on vero over at Tagboard Effects.
I bet you could McGyver an expression pedal into that, were you to build it.

 

[40Hz]

When I jumped down the DIY Rabbit Hole I just wanted to build some FX that you can't find anymore or are too expensive if you do find that rarity.

Amen to that! I found AionFX (https://aionfx.com) has some really sweet recreations of a few of those rare birds available as boards, and in a few cases, as complete kits. I built their OceanID which is supposedly a Pete Cornish OC-1 optical compressor. Don’t know how close it comes to the real deal since I can’t afford to drop $1391 (not a typo!) on a Pete Cornish pedal. But can tell you that the Aion version is one sweet little box. And for about $60 all in it’s an even sweeter option. I did a post about it over on the compressor sticky thread.



I’ve since bought about a half dozen more of their boards which I’ll eventually get around to completing. One board that really looks intriguing is their recreation of a vintage Lab Series amplifier preamp stage. But I’m going to hold off until they (hopefully) offer it in full kit format since the parts count is pretty high and the enclosure drill out is a little tricky due to the number of knobs.

I absolutely LOVE the Magnatone sound. There's a perf over at Effects Layouts that's called MagnaVibe... ahh and also on vero over at Tagboard Effects.
I bet you could McGyver an e

Thx for that link!

I’m surprised the Vero version is using a discrete LED and photoresistor instead of a Vactrol. But maybe he didn’t know about those?

Either way, cool beans! Something else to put on the build candidate list for 2021.

 

[Feral Feline]

I'm sure the vactrol is well-known to the Vero-heroes and Perf-people — they just like to roll their own.

I've been slowly collecting LDRs and vactrols alike, for eventual builds involving such.

 

[40Hz]

I've been slowly collecting LDRs and vactrols alike, for eventual builds involving such.

If you’re looking for a VTL5C4 (which can be a little hard to find) I learned about a US source (CabinTech Global LLC) that has them along with a number of other cool purpose built music chips - plus - some modular synth type experimenter’s kits. Check it out when you get a chance.

 

[Feral Feline]

If you’re looking for a VTL5C4 (which can be a little hard to find) I learned about a US source (CabinTech Global LLC) that has them along with a number of other cool purpose built music chips - plus - some modular synth type experimenter’s kits. Check it out when you get a chance.

Thanks for the link!

I've got 2 VTL5C4s for an Aion project, got the vactrols at Synthrotek, IIRC, $5 ea, so I've no idea if they're decent quality or not — you get what you pay for, sometimes you pay through the nose for what you get.
Got some expensive VTL5C4/2, somewhere between $12 & $15 each, ouch! Can't remember where, may have been Amplified Parts or Ursula Minor, so the Cabintech prices are a lot better.


The super-matched NPN transistors look muy-gusto interesting

Thanks again, I'll add CabinTech to my Suppliers.doc — that's the hardest part of DIY, keeping track of who has what at what price and what is actually needed. Inventory. Taking stock... So much work for not being a pedal company.

 

[Lammchop93]

I think the new EHX eddy fits all of your needs. You can adjust the LFO wave, use an expression pedal to control the rate or depth, and it gets slow. I have one and love it. The envelope feature doesn’t work well on bass, but I don’t use it anyway.

 

[40Hz]

I think the new EHX eddy fits all of your needs. You can adjust the LFO wave, use an expression pedal to control the rate or depth, and it gets slow. I have one and love it. The envelope feature doesn’t work well on bass, but I don’t use it anyway.

I tend to not pay a lot of attention to EHX for no real reason I can offer. Bad oversight on my part. I’ll definitely have to take a look at the Eddy.

Thx for the suggestion.

 

[40Hz]

that's the hardest part of DIY, keeping track of who has what at what price and what is actually needed. Inventory.

Don’t you know it!

I miss the old days of Allied Electronics catalogs. Those mini phonebook sized catalogs from back in the 60s were great resources. Between them and Radio Shack (when they were still a catalog company - and before they went retail and became a consumer electronics store) carried basically anything that was available for purchase. Between those two catalogs and the RCA tube kiosk at Rexall Drug Stores, you were covered if you were the type who got your kicks breathing solder fumes.